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Unread 10 Jul 2009, 08:14   #20
Alessio
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Re: Is Bigger Government Better

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Originally Posted by Deepflow View Post
Really? why? I don't quite understand this point. Why are they less responsible or accountable than private firms?
Because it's not their own money they are playing with and more often then not they do not have to please anyone to get it. In the private sector people have to invest themselves and are financially accountable when they steer their organisation into the wrong direction. And since commercial organisations usually exist to maximize profits for it's owner it would go against it's very nature to not take financial responsibility.

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Surely a structure and a culture for this could be put in place?
Most likely. That's also one of the reasons why we have a democracy. That's why we hold elections on several layers. So we can hold top officials of all departments of the government accountable in hope they take proper responsibility and send the shitheads away.

But somehow pressing a button every four years doesn't appear to do the trick. For some reason politicians usually take it easy on the people below them. And people do not want to hold our politicians accountable for the messes within their departments and the organizations they are financing, that have no democratic structure in place.
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Why is this any less true with employees in a private company? There are still promotions etc and while there may be fewer redundancies etc this is more a problem with the culture than anything inherent to public companies.
Oh, I don't know. Have you seen any government officials getting sacked lately? Teachers? Soldiers? Anyone? No?

That only happends when politicians cut down on expences. And politicians do not exactly let the (ir)responsibility of government funded organizations affect their policy. So it appears they simply do not have the need for a strict organisation. When you have an organisation that operates on the same scale as the government, with almost every branche having very little need to take responsibility, you can expect a lot of slacking and very little innovation and efficiency.

Culture might affect how people operate to a certain extend, but the lack of (financial) stimulation is the actual problem. And the artificial alternative, democracy, is lacking. It might be a plus that the public sector isn't driven by greed, unlike the private sector, but the downside is that they aren't properly driven by anything else either.
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Why would this actually matter? Why would competition actually make you any more efficient if your only goal was maximum efficiency/service in the first place? All competition accomplishes is the driving down of profits per customer in an attempt to gain more customers but in a system where you don't seek profit it's needless.
Because private organizations have to attempt to be either better, cheaper or more appealing to the consumer then their competition. This can be done by running for efficiently, innovating and what not. If they want to maximize their profits they have no choise but to actually try to move their organisation forward. Compare this with organizations in the public sector and you have your answer.

Organizations that attempt to maximize profits do have their own flaws of course. As I said before they can for example chose to only provide services to a certain market segment. Commercial organizations might not be suitable to sentence impartially in disputed matters either. And on markets with a monopolistic character you might prefer a non-profit organization as well. The role of the public sector should be solving issues at points where the market fails, if necessary. Preferably without interfering with the actual or other markets. But when you are just seeking innovations and efficiency then you shouldn't look at the public sector. Those are apparently the points at which the public sector falls behind.
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Last edited by Alessio; 10 Jul 2009 at 11:04.
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