<<I have no reason to think that public employees are inherintly less productive than private sector employees.>>
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"I do. If they are not productive the government doesn't go bankrupt, it just does less, or more likely taxes more."
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Let us try again: you have a reason to believe that
1. "public employees are inherintly less productive than private sector employees"
The reason you believe 1 (above) is that,
2. "If they are not productive the government doesn't go bankrupt..."
Clearly, the gist of your point is that private employess are inherently more productive than public employees because they consciously rate their productive output in accordance with their desire to avoid a definite outcome (bankruptcy), while public employees consciously reduce their productive output in accordance with the belief that because "bankruptcy" per se, is not a possibility, they therefore have no other reasons to be productive--either by virtue of having a value for productivity, or, by virtue of your and their assumption, that bankruptcy is the only factor likely to affect any possibility of job termination.
The truth of the matter is that public employment is an extremely competitive marketplace. I would suggest that employees who work for government agencies likely have less "protection" of worker error and laziness than so many private operations where family, friends, and associates are protected at the expense of the productivity of the business. Indeed, I would suggest to you that a major reason why companies DO go bankrupt is BECAUSE they are being INEFFICIENT and UNPRODUCTIVE.
I would also suggest to you that an inefficient Government agency can be scrapped in a moment leaving the employees walking the street. The fact that Chapter 11 is not available to a government agency does not mean that Chapter Soup Kitchen is not.
All you need to do is to consider the huge numbers of bankruptcies, if you wish to see that the threat of bankruptcy (which not one employee in a thousand--productive or unproductive--has ever thought about), is NOT something which has a significant impact on employee productivity. If I was to create the assumption backwards from the data, I would say that private sector employees are not in any way being more productive out of any appreciation that the agency workers across the street will lose their jobs because of non productivity or inefficiency rather than through bankruptcy.
I would suggest to you that the thought that their employer might someday go bankrupt is not at all a significant motivator in their job performance. And I would sugest to you that the main reason why public employess are more productive than private is that productivity is a function of ability and character, and the average ability and character requirements of the private sector is dragged down by the overweighting of unskilled, uneducated, and unproductive workers in the private sector. Most public employees are required to have a certain level of maturity so as to preserve the tenuous existence of the agency. As well, they generally have a fixed address.
But I am quite willing to consider human beings on a case by case basis--without stereotyping or denigrating either the private OR the public sector...if it is ok with you. |
