By Rowan Wolf

There is a long-running argument that government should be run like a business, and/or a businessman would be a better President than a politician. This is based upon the (faulty) belief that business is more “efficient” than the government (or public servants). This is also what at least 50 years of efforts by Republicans (and the forces driving them) to undermine faith in all levels of government, the public sector, and voting. The goal has been to disenfranchise the public as the fewer people participating, the smaller the block they must coordinate in order to gain power and keep it. But motivation for promoting the belief in the efficacy of “business” and the “wisdom” of the leaders thereof, is not the primary issue here. My focus is to talk about the peculiarities of the public sector and government, and the lies promoting the belief in business.

First, what is the primary focus of any business, and therefore the management of these businesses?

PROFIT!

Therein rests the biggest part of the lie of running government like a business, or finding a good businessman to “run” the country. I seriously doubt that we really want government services to be profitable, because WE would be the ones footing the bill for all that profit.

There are various ways to get to PROFIT, but one of the primary ones is continuous growth. Do we really want the government to eat more and more of the functions and businesses of the nation? Do we want the government competing with businesses for customers and control? In most areas probably not.

Another way to increase profit is to decrease service … but charge more for it. Hmm. That doesn’t sound so great either.

The public sector focuses on those areas of life where it is either not profitable for those functions to be privatized, or it is determined that profit creates an environment counter to the good of society. The Republicans have repeatedly pushed for the privatization of government services. However, I have not seen any proof over the decades that privatization saves us any money. In fact, quite the contrary. One glaring example would be the privatization of corrections. This is where from city to federal corrections private businesses take over the running of jails, juvenile corrections, and federal prisons. What we have seen is the creation of massive incentives to incarcerate an ever-growing number of people, expanding sentencing, and opening prison industries.

To meet the growing profit demands of private corrections, the people have been sold lies about out-of-control increases in crime, and criminals of all stripes who are threatening entire populations (listen to Trump for 2 minutes on the threat posed by immigrants). We cannot build prisons fast enough to “meet the demand”. Prisoners are now required to pay for much of their basic needs – toilet paper for example. Prisoners in private corrections are employed for pennies on the dollar to do jobs that receive much higher wages on the outside – everything from reservations to clothing manufacturing to kayak construction. Need I say that there are no complaints about them competing with the private sector? Or concerns about a captive workforce? Or private corporations being able to infringe on the constitutional rights of incarcerated citizens?

Likewise, there are ongoing arguments that the base of our healthcare system should not be private, but public. Privatizing primary healthcare has given the United States the most expensive healthcare system in the world. However, it is far from the best for all that profit.

Another myth, if not outright lie, is that business is more efficient than government. One place to look for whether this is true is to look at administration costs. For example, the government’s administrative costs for Medicare are 1.4% – LESS THAN TWO PERCENT! Meanwhile, private insurance companies spend between 12.3 and 17.8 percent on administrative costs (PolitiFact, Comparing administrative costs for private insurance and Medicare). This discrepancy is true in program after program. Private industry can’t come close to competing with our government for cost efficiency, and often for efficacy. Further, that difference between 1.4% and 17.8% is … you got it – PROFIT.

My research over the decades has clearly indicated that the government is doing a far better job than private industry in meeting critical needs. The repeated efforts to privatize various functions and jobs have been an expensive farce at best and a disaster at worst.

There are persistent stereotypes promulgated about public workers as being lazy, incompetent, and not doing their job. I have worked in both the private and public sectors and I have found dedicated workers and flakes in both arenas. However, I have seen more dedication among workers in the public sector even though they are frequently working for lower pay than their private sector counterparts.

I have seen the trend to hire business people as managers in higher education. The changes they make are often destructive to the basic missions of their colleges. Making certain areas of a college “profit centers” – the bookstore, copy center, and food services are often prime targets  – with negative consequences for both students and programs. Prioritizing certain divisions over others (i.e. skills and business-based over general education) may prepare students to enter the workforce, but often without a foundation of transferable skills. This makes them return for more skills training over and over again.

Arguing that the President should essentially be a CEO brings a worldview and focus that is counter to fulfilling the commitments of government to the people of our nation, and focuses on profit-making rather than meeting public and societal needs.

So as the lies are perpetuated again and again about how good business is vis a vis government, take a breath and think whether that makes any sense.

Rowan Wolf, PhD

I am a sociologist, writer and activist with life-long engagement in social justice, peace, environmental, and animal rights movements. My research and writing include issues of imperialism, oppression, global capitalism, peak resources, global warming, and environmental degradation. I taught sociology for twenty-two years, was a member of the City of Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force, and maintain my own site Uncommon Thought Journal. I may be reached by email at [email protected]. On a personal note, I am also a survivor of pulmonary hypertension by the gift of a donor’s lungs in 2011. I do my best to honor that gift by trying to be my best self and give to the world what small gifts I have. Among those is a deep passion for life, and the lives of all those with whom I share the planet.