Hybridization of government

[Dill]

(03-11-2017, 05:03 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The continued privatization of our government, which has been going on for about 30 years, is going to just increase there hybrids as we rely on the private sector to provide public goods. What are your opinions on this? Are you in favor of this hybridization/privatization? What steps do you think would be good to insure accountability exists for these hybrid organizations?

I'm just kind of curious what people that don't necessarily look at this academically or from the inside think about all of this.

I suppose I could be persuaded, on a case by case basis, that some privatization is good.

But overall, I am very suspicious of it. I think that when the public sector markets of various types are saturated, it is natural for private corporations to regard the government as a new market sector into which to expand. That is why you have corporations running prisons and HMOs and power plants and using untrained civilians to guard military bases in the Middle East.  It is not clear to me that any of this has been for the public good, though I admit that some businesses and their stockholders have made a killing.

Can you provide a specific example in which the privatization of a formerly public service has benefited the public? Maybe it has happened and I am just unaware of it.

You argue before Congress that government is inefficient and get them to put up tax dollars for the private sector--sometimes with bidding or sometimes not.  Even if waste skyrockets it is still hard to convince the public the move was wrong since, as everyone in this country knows, the private sector is more efficient.