[alfl23]

Unlike any other organisation of its size, government is never held liable for efficiency, nobody ever questions government for "return on investment", even though it's the largest one all of us make.

What this article is suggesting is largely suicidal, taking cash from a far more efficient business community government by "laws" of competition, evolution of markets etc, the impact here would be catastrophic at best, I really don't think you can debate this in the space of one article.

My number one would be move all government money on blockchain, and make that public, then see if it's really so smart to "give them more", through any means.

Inequality has always been a constant throughout human history, and it's far better now than in the middle ages, where we are all entitled to education, healthcare, and have extremely fast access to information.

I'm not suggesting there isn't a problem, but you haven't found a solution. "Tax the rich" is something everyone can scream off the top of their lungs, until it comes to bite them hard the next day when their pay must be cut to keep the company they work for profitable.

Step 1 would be removing the biggest inefficiency of capital allocation in most of these "high growth" western economies, measure and publicise return on investment of public funds, and proceed to realise raising tax "just like that" is a very very bad idea.

[NeedMoreTea]

It's a great refrain, yet after living through 40 years of successive privatisations, public-private partnerships and so on, it has repeatedly failed to deliver the promised better efficiency. Maybe one or two succeeded.

Profits and higher exec pay, certainly. Consolidated and bought up by someone else's state utility, as profit centre, yep. Removed from being a political football where the parties on the right of centre consistently under-fund something to "prove" it needs the freedom of private enterprise, again, certainly. Just about every effort to "bring the benefits of the market" to the NHS have made it less efficient, or added layers of additional expense.

Governments, of course, often did encourage, and achieve, sometimes remarkable efficiency. Until it became simply dogma to change it, for change's sake. Few services or arms of government got a blank cheque, except periodically the military. Not surprisingly there's considerable inefficiencies around military spending.

It's funny though, it usually turns out to be the privatisation, the socialisation of a private industry's pollution, accident or other abuses after deregulation that wrecks figures. Like, say, a private sector prison performing so poorly it has to be snatched back into state control, banking bailout, or the public private partnerships which prove disastrous for government return on investment. These are the ones castigated in assorted committees, who are constantly questioning efficiency and return on investment.

[Bartweiss]

> It's a great refrain, yet after living through 40 years of successive privatisations, public-private partnerships and so on, it has repeatedly failed to deliver the promised better efficiency. Maybe one or two succeeded.

The rejoinder here is generally that nationalization also has a terrible track record. Even in domains where some governments have performed efficiently and well from the beginning, governments which take over from private owners often do quite poorly.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm in favor of privatization. It's entirely possible for both transitions to be primarily harmful, and indeed it's fairly likely if both are championed by people who see a personal benefit. There's a bit in Hitchhiker's Guide where a driver thinks the rain is so heavy his wipers aren't helping. When he turns them off, things do get worse, but when he turns them back on they don't get any better. I've heard multiple Brits cite this to explain the way nationalization and privatization of rail has worked: nationalization brought waste and unreliability, privatization brought gouging and line closures, but each left the harms of the other intact.

[NeedMoreTea]

Can't disagree with much here. :)

Dogma on left of centre is as damaging as on the right as it tends to produce more change for change's sake, just to a different destination. Same goes for so many private sector takeovers and buyouts. In each instance it rarely delivers.

> rail ... each left the harms of the other intact

Pretty much true. The biggest issue during the nationalised period was funding. Few post-war state enterprises got to reinvest profit, so investment became a political choice, which led to the ageing rolling stock and unreliability. Waste - not so much, though I'm sure plenty existed. Pre-war approach to public enterprise seemed to work much better - a town or city owned a corporation, that could keep and reinvest its profits, and the city was more like shareholder. I'm not sure why this approach ceased to be - possibly the ever increasing centralisation from both right and left.

The way rail was broken up was utterly bizarre and ridiculous - it was never going to work broken up in such an unnatural way. Yet, if Corbyn had his way and re-nationalised, it might work, briefly - at great expense and disruption - for his first term. First Tory government would bring back under-funding, and off we go again. Nope, never gonna work.

Better stronger QoS regulation than that, though a rethink of the various disjointed bits is looking unavoidable. If only privatisation had gone back to the big 4... or created a medium 8 or something.

[Bartweiss]

> it tends to produce more change for change's sake, just to a different destination. Same goes for so many private sector takeovers and buyouts. In each instance it rarely delivers.

Nicely put. I do think it's possible that nationalization and even privatization can produce improvements, but they're obviously not deployed on the strength of detailed, domain-specific evidence. Mostly, someone just gets control of a troubled system falls back on doctrinaire arguments that their preferred solution always works, never mind questions like "does the government have any experience here" or "will this immediately become a private monopoly".

More cynically, your description of rail points to the other side of the game. If you've got a working instance of the approach you don't like, pile on challenges (regulation and unprofitable obligations on one side, funding cuts on the other) until it breaks, then declare the need for your preferred solution. And not coincidentally, the long-term outcome is almost always these batty public-private partnerships or private-consultant-run government programs that are profitable for someone but work horribly.

I should learn more about the national-era history of British rail, it's always sounded like the biggest 'flaw' was simply being vulnerable to Tory funding cuts. The privatization approach was truly absurd - at this point I suppose the best hope available is emulating something like not-a-real-market private utilities?

[NeedMoreTea]

Trying to stay away from the party political, I think the experience is that telephony may have been suitable for privatisation - people are happy switching providers, and do so all the time. Water, Post Office and electricity not so much. Thirty odd years later and regulators still haven't figured out how to get people to switch in any appreciable numbers. Maybe those really are natural monopolies, regardless of party dogma - and were often those pre-war city corporations.

> until it breaks, then declare the need for your preferred solution

Equally cynically, that does seem to be the way government and regulation works lately. Just look at the Post Office privatisation - take things away from them year on year from counter services, savings, licence renewals to city mail, so it's no wonder they're declining and "need" privatising. Then they wonder why the electorate doesn't trust politicians. Or BBC licencing deals... The stench of where that's heading is getting overpowering.

They may have got plans wrong many times earlier, but it appears former generations were far more genuinely concerned with actually trying to make the country better - whether one-nation Tory or Labour, or administrations elsewhere. I'm sure there's some age-related rose tinting, but I don't think anywhere near all. Where did that ethos go? :)

> the best hope available is emulating something like not-a-real-market private utilities

Private with stronger service obligations - like to permit other companies to run charters, freight or express on the tracks. Hopefully make them more like a real company - where they own the track, buildings and trains. Needing at least three companies involved to reschedule or add a new service is in the interests of no one at all. Yet that starts to look like going back to LMS, LNER, GWR and SR. That almost admits it was organised better in the 1920s. Not sure that's politically possible. :)

[n4r9]

I'm interested to know how you'd measure "return on investment" for caring for the elderly and infirm, for example?

[alfl23]

You're missing the point completely, it's not about depriving citizens of fundamental services.

- How do you know care home providers don't bribe their way through contracts? - How do you know they are not an oligopoly that sets the price under the table, and the government pays 1.5 - 2x contributions for someone to be in a care facility versus what you would pay yourself for an elderly relative going to the exact same facility?

Specific counter examples are not fruitful, people who don't have the means don't understand the economics and don't understand money, that's why they are complaining about the inequality, and they can downvote me here all they want, I truly hope it relieves their frustration even slightly.

If you've ever worked with government directly, you're expected to understand it's one of the most rigged and corrupt institutions by very far. Yes, it exists to perform universally beneficial functions, does it really do that? Hello no, in most cases it spends 2 - 3x the money it really needs to for the same service. I'm not suggesting it should cut off the elderly, just cut the waste in providing those services.

[mattkrause]

Ironically, this attitude causes much of the problem. All that red tape isn’t just decorative. It’s a reaction to tons of concern (and concern-trolling) over government waste.

“How do you know that a contract is above-board?”, you ask. You know this because some committee put together an absurdly detailed Request for Proposals, complete with requirements, evaluation metrics, milestones and circles and arrows on the back of each one. Throw in some politically-imposed requirements (can only travel on US Airlines, lest we “waste” money on the British) too for good measure. The winner’s proposal gets turned into a Statement of Work that specifies what’s to be done, when, where, and how. The whole mess gets audited and inspected and archived so it can be reviewed later by more auditors, Congress, and concerned citizens like you.

Hiring is equally bonkers. Managers (mostly) can’t flip through the submitted resumes and pick out someone that seems clever and driven (“What if it’s their cousin?!?”) Instead, there are long questionnaires and fixed experience requirements. The manager can only pick from the top 3(?) candidates and the salary is barely negotiable.

It is a huge pain. It’s slow, it’s expensive, and it’s not always responsive. The complicated process is exclusionary (Raytheon has rooms of staff that know these rules chapter and verse; you don’t). Right now, it feels like the system spends $100 to be sure it saves $1. We would be better off if we relaxed these controls a bit and trusted individuals a bit more (backed up with audits, obviously, lest anyone get ideas), but....here we are.

[n4r9]

I get your point that government is wasteful and corrupt in many ways. I'm not convinced that your proposed solution is coherent or workable.

I'm all for increased transparency but you seem to be additionally advocating a target-based, profit-driven approach. This sort of approach has to my knowledge failed pretty badly in the health, education and prison sectors in the UK. What happens is that as soon as you come up with a way to measure "return on investment" or "level of service", contractors will figure out a way to game those measures whilst providing poorer and poorer actual service.

[bryanlarsen]

'Unlike any other organisation of its size, government is never held liable for efficiency, nobody ever questions government for "return on investment", even though it's the largest one all of us make.'

Seriously? Every time there's an election the right-wing parties promise they're going to balance the books or pay for taxes by cutting the fat from all those inefficient government services. It's their mantra, and they fail to do so every time they get elected.

[agentdrtran]

only on HN would a completely insane idea like "move all government money on blockchain" be the top comment.

[baddox]

It’s the bottom comment at the time of this comment.

[alfl23]

Yeah you really got the point here, it was the technology to use, not the transparency and traceability.. you're completely right, it's worth 0% of my time arguing over the internet. Thank you ever so kindly for reminding me of that.