HappySqurriel said:
The core question is how much of what most governments produce are "public goods" and how much is "social engineering" or "bureaucratic busywork"? From what I have seen most of what the government provides today is "social engineering" or "bureaucratic busywork", and even the "public goods" they do actually deliver tend to be full of "social engineering" and "bureaucratic busywork" ... Privatization (often) eliminates these wasteful and pointless activities, but it is not (necessarily) the only way to do so. If there was the political will to do so, you could probably achieve similar results while keeping services publicly delivered; but this would require significant reform to the electoral system to prevent gains from being erased the second someone else came to power. |
The most important public goods that the government provides are defense, justics, and transportation. Its not a perfect system, but its the only system that works, and without the government providing them we simply would not have them.
Can you imagine our entire transportation infrastructure being dirt roads? That is the best the private market would provide us, as only the government can provide such a public good. We would literally go back to the Dark Ages, which was the last time Western civilization moved away from government in favor of privitization.
