[btilly]

Governments operated differently than businesses.

In a business I hand you my money and trust that you will hand me back my profits.

A ancient government put someone in charge and demanded tribute. Failure to produce tribute resulted in an army showing up to collect tribute. It was so common as to be expected that the administrator, called a satrap, would collect excess tribute and live a lavish lifestyle. The king sent spies to root out the worst of the abuse, but it was an uphill battle.

Governments can be run this way because efficiency is not particularly essential to their profitability. But efficiency is required for commercial enterprises. It is not enough to collect money and let your subordinates enrich themselves. You want to track all the money and not let your subordinates cheat the enterprise to their personal profit.

[thaumasiotes]

The claim above is that empires are below the threshold where everything runs on personal trust, not that governmental administration is fundamentally different from other kinds of administration.

> But efficiency is required for commercial enterprises. It is not enough to collect money and let your subordinates enrich themselves. You want to track all the money and not let your subordinates cheat the enterprise to their personal profit.

The first two sentences are obviously false; you want to track all the money, but you have no particular need to do so as long as some of the money is making its way to you.