OT:
In the first post I replied to, you stated the following:
I agree fully, that government programs tend to become ineffective little empires, where maintaining budgets and salaries is far more important than serving the public or achieving any measurable result.
Why does this tendency manifest in govt programs but is less common in private industry? Because the fundamental difference between govt and private industry is the use of guns. Even if a govt program fails to perform its mission, it continues to receive funding by govt fiat, whereas if the local barber can't cut hair straight, he goes out of business. Similarly, if a private company can't deliver a product that customers desire, it goes bankrupt.
But the design, set-up, and implementation, all the details and daily running of the programs, could be privatized. The government just writes the checks, and sets the quantifiable yardsticks by which success (and future funding) will be measured. I know, I know all too well, there is the ever-present danger, that the government will want to micro-manage, thus drowning the private subcontractors in a sea of rules and paperwork.
Micromanagement and paperwork is not the problem. It's the tendency to get funded no matter what the outcome. Success leads to continued funding. Failure leads to continued funding. That's because the govt is a monopoly on the use of force that is not voluntarily funded like private enterprise is.
Sub-contracting won't solve anything. The underlying mechanisms that lead to the ineffective little empires that don't serve the public are still there. Sub-contracting to Edison Schools in Philadelphia didn't improve education by any measurable yardstick.
I can't think of any way a private company can make a profit running drug-treatment/prevention programs.
It doesn't have to make a profit. The most successful alcohol treatment program in history is Alcoholics Anonymous - a private/non-profit program.
Or any way to have universal literacy, if education isn't publicly funded.
Why do you believe this? |
