Is there anything that the Government does better than the Private Sector?

[The Madcap]

The government does a better job with...

Law enforcement
Fire departments
Health Care
National defense
Public works
Utilities management
Public transportation
Fisheries management
Curbing pollution
Tracking potential weather disasters
Financing/running elections
Flight safety
Educating the non-rich

I could go on and on naming more things, but it doesn't matter. Even if one could QED prove that the public sector performs a function superior to the private sector (which can pretty much be done with everything on the above list) it wouldn't matter to libertarians and partisan Republicans. Not that partisan Democrats are any better in this regard, but they have their team and they root for them. Period. Showing a libertarian point by point facts about how public health care systems are more efficient than private ones is like someone from Boston going into NYC and telling everyone they should be Red Sox fans. The partisans have their faith in their political team, and facts won't sway them.

Flame away faithful libertarians.

Just because the gov't is the only one doing it doesn't mean they do it the best.

Law enforcement: don't you liberals hate the cops and bitch about the justice system every fukking day? How can you say they are doing a good job?

Fire Departments: private fire departments across the world have been shown to have faster response times and higher survival rates.

health care: UM, no. Ask any Canadian with cancer or a heart condition.

National Defense: there's a reason the US gov't gives out the toughest assignments to private contractors.

Public Works: most public works projects are preformed by private companies who do shoddy work because they either low ball the competition to the point they have to cut corners, or the are awarded the contract because of some crony bullshit.

utilities management: where the hell have you been? Gov't sponsored cable companies have been hemorrhaging customers to the private satellite companies for over a decade. You know why the cable man is never there on time? Because he doesn't have to be. Because cable companies are a gov't protected monopoly. There's no where else to go. Except satellite. Who have been raking in millions of new customers each year.

Public transportation: you're kidding right? You've got somewhere you need to be in an hour, are you riding the bus or taking the White Horse?

fisheries management: HA. Do you even fish? On the behalf of fisherman everywhere, FUK YOU.

Curbing pollution: yeah, the gov't is really doing a fine job stopping global warming aren't they? That clean air act and Kyoto protocal really saved us didn't it?

Weather disasters: Um, Katrina?

Elections: The government doesn't run elections, non-profits and the media does.

Educating the non-rich: Seriously? Have you not read anything about school choice this past decade? Do you have zero idea what a parochial school is? Do you know why St. Anthony's and St. Patrick's are the best basketball programs in New Jersey year after year?

What the hell.

And seriously, the graduation rates of lower-socio-economic students at Duke/Stanford are twice as high as those at Cal-Berkley.

[MUHerd37]

Haters gonna hate

I don't hate the Postal Service. They just aren't as good as UPS and FedEx

[rkelly110]

Public roads and highways built by private companies with your tax dollars.
Been on a turnpike lately? I spend more on the fee than the gas getting there.
I know I wouldn't want to pay at every stop sign to travel on a private road.

More private companies have gone on to be thriving business' when the govt gave them contracts.

So pretty much, every corporation and small business' have started thanks to the govt.

Govt getting into the heath care market with cheap rates, will ultimately bring a new
competition to the private sector. They will have to compete with lower rates or go bust.
A win win for us, the consumer.

The govt should give us a hand up, not a hand out.

[milwaukee mike]

Public roads and highways built by private companies with your tax dollars.
Been on a turnpike lately? I spend more on the fee than the gas getting there.
I know I wouldn't want to pay at every stop sign to travel on a private road.

More private companies have gone on to be thriving business' when the govt gave them contracts.

So pretty much, every corporation and small business' have started thanks to the govt.

Govt getting into the heath care market with cheap rates, will ultimately bring a new
competition to the private sector. They will have to compete with lower rates or go bust.
A win win for us, the consumer.

The govt should give us a hand up, not a hand out.

why should we be on the ground in the first place needing the government to help us up?

[Shaudius]

There's a lot here so bear with me.

Just because the gov't is the only one doing it doesn't mean they do it the best.

Law enforcement: don't you liberals hate the cops and bitch about the justice system every fukking day? How can you say they are doing a good job?

Fire Departments: private fire departments across the world have been shown to have faster response times and higher survival rates.

The issue with these, at least in my mind, is not that the private sector couldn't do these things more efficiently, its that they couldn't do so and cover everybody. If left to their own devices private companies would provide fire and police care to those who could afford whatever price they chose to charge and the market bore out, but the poor would be stuck without fire and police care. The poor would wind up not having police protection or fire prevention, because they could not afford it. Now you might say, well then the government can subsidize their protection, but then how do you avoid the problem you laid out below with public support of effectively contractors providing shoddy service(but apparently not the military? More on that later).

Additionally, you also run into the problem that fire prevention isn't isolated, say the neighbor of a rich person's house is burning down, they are poor and can't afford to call the private fire department, the rich person can, how exactly is the private company supposed to prevent the rich guy's house from burning down while not preventing the poor person's, not only is this an ethical dilemma, its also a financial one. Suppose they go ahead and prevent the poor person's house from burning down, but he can't afford to pay them. What then? Do they just have to eat the cost, is the poor person going to be thrown in some sort of debtor's prison. Do you see the problem with this idea on a large scale?

National Defense: there's a reason the US gov't gives out the toughest assignments to private contractors.

Public Works: most public works projects are preformed by private companies who do shoddy work because they either low ball the competition to the point they have to cut corners, or the are awarded the contract because of some crony bullshit.

So let me get this straight, in basically one breath you've said that public works are shoddy and that the contracts are either awarded through lowballing or crony bullshit, but the military contractors are the best around and are therefore given the best jobs. So is your argument really, the only good government contractors are military ones, all the public works ones suck? If so, how is that a problem inherent in government if they are able to hire good contractors for the military but terrible ones for other things. Wouldn't that instead be a problem with standards? The military has high standards for their contractors but the other agencies that hire contractors don't. Wouldn't that mean that the best solution would be to hold contractors to a high standard? But that would be like regulations, and we all know that regulations are bad and kill jobs, so standards couldn't possibly be what you're advocating for. Beyond that, the hardest jobs are given to contractors? That's why contractors took out Osama Bin Laden, and rescued the hostages from those kidnappers a couple months ago right? It couldn't possibly be that the best trained troops are actually troops and not contractors, that makes no sense at all, government bad.

utilities management: where the hell have you been? Gov't sponsored cable companies have been hemorrhaging customers to the private satellite companies for over a decade. You know why the cable man is never there on time? Because he doesn't have to be. Because cable companies are a gov't protected monopoly. There's no where else to go. Except satellite. Who have been raking in millions of new customers each year.

These are private companies, that again, are not held to standards(remember regulations bad). This is not a problem with government, this is not a problem with the private companies, its a problem of monopolistic power being bad, whether its created through the market or through the government, but it doesn't make government inefficient or bad, it just means it made the wrong decision to maintain monopolistic power over something that while it was strictly terrestrial made sense, but in new modern world does not.

Public transportation: you're kidding right? You've got somewhere you need to be in an hour, are you riding the bus or taking the White Horse?

I'm not sure what to make of this one, public transportation is cheap, but its slow, if you want fast you pay more and go private. That seems about the way it should be. You should pay more for increased efficiency. Public transportation is the perfect example of the balance between cost and efficiency.

fisheries management: HA. Do you even fish? On the behalf of fisherman everywhere, FUK YOU.

I don't know what to make of this one either, nor, admittedly do I know much about fishery. But it does seem to me that government regulation is necessarily in this area to prevent overfishing, which would not only be bad for human consumption of fish, but also for the ecological impact of destroying sources of food for other animals in the ecosystem. But I'm not expert on wildlife management, so I'd have to punt on this one for the most part.

Curbing pollution: yeah, the gov't is really doing a fine job stopping global warming aren't they? That clean air act and Kyoto protocal really saved us didn't it?

You mean the Kyoto Protocol that the US is not a signature on and that China, while it has signed it, refuses to enforce? Yeah, non-effective treaties don't do much to prevent global warming, I'll give you that one. As for the Clean Air Act, see a lot of smug these days? Hear a lot of talk about the hole in the o-zone layer? the CAA seems to be working pretty well to me.

Weather disasters: Um, Katrina?

So in your scenario, what would a private company do in the event of a natural disaster, how would they respond, where would they come from? Who would hire them?

Elections: The government doesn't run elections, non-profits and the media does.

What? Yeah, just what is what I have to say to this one.

Educating the non-rich: Seriously? Have you not read anything about school choice this past decade? Do you have zero idea what a parochial school is? Do you know why St. Anthony's and St. Patrick's are the best basketball programs in New Jersey year after year?

What the hell.

And seriously, the graduation rates of lower-socio-economic students at Duke/Stanford are twice as high as those at Cal-Berkley.

I'll give you vouchers, maybe, but it hasn't been tried on a large enough scale to say that the private sector when faced with the strains of the public sector in education would perform any better. Remember even with current vouchers programs public schools still exist, and private schools are not flooded with all the students that public schools used to teach just a select few of them. And basketball programs? That's your measure of a school's success, I know a ton of failing inner-city high schools that have excellent basketball programs, it has nothing to do with the education they are providing where it counts(I know that's foreign to a sports betting forum) in the classroom.

[JohnGalt2341]

Hey Galt, how about all you "producers" move to a faraway island in real life? It would be hilarious watching you argue over whose turn it is to actually work, and society would probably do much better with the reduction of a few hundred nihilistic sociopaths.

It depends on how you define "nihilistic sociopath" I suppose. I take it that you have read Atlas Shrugged? Although I don't necessarily agree with all the philosophies represented in Atlas Shrugged I do admire many of them. Some of these include a Strive for Excellence as well as Self Reliance. If you really want to rid the world of "nihilistic sociopaths" like myself I would prefer that you put me on an island by myself. In fact... put all the "nihilistic sociopaths" on an island by themselves so they each have their own island. The ones that survive can come to my island any time if they feel that I am worthy. The ones that sit around and do nothing will have to figure out how to survive on their own or they will eventually die.

[Ian]

Elections: The government doesn't run elections, non-profits and the media does.

What? Yeah, just what is what I have to say to this one.

I had no intention on making further replies to this thread, or any other political thread that doesn't revolve around gambling for that matter, but I feel compelled to point out to you guys that there are countries other than America.

[subs]

the government does democracy....companies do plutocracy.

which would u rather have?

[Thor4140]

The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.” Gov't works just fine until these asshole start dismantling everything like they have for years with the postal service. Look no farther than the poison pill they snuck into a bill in 2006 that makes the post office fund retirees 75 years in advance. No company in the world has to do this and they know this puts the post office at a huge disadvantage. You see fellas it is a lot deeper then the tired old line "the gov't doesn't work". That is another way of tricking the brain-dead into thinking just that, so a group of asshole can take over that gov't function (privatize)and gouge the shit out of us. Anyone that thinks Gov't doesn't work and then praises the military is just another nitwit who falls for the fear Fox game over and over.

[wrongturn]

A lot of good posts in this thread. But knowing that Government is inefficient to private sectors in almost all cases, it is still necessary to make a nation as whole. The issue to any country is how to make it more efficient. When you complain about too much government in US, consider US is already the smallest government among the most developed countries in terms of spending % of GNP, 19% vs the leader France whopping 46%.

[Jayvegas420]

Who said this?

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are these: "I'm from the government & I'm here to help."

Our conservative republican friends should know this, or maybe they'll just be surprised.

[unluckysob]

1 thing US govt does very well--------I enjoy our national parks----started in t. rossevelt day----never happened if left up to states.

[dj_destroyer]

If you're Libertarian then you've already won half the battle... just keep fighting the good fight.

But to answer your question, no, the only services that a government can provide more effectively than a private corporation is criminal justice and national defense.

[DOMINATER]

Space program is the best

[DOMINATER]

Best at central intelligence agency greate more wars assassinations and trouble we are the best by far in the world

[DOMINATER]

MADCAP THE NETHERLANDS ARE BEST AT ANY TYPE OF POLLUTION BY FAR , YOU HAVE TO TRAVEL TO eUROPE i THINK QUIT A FEW OF THOSE COMMENTS WOULD NOT MAKE YOUR LIST REMEBER COUNTRIES WITH SMALL AREAS HAVE BETTER POLLUTION SYSTEMS .JAPAN HAS MUCH BETTER BUS AND TRAIN SYSTEMS THAN US

[The Madcap]

I had no intention on making further replies to this thread, or any other political thread that doesn't revolve around gambling for that matter, but I feel compelled to point out to you guys that there are countries other than America.

I don't live in those countries.

And clearly we are talking about the AMERICAN government.

I'm quite certain gov't agencies in countries of much smaller populations where 90% of the citizens share the same bloodline and go to the same church (say Norway) can do things more effectively than us here in America.

Gov't work here breeds indolence and apathy, that is not a recipe for success.

[The Madcap]

MADCAP THE NETHERLANDS ARE BEST AT ANY TYPE OF POLLUTION BY FAR , YOU HAVE TO TRAVEL TO eUROPE i THINK QUIT A FEW OF THOSE COMMENTS WOULD NOT MAKE YOUR LIST REMEBER COUNTRIES WITH SMALL AREAS HAVE BETTER POLLUTION SYSTEMS .JAPAN HAS MUCH BETTER BUS AND TRAIN SYSTEMS THAN US

Are you drunk, or just bad at english?

The Japs do have much better public transit than we do. Better cameras too. So what?

We're talking America here buddy, what's your point?

[The Madcap]

There's a lot here so bear with me.



The issue with these, at least in my mind, is not that the private sector couldn't do these things more efficiently, its that they couldn't do so and cover everybody. If left to their own devices private companies would provide fire and police care to those who could afford whatever price they chose to charge and the market bore out, but the poor would be stuck without fire and police care. The poor would wind up not having police protection or fire prevention, because they could not afford it. Now you might say, well then the government can subsidize their protection, but then how do you avoid the problem you laid out below with public support of effectively contractors providing shoddy service(but apparently not the military? More on that later).

Additionally, you also run into the problem that fire prevention isn't isolated, say the neighbor of a rich person's house is burning down, they are poor and can't afford to call the private fire department, the rich person can, how exactly is the private company supposed to prevent the rich guy's house from burning down while not preventing the poor person's, not only is this an ethical dilemma, its also a financial one. Suppose they go ahead and prevent the poor person's house from burning down, but he can't afford to pay them. What then? Do they just have to eat the cost, is the poor person going to be thrown in some sort of debtor's prison. Do you see the problem with this idea on a large scale?



So let me get this straight, in basically one breath you've said that public works are shoddy and that the contracts are either awarded through lowballing or crony bullshit, but the military contractors are the best around and are therefore given the best jobs. So is your argument really, the only good government contractors are military ones, all the public works ones suck? If so, how is that a problem inherent in government if they are able to hire good contractors for the military but terrible ones for other things. Wouldn't that instead be a problem with standards? The military has high standards for their contractors but the other agencies that hire contractors don't. Wouldn't that mean that the best solution would be to hold contractors to a high standard? But that would be like regulations, and we all know that regulations are bad and kill jobs, so standards couldn't possibly be what you're advocating for. Beyond that, the hardest jobs are given to contractors? That's why contractors took out Osama Bin Laden, and rescued the hostages from those kidnappers a couple months ago right? It couldn't possibly be that the best trained troops are actually troops and not contractors, that makes no sense at all, government bad.


These are private companies, that again, are not held to standards(remember regulations bad). This is not a problem with government, this is not a problem with the private companies, its a problem of monopolistic power being bad, whether its created through the market or through the government, but it doesn't make government inefficient or bad, it just means it made the wrong decision to maintain monopolistic power over something that while it was strictly terrestrial made sense, but in new modern world does not.



I'm not sure what to make of this one, public transportation is cheap, but its slow, if you want fast you pay more and go private. That seems about the way it should be. You should pay more for increased efficiency. Public transportation is the perfect example of the balance between cost and efficiency.



I don't know what to make of this one either, nor, admittedly do I know much about fishery. But it does seem to me that government regulation is necessarily in this area to prevent overfishing, which would not only be bad for human consumption of fish, but also for the ecological impact of destroying sources of food for other animals in the ecosystem. But I'm not expert on wildlife management, so I'd have to punt on this one for the most part.


You mean the Kyoto Protocol that the US is not a signature on and that China, while it has signed it, refuses to enforce? Yeah, non-effective treaties don't do much to prevent global warming, I'll give you that one. As for the Clean Air Act, see a lot of smug these days? Hear a lot of talk about the hole in the o-zone layer? the CAA seems to be working pretty well to me.



So in your scenario, what would a private company do in the event of a natural disaster, how would they respond, where would they come from? Who would hire them?



What? Yeah, just what is what I have to say to this one.



I'll give you vouchers, maybe, but it hasn't been tried on a large enough scale to say that the private sector when faced with the strains of the public sector in education would perform any better. Remember even with current vouchers programs public schools still exist, and private schools are not flooded with all the students that public schools used to teach just a select few of them. And basketball programs? That's your measure of a school's success, I know a ton of failing inner-city high schools that have excellent basketball programs, it has nothing to do with the education they are providing where it counts(I know that's foreign to a sports betting forum) in the classroom.

I just responded to this in detail, but then I accidentally deleted it. And being that I am apparently too drunk to effectively use the "undo" control, I am not going to rewrite the whole damn thing.

Just know I agreed with some of your points and all I was merely trying to point out wasn't that the gov't shouldn't be in charge of some of these areas, but that they do a piss poor job at it, and the private sector could certainly preform a few of these things with greater efficiency and to the general public's satisfaction.

[icancount2one]

It depends on how you define "nihilistic sociopath" I suppose. I take it that you have read Atlas Shrugged? Although I don't necessarily agree with all the philosophies represented in Atlas Shrugged I do admire many of them. Some of these include a Strive for Excellence as well as Self Reliance. If you really want to rid the world of "nihilistic sociopaths" like myself I would prefer that you put me on an island by myself. In fact... put all the "nihilistic sociopaths" on an island by themselves so they each have their own island. The ones that survive can come to my island any time if they feel that I am worthy. The ones that sit around and do nothing will have to figure out how to survive on their own or they will eventually die.

I couldn't get through Atlas Shrugged, though I'm familiar with it. I have however read "The Will to Power" and some other Nietzsche. Ayn Rand, your username, etc. are all derived from his worship of production and profit. Along with it comes an open disdain for art, empathy, sexuality and a vision of fascism as the natural expression of the human spirit. However, since fascism is such a loaded phrase in the USA, "libertarians" invert the meaning of the word.

[icancount2one]

Are you drunk, or just bad at english?

The Japs do have much better public transit than we do. Better cameras too. So what?

We're talking America here buddy, what's your point?

His point, and the point of every progressive that brings up the effectiveness of European and Japanese socialism, is that there are examples in our world today of government doing things right. Libertarianism does not have a real-life model to look at (industrial revolution western society and Somalia not withstanding).

The idea of bringing up these high-functioning states is that not only do progressive ideas work in theory, they have been put into practice successfully in other nations that we are now falling behind. For me, libertarian theory falls apart at the point that you abolish child-labor laws and OSHA.

Germany and Japan are examples of active, effective government. "This is America" is not a valid counter-argument, though I hear it all the time from libertarians. Why do you believe your countrymen can't accomplish what the Germans and Japanese are capable of, given our respective histories?

[The Madcap]

His point, and the point of every progressive that brings up the effectiveness of European and Japanese socialism, is that there are examples in our world today of government doing things right. Libertarianism does not have a real-life model to look at (industrial revolution western society and Somalia not withstanding).

The idea of bringing up these high-functioning states is that not only do progressive ideas work in theory, they have been put into practice successfully in other nations that we are now falling behind. For me, libertarian theory falls apart at the point that you abolish child-labor laws and OSHA.

Germany and Japan are examples of active, effective government. "This is America" is not a valid counter-argument, though I hear it all the time from libertarians. Why do you believe your countrymen can't accomplish what the Germans and Japanese are capable of, given our respective histories?

To answer your question,

it's the reason John Fox can't run a West Coast offense with Tim Tebow at quarterback.

Just because a particular system works well with one group of people doesn't mean it will work well with every group of people.

Discounting the third world shithole parts of India/China, the United States is the most populous nation on earth. We are also the most diverse. This creates a whole slew of problems other countries who implement more socialist regimes don't have to deal with.

In Japan for instance, 99% of the population belongs to the same ethnic group. That's not an exaggeration. Seriously. Maybe it's lessened slightly the past decade to 98.5% or something with the influx of overseas Chinese, but still, 98 FUKKING PERCENT. That changes things, and if you don't understand why, you've got no business ever trying to discuss politics or government philosophy. I'm not saying you don't, I think you probably do, but it's either something you get or you don't, and if you don't, I can't help you. It's one of those things you've sort of got to realize for yourself.

But that is the common string between Japan, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and even Germany, (where roughly 90% of the population is German.)

Point is, we don't have the set-up from a population/cultural identity standpoint to implement this type of gov't, as it will continually cause such a divide amongst the people that the changes will never be anything more than impotent meaningless gestures meant to make our politicians look good or seem like they care.

And let's also not forget places like Greece, Spain, Italy and Ireland where these sorts of practices are put in place and the countries can't ever get their shit together.

Plus, it's not like Germany/Japan are the best models. Japan went through a huge economic recession almost identical to ours, except it happened a decade before. Same meddling/tinkering idiots over there were to blame.

You need to understand that most libertarians have no qualms with local government. They might not like certain zoning codes/ordinances and other shit like that at times, but for the most part, a libertarian isn't upset with the idea of a local government issuing laws and dispersing tax dollars for a suitable purpose.

The Libertarian merely believes that gov't expansion tends to lead to either corruption/or inefficiency, and therefore should be resisted heavily on the national level because there is less accountability. This is why so many truly convicted libertarians move to sparsely populated rural areas where no can fukk with them and they can still vote on the local elections and feel their voice counts for something. If you live out in the heartlands of Wyoming or Montana, it gets pretty goddamm annoying when a bunch of ankle-grabbing twits from San Francisco and Manhattan get to tell you what to do.

Why does abolishing child labor laws and OSHA scare you so much?

We're not in danger of our kids working in coal mines. And what if you're some kid who lives out in the sticks and wants to make money one summer as a box boy in a store, why can't a 12-13 year old kid get paid? That's bullshit.

And 99% of what OSHA does is a goddam waste of time and money. The rules and regulations they write don't prevent shit from happening, as most accidents are the unforeseeable result of human error. All OSHA does is give people a false sense of security regarding work place safety, much like with TSA pat-downs and airline terrorism.

Don't get me wrong, the philosophical idea of having a gov't agency designed to protect workers and children from being abused is WONDERFUL. But that's the IDEA. The actual practical application of this theory is a worthless organization that doesn't do shit. And that's why libertarians are who they are. Pathologically, they can't stand watching us waste all our damn resources on retarded feel-good commie bullshit.

[The Madcap]

I should also point out much of the reason it will fail here is due to the inherited mindset of the average American.

It's the difference between the psychology of the American and French Revolutions.

[InTheDrink]

the government does a fair job of protecting the public from itself...at least better than the private sector would

businesses since the industrial age have been pushing and skirting the boundaries of government regulations in the interest of profit. whether it be for worker safety (eg child labor laws) or protecting the health of communities that businesses serve (eg usda) im sure without any sort of regulation we'd have far more striking comparisons to third world countries if they didnt exist. they're not perfect agencies but i'd hate to see the country without them.

the term corporation is just as scary to me as the term government

[The Madcap]

the government does a fair job of protecting the public from itself...at least better than the private sector would

businesses since the industrial age have been pushing and skirting the boundaries of government regulations in the interest of profit. whether it be for worker safety (eg child labor laws) or protecting the health of communities that businesses serve (eg usda) im sure without any sort of regulation we'd have far more striking comparisons to third world countries if they didnt exist. they're not perfect agencies but i'd hate to see the country without them.

the term corporation is just as scary to me as the term government

SOME businesses.

And that's the key isn't it?

And really that's the problem. We've convinced ourselves as a nation that without gov't protections all these corporations would turn the public into swill eating swine and it's crap. As a result, our regulations are written from the perspective that business itself is bad and must be stifled, instead of that some business will cut corners and need to be punished. Less would be much better in that regard.

[AribaAriba]

the temptation of big money leads to temptation to more corruption, abuse of power for personal interest is a human nature that's hard to resist.

[JohnGalt2341]

Stumbled across this video today. I must say that I agree with it 100%.