The Difference Between Business and Government [View All]

[rpannier]

I normally can't stand this guy, but he makes some good points in this article

All three—Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in California and Linda McMahon in Connecticut—still face large hurdles in November's general elections but they are serious candidates with reasonable prospects. And all three have based their campaigns on a common attribute. No, not the fact that they are women—after all, Connecticut has a woman governor and both of California's current U.S. Senators are women. What Fiorina, Whitman, and McMahon all tout as the credential that proves their superior qualification for high office is the fact that all three are highly successful in ... business.

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The business of business is business and the goal of business is to earn a profit in the provision of goods and services. The business of government is service—well managed, one hopes, and not wasteful, but never at a profit.

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Businesses seek maximum efficiency; governments seek sufficient efficiency. We might well save a considerable amount of money by delegating our national security to mercenary armies drawn from other countries (as opposed to keeping a high-cost standing army and paying U.S. wages to private combat zone contractors), thus erasing the need to maintain a perpetual and costly military infrastructure. We could assign the processing of Social Security checks and welfare payments to low-wage workers in Madras or Oaxaca. State governments could close welfare offices and require that all transactions with government be conducted electronically, with no recourse to potentially sympathetic human beings. These are choices governments make reluctantly and businesses make routinely.

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Distinguish that ethic from the commitment of government to provide a safety net for those who are, quite often due to no fault of their own, non-productive members of society (at least as measured by the workplace). In business, the non-productive are cut loose; in government, the non-productive are cut checks. That is because the society as a whole, with the full support of Republicans and Democrats alike, believes widows, orphans, the mentally or physically infirm deserve sustenance and protection.

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Business and government are not opposites, but they are distinct; the mindset is necessarily different; the understandings are different; the obligations are different. Whether you cheer for these three women, and others like them, to win or lose in November, we should demand of them a downplaying of the business credential and a focus on how they would meet the actual challenges of governance on the specific terms of public, not private, service.

link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/the-difference-between-business-and-government/58085/