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To: Solon who wrote (11617)	5/2/2002 1:58:25 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

Clearly, you have sidled away from your original position that public employees were unproductive. You now espouse the unrelated opinion that you do not LIKE (or value) what it is that public employees DO produce. Two entirely separate positions. No my position has pretty much been the same the whole time, the emphasis on a particular points may change from post to post to respond to your statements but the overall idea in each post has pretty much been the same. I'll grant that productive may not be the best word for me to use, as some of the useless or counterproductive government actions that I am talking about are still productive according to some of the definitions for that word (but not according to others). I realize that this may lead to the type of situation I was complaining about with the word homo-phobia where the word is accurately used according to a dictionary definition but is misleading in that it implies something that may not be true. But then I'm not sure that government is so productive even by the definition of work done per unit of input even when you are not concerned about the actual value of the work. 1). An antagonistic lack of appreciation, or an overweening animus against ALL public service is somewhat disquieting Saying the government does a lot that is useless or counterproductive, and that some areas of the government produce little work per unit of input doesn't mean that I hold some overweening animus against all public employees. I hold no such animus. I do hold a slight animus towards politicians but not all politicians let alone all public employees, and it is not an overweening animus. 2). The value of public service is not measured in wealth creation, but in public satisfaction. Your attempts to compare the value of services produced by the public and the private sectors by recourse to arguments of wealth creation, is not only in a different room--but it is in another building entirely. The public is often dissatisfied with public agencies, I submit that they are more dissatisfied with public agencies and the level of taxes they pay then they are with private companies. Also I think wealth creation (or in the case of some of the governments activities wealth destruction is an important consideration. The inputs required are an important consideration when measuring productivity which you seem to ignore completely. If you produce X and I produce 2X but I use 10 times as much resources then I am not more productive. The time taken to produce some good or service is also a factor in measuring how productive an organization is. Usually the more the government is involved in a project the more time it takes unless the key factor is how much resources can be dumped in to solving the problem (the government has a lot of resources available to it). 3). The desirability of what is being produced in the public sector is determined by individuals; just as the desirability of what is produced in the private sector is determined by individuals; It is not determined by just one individual. One individual determines only personal value. There is some truth to that, but it amounts to an argument that any statement about productivity is meaningless. If productivity is how satisfied the customers are (which you seem to think it is) or even how much satisfaction can be created with a given amount of resources in a certain time, and how satisfying or desirable something is, is entirely subjective or then the only measure of productivity would be a personal one. Government could be less productive then the private sector for me, more productive for you, and just as productive for someone else. There would be no objective or even consensus criteria. It is not good that either sector should endure haughty disdain or absolute inflexibility from the other. Democracy is of no value if the individual voices and opinions are considered unimportant in the face of a particular prejudice or bias. Agreed. You don't really seem to have an accurate feel for the motivations for or ideas behind my opinions or even the opinions themselves. I have no haughty disdain for the government, and none is required to have the opinion that the government wastes more resources then the private sector. As for considering the opinions of others, yes of course they should be considered, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with them or can't have my own opinions. One of my opinions is that government in general is less efficient then the private sector. There is hardly universal agreement on that opinion but it isn't a crazy fringe idea. It isn't very prejudicial, its just a statement of the facts as I see them. Should a particular issue come up along the lines of "should this particular function be done by the government or the private sector", or "is this government agency more efficient or less efficient then that private company", I would examine the relevant information and arguments for the particular case not just automatically assume that no government agency or program can be well run, or that whenever the question of whether a service should be publicly or privately provided it should automatically be decided in the favor of the private sector providing the service. Tim