Phage0070 writes:Historically the public sector is significantly more wasteful than the private sector, due to the lack of any meaningful competition.
I am not convinced that is true.
The inefficiencies of government are in public, where they are reported on by the press. The inefficiencies of the private sector are hidden in back rooms.
I'm remembering back to when I was in Australia, before coming to the US for grad school. The political right in Australia used to say the same things about government inefficiency. And they pointed to the railroads as an example of this inefficiency. So I arrived in the US, where I got to ride on the bankrupt New Haven railroad. The railroads in the US were in the private sector, and they were in as much trouble (perhaps more trouble) as the railroads in Australia.
Here are three beliefs that we hear from the right:
- Evolution is impossible. It requires intelligent design. (The say this when talking about biology);
- Intelligent design is impossible. It can only work by evolutionary processes. (They say this about the economy);
- Evolution is impossible. It requires intelligent design. (They say this when talking about open source software vs. commercial software).
Jesus was a liberal hippie