4 ms·

> I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency [in government]. To what extent is this due to the public nature of the organisations and to wha

> I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency [in government]. To what extent is this due to the public nature of the organisations and to what extent is it just the size of them? Are private organisations of similar sizes free from such bloat, corruption and inefficiency? I feel like people often give "businesses" a pass on this. Government projects that are over budget, especially IT-related ones are widely and publicly bemoaned, but this isn't that much different from such projects in private enterprises (although the moaning remains more within the company itself).

JuniperMesos 2mo ago
It's easy to give businesses a pass on internal inefficiency because you don't typically need to do business with any particular company in order to live your life and businesses don't tax you in order to pay for that inefficiency like governments do. If a business is inefficient and has projects that go over budget, that's not my problem in the same way it is if the city government where I live does.
- kergonath 2mo ago
  > If a business is inefficient and has projects that go over budget, that's not my problem in the same way it is if the city government where I live does. Right, but if someone’s point is that bloated government should be replaced by lean, efficient companies, then it does matter whether they are actually lean and efficient.
- dinfinity 2mo ago
  It's more about making a fair assessment of whether servicing a market via private or public enterprises is more or less efficient. What you mention is a comparison between different markets, not a fair comparison of the same market run either publicly or privately. Health care insurance companies definitely "tax" you for their inefficiencies (through higher costs) and they are definitely something you "need to do business with". The classic "government can't do anything right"-trope is quite strong and influences voting and policy making. My hypothesis is that the reality is closer to "cooperating with many many people in big organisations is very very hard to do efficiently".
  - JuniperMesos 2mo ago
    Health insurance is so regulated and so intertwined with public policy aims, that ostensibly private health care companies are themselves essentially an arm of the government. Indeed, the fact that I "have to do business with" them is itself a consequence of particularly-complicated government regulation. The American health insurance system is one of the most unpleasant (sets of) bureaucracies I personally have to deal with, especially because I have changed jobs a lot recently which entails losing and then regaining employer-benefit insurance (which itself really annoys me - I wish I could just pay for ordinary health care in a way completely unrelated to my job and that my job had nothing to do with). I don't have a grand theory of how best to reform the entire American health insurance system, but I'm in favor of doing so; and I suspect that a better system would look a lot more like removing the insurance component of it in more contexts, and having more medical procedures paid for out of pocket at point of use by ordinary people - which is something I try to do right now anyway when I can.
    - dinfinity 2mo ago
      > Indeed, the fact that I "have to do business with" them is itself a consequence of particularly-complicated government regulation. No, it isn't. Life without health insurance (in some form) is awful. > I suspect that a better system would look a lot more like removing the insurance component of it in more contexts, and having more medical procedures paid for out of pocket at point of use by ordinary people - which is something I try to do right now anyway when I can. Getting cancer is like winning the shit lottery and you're effectively saying that people should just "save for if that happens or die of they don't". The fucked up health insurance system in the US makes medical bankruptcies a thing. Your idea here turbocharges that. More importantly, you ignored the main point in my reply. Please respond to this: "It's more about making a fair assessment of whether servicing a market via private or public enterprises is more or less efficient. What you mention is a comparison between different markets, not a fair comparison of the same market run either publicly or privately. [...] The classic "government can't do anything right"-trope is quite strong and influences voting and policy making. My hypothesis is that the reality is closer to "cooperating with many many people in big organisations is very very hard to do efficiently"."
Recurecur 2mo ago
One issue with private, for-profit organizations is their major focus is “creating shareholder value”, which is apparently the modern way of saying “making money”. That, along with competition (if applicable, see below), drives them towards minimizing costs, increasing efficiency, and innovating. Government has the major focus of taking money, and largely spending it arbitrarily. It’s inarguable that the US Federal Government is bloated, corrupt, and vastly inefficient. Despite taking in $trillions in revenue every year, the US has $40 trillion in debt. That’s utterly inexcusable, and heads should roll. Getting back to the discussion about private enterprise, would you characterize Amazon as bloated, corrupt, and inefficient, despite being an effective monopoly? I would not, though I’ll admit I have no data on the corruption aspect…
- dinfinity 2mo ago
  > That, along with competition (if applicable, see below), drives them towards minimizing costs, increasing efficiency, and innovating. Highly debatable. Not making a profit on paper (or moving it to low tax-environments) is a great way to dodge paying taxes. Innovation is a side effect of competition, not of profit-seeking. Plenty of examples of oligopolies and monopolies where innovation ground to a halt in favor of siloization, buying up competitors, dark patterns, regulatory capture, etc. The right way too look at this is that the organisation of private industry creates a selection pressure on "making money" (not profit!), with the minimum being "able to cover costs" and thus stimulates evolution of strategies to do so. Like in biological evolution, there are many, many pathological situations that can occur. > Government has the major focus of taking money, and largely spending it arbitrarily. This is false. The US is a bad example because it has an incredibly corrupt political system, especially since Citizens United. In general in most modern developed democracies spending by the government is supported democratically to a very large extent. That is not to say that 80% of citizens support each bit of spending, but for 95% of the things where money is spent by the government, a majority agrees that money needs to be spent there. The word "arbitrarily" is definitely not warranted. > would you characterize Amazon as bloated, corrupt, and inefficient, despite being an effective monopoly? Don't know, yes, and don't know. For corruption, I think it is necessary to determine how it would even look like for Amazon. Corruption in government is often "favoring entities friendly to the people making the decisions over objectively better options". I'd argue that that is wholly accepted in private enterprises and even encouraged. A "quid pro quo" in private enterprise is just "a business deal" or "customer relations". "Nepotism" is just "helping your friends out". Etc. I would assume that things like that are very, very common within Amazon. With regard to bloated/inefficient: This is incredibly hard to make definitive statements on without having worked there and having a lot of intimate knowledge, so I'll refrain from doing so. I think it is, but I don't know.

JuniperMesos 2mo ago

It's easy to give businesses a pass on internal inefficiency because you don't typically need to do business with any particular company in order to live your life and businesses don't tax you in order to pay for that inefficiency like governments do. If a business is inefficient and has projects that go over budget, that's not my problem in the same way it is if the city government where I live does.

kergonath 2mo ago
> If a business is inefficient and has projects that go over budget, that's not my problem in the same way it is if the city government where I live does. Right, but if someone’s point is that bloated government should be replaced by lean, efficient companies, then it does matter whether they are actually lean and efficient.
dinfinity 2mo ago
It's more about making a fair assessment of whether servicing a market via private or public enterprises is more or less efficient. What you mention is a comparison between different markets, not a fair comparison of the same market run either publicly or privately. Health care insurance companies definitely "tax" you for their inefficiencies (through higher costs) and they are definitely something you "need to do business with". The classic "government can't do anything right"-trope is quite strong and influences voting and policy making. My hypothesis is that the reality is closer to "cooperating with many many people in big organisations is very very hard to do efficiently".
- JuniperMesos 2mo ago
  Health insurance is so regulated and so intertwined with public policy aims, that ostensibly private health care companies are themselves essentially an arm of the government. Indeed, the fact that I "have to do business with" them is itself a consequence of particularly-complicated government regulation. The American health insurance system is one of the most unpleasant (sets of) bureaucracies I personally have to deal with, especially because I have changed jobs a lot recently which entails losing and then regaining employer-benefit insurance (which itself really annoys me - I wish I could just pay for ordinary health care in a way completely unrelated to my job and that my job had nothing to do with). I don't have a grand theory of how best to reform the entire American health insurance system, but I'm in favor of doing so; and I suspect that a better system would look a lot more like removing the insurance component of it in more contexts, and having more medical procedures paid for out of pocket at point of use by ordinary people - which is something I try to do right now anyway when I can.
  - dinfinity 2mo ago
    > Indeed, the fact that I "have to do business with" them is itself a consequence of particularly-complicated government regulation. No, it isn't. Life without health insurance (in some form) is awful. > I suspect that a better system would look a lot more like removing the insurance component of it in more contexts, and having more medical procedures paid for out of pocket at point of use by ordinary people - which is something I try to do right now anyway when I can. Getting cancer is like winning the shit lottery and you're effectively saying that people should just "save for if that happens or die of they don't". The fucked up health insurance system in the US makes medical bankruptcies a thing. Your idea here turbocharges that. More importantly, you ignored the main point in my reply. Please respond to this: "It's more about making a fair assessment of whether servicing a market via private or public enterprises is more or less efficient. What you mention is a comparison between different markets, not a fair comparison of the same market run either publicly or privately. [...] The classic "government can't do anything right"-trope is quite strong and influences voting and policy making. My hypothesis is that the reality is closer to "cooperating with many many people in big organisations is very very hard to do efficiently"."

Recurecur 2mo ago

One issue with private, for-profit organizations is their major focus is “creating shareholder value”, which is apparently the modern way of saying “making money”. That, along with competition (if applicable, see below), drives them towards minimizing costs, increasing efficiency, and innovating. Government has the major focus of taking money, and largely spending it arbitrarily. It’s inarguable that the US Federal Government is bloated, corrupt, and vastly inefficient. Despite taking in $trillions in revenue every year, the US has $40 trillion in debt. That’s utterly inexcusable, and heads should roll. Getting back to the discussion about private enterprise, would you characterize Amazon as bloated, corrupt, and inefficient, despite being an effective monopoly? I would not, though I’ll admit I have no data on the corruption aspect…

dinfinity 2mo ago
> That, along with competition (if applicable, see below), drives them towards minimizing costs, increasing efficiency, and innovating. Highly debatable. Not making a profit on paper (or moving it to low tax-environments) is a great way to dodge paying taxes. Innovation is a side effect of competition, not of profit-seeking. Plenty of examples of oligopolies and monopolies where innovation ground to a halt in favor of siloization, buying up competitors, dark patterns, regulatory capture, etc. The right way too look at this is that the organisation of private industry creates a selection pressure on "making money" (not profit!), with the minimum being "able to cover costs" and thus stimulates evolution of strategies to do so. Like in biological evolution, there are many, many pathological situations that can occur. > Government has the major focus of taking money, and largely spending it arbitrarily. This is false. The US is a bad example because it has an incredibly corrupt political system, especially since Citizens United. In general in most modern developed democracies spending by the government is supported democratically to a very large extent. That is not to say that 80% of citizens support each bit of spending, but for 95% of the things where money is spent by the government, a majority agrees that money needs to be spent there. The word "arbitrarily" is definitely not warranted. > would you characterize Amazon as bloated, corrupt, and inefficient, despite being an effective monopoly? Don't know, yes, and don't know. For corruption, I think it is necessary to determine how it would even look like for Amazon. Corruption in government is often "favoring entities friendly to the people making the decisions over objectively better options". I'd argue that that is wholly accepted in private enterprises and even encouraged. A "quid pro quo" in private enterprise is just "a business deal" or "customer relations". "Nepotism" is just "helping your friends out". Etc. I would assume that things like that are very, very common within Amazon. With regard to bloated/inefficient: This is incredibly hard to make definitive statements on without having worked there and having a lot of intimate knowledge, so I'll refrain from doing so. I think it is, but I don't know.