[malkia]

A lot of my bulgarian friends, and others, living here in America are thinking that taxes, free schools, even police, firefighting, etc. are just things that should go away.

Essentially you have to pay, and be a "share-holder" in everything. You should be on top of things everywhere, etc. etc.

And someone recently posted this on his fb page: "If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences." - Ayn Rand.

In essence the above is correct, but it does not tell the whole picture. While the businessman most likely would suffer, nothing is being said about lots of innocent people that would suffer too (and being on Hacker News, the recent story of security breaches leaking lots of personal information).

Also it's not always the case that people would suffer the consequences due to a bureaucrat (assuming public office of sorts), and even if they do, it'll be less painful (distributed over all the population of the country, state or city), rather than people directly being affected by certain business.

To my friends, it's really painful that they have to pay taxes - some of them don't have kids, and they don't think they should pay for school. I fuckin don't get this, since not having good education is the road to ruin...

[gjm11]

> "If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences." - Ayn Rand.

There is some truth in this. It is the almost-exact flip side of this: If a businessman does something right, he reaps the gains. If a bureaucrat does something right, you reap the gains.

... which doesn't sound so bad, now does it?

Neither is exactly correct. If the senior management of a large company make a big mistake, they aren't the only ones who lose: some employees may lose their jobs, the company may be less effective in providing customers with useful products or services, etc. And, conversely, if they do something very right, their employees may get bonuses or pay rises and their customers may get useful things to buy. And even government bureaucrats are likely to do better for themselves when they make good decisions than when they make bad ones.

But it's a reasonable approximation. On the whole and on average, businessmen are in business to benefit themselves, and fortunately it turns out that when you have lots of people doing that it brings benefits to everyone. On the whole and on average, government bureaucrats are in their jobs to benefit The People.

And, surprise surprise, if you focus only on the downside then you see businessmen hurting themselves and bureaucrats hurting The People. But it cuts both ways.

[ZenoArrow]

> "If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences."

Makes for a catchy soundbite, what a shame it's not true.

A businessman can make a mistake that impacts millions of people. Here are a couple of prominent examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott#Baby_milk_issue

To summarise the first, Bayer had to stop selling some blood transfusion products in the US after they were found to be contaminated with HIV and Hepatitis C. What did they do with the blood? They sold it in Asia and South America instead. A cold-blooded capitalist may argue this was a 'win' for the company in terms of income, but regardless a business decision was made and there was huge damage as a result.

To summarise the second, Nestlé tried to encourage groups of mothers in developing countries to give up breast feeding their babies and sell them infant formula instead. They do so at first by giving out free samples. Numerous problems ensued (including the mothers' no longer being able to produce breast milk for their babies, leading to deaths once the free samples stopped and the mothers were no longer able to afford the infant formula).

There are plenty of other examples (especially in the areas of environmental pollution and worker conditions), I'm guessing I don't need to go on.

[Roodgorf]

On the whole I agree, but I also think that the business person's decisions/consequences case only works out if you are fairly optimistic and fully believe in the trickle down theory.

That is, anecdotally it seems if an exec makes a good decision, or even if someone at a lower level does, they will benefit substantially more than the rest of the employees. At the same time, if they make a company-endingly bad decision, employees may be out of a job while they will still probably make out okay (golden parachutes and the like).

[tmaly]

This is a battle of power between the federal level and the state level. With more power centered at the state level (distributed), it would be less likely that everyone would suffer across all states. Look at policies such as "No Child Left Behind" act, it applies a one size fits all law to all schools. It has its problems, and all schools across the country suffer because it is applied at the federal level.

[aridiculous]

As if large corporations aren't full of bureaucratic businessmen.

[microcolonel]

That's my main gripe with this inclusion of every service and charity under the sun in government. Sure, most people consider these things important, and sometimes many people could stand to benefit if it all goes well; but ultimately the problem is that everyone is expected to simultaneously have opinions on every policy in every sector at once, and come to some voting decision based on that, furthermore that their preferences should affect their entire jurisdiction or riding. This is just unrealistic.

[hackuser]

> ultimately the problem is that everyone is expected to simultaneously have opinions on every policy in every sector at once

That's why people elect representatives, to do that for them. The U.S. is not a direct democracy.

Regardless, the problems are there and must be dealt with, however difficult that is. Ignoring problems because they are difficult would be a willful negligence. It would also be irresponsible to let people suffer, and also harm our entire community, because the problems are difficult and mechanisms imperfect.