 "Government = bad and wasteful is one of the biggest scams they ever pulled. It's ridiculous that we've fallen for this in the face of evidence to the contrary. The people that run businesses have sold us on the idea that our representative that protects us from business is bad and we should get rid of it. 36 comments
 @billyjoebowers I have rarely, if ever, been impressed by the efficiency of a business when seen from the inside. Organizations of a certain size, regardless of their organizing principles or purpose, gather idiosyncracies and inefficiencies until they have such a large pile of liabilities that they get destroyed or refactored to start the process over.  @billyjoebowers I have worked private sector for exactly one year and it's wasteful in such a widely different way. At least state government has a "it's security policy" to fall back on when I have to shred $100k in perfectly good server equipment. It's just wasteful the pallets of "out of compliance" computers I throw out. I think one distinction some people make is; When the government is wasteful, it's wasting tax payer dollars and that's bad, because those are my tax dollars. But when a business is wasteful, as long as the profit is there and shareholders are happy and the stock price goes up, it doesn't matter if they're wasteful because it's not my money. There's a cognitive disconnect that I think a lot of people actually have to think about a little harder, but they won't.  The money that corporations use, whether it's wasted, spent wisely, or given to shareholders, comes from customers. But we don't call it customers' money. We think it's the corporation's money, once it's paid. Same with money that a government takes in. It's public money. It no longer belongs to the people who paid it. Calling it "taxpayers' money" is just propaganda. I don't disagree, just commenting on the way I've seen many people frame it and think about it. Seems to be a common viewpoint. @finner @billyjoebowers @billyjoebowers This right here. Most folks I know who've worked in medium to large businesses can only speak of how inefficiently things are run. The efficiency usually comes in when it comes to upper management ripping people off. @billyjoebowers Markets are made up of businesses but I do not disagree. These businesses need to be regulated.  @billyjoebowers This is basically the default normie belief in the US and it's insane how deeply it's ingrained. @billyjoebowers@mastodon.online lol yeah anyone who thinks that has never worked for a large company. there's enormous amounts of waste particularly at the top and middle @billyjoebowers Aye, honestly no idea how I ever believed that if you took a thing and the people that want it, and put someone in the middle expecting a profit you'd somehow end up with the same or better thing for cheaper. @billyjoebowers I think the idea of private companies being more efficient was true until we wound up with giant corporations who either have so much money and brand awareness that they basically no longer compete or have deals with the government. This tallies with my own experience across businesses that sell to consumers (competitively like super markets not monopolies like water and power), businesses that sell to businesses and businesses that sell to government. B2C, B2B and B2G in management speak. B2C are more efficient than B2B or B2G.  @billyjoebowers Not great when government is also parroting the same bollocks because business has their arms upto the elbow inside government. @billyjoebowers The argument that "It's cheaper when we provide the exact same service, but with a profit margin for a private company" continues to boggle the mind @billyjoebowers Personally I think it has to do with organisation size. Large organisations are inefficient and slow; bad. While small organisations are efficient and fast; good. There are very few small governments out there so government has become synonymous with inefficiency. While most companies in the world are small and therefore efficient. Efficiency the behemoths want to be associated with "company" rather than size I'd imagine. Well, it's just an observation and theory of mine anyway. I think that's an idea that seems like it would make sense, but the real world doesn't reflect it. There are many small organizations that are ridiculous. Most? @billyjoebowers You might be right. I don't feel I have enough experience with lots of different organisations for that observation to possibly be no more than coincidence. I often ponder this optimal organisation size in regard to an ideal civilisation. What is best managed locally, regionally and globally? Ideally move everything to as local as possible other than systematic things that impact everyone. The systemic things might only be environmental, as it's the definitive shared resource, so effectively regulatory. This logic then highlights the obsession conservatives have against the UN, EU etc.  @billyjoebowers There should have been a law against that ever happening? @billyjoebowers There's something even more fundamental than efficiency arguments. It's that the profit incentive is a terrible proxy for desired outcomes and is primarily motivated to lobby government for self-furtherance. Consider private prisons. They want more incarcerated and lobby for 3-strike laws and reduced oversight. Meanwhile government prisons want fewer prisoners due to immutable oversight and may work inter-departmentally to use recidivism as a signal for remedial intervention.  Efficiency is overrated. Especially in cases where the real concern is corruption and self-dealing. @jackwilliambell @billyjoebowers Efficiency can also be just fake - like a private operator of some privatised public service being ‘more efficient’ by not investing enough in maintenance - seems fine until suddenly things break down and then they cry to the Government to bail them out. Or “efficiency” can mean having a lean, efficient team of staff, and then you find you don’t have enough people on hand to be able to deal with any kind of emergency. Yes, efficiency is overrated.  @billyjoebowers Back when I worked for a large university in the early 2000s, they implemented a “run the university like a business” program. It was a complete waste of time and resources. They basically just reorganized a bunch of departments.  The worship of business as an ultimate good, and the hatred of government as ultimate evil is the manichean religion of libertarianism. @billyjoebowers they both serve very different functions so the point is always pointless lol  @billyjoebowers@mastodon.online @billyjoebowers @billyjoebowers My personal favourite is people who are trying to convince us that a) governemnt shoudl be run like business and that b) social conservatives are the most fiscally resonsible. It's basically the recipe for neoliberalism.  @billyjoebowers Now hold on while I try and get an issue sorted out with Comcast.  |
Gregory's Server
Seriously, how do people fall for this "business and markets are efficient" shit and then turn around and talk about all the crazy wasteful shit businesses they worked for did?