[1letterunixname]

Some categories shouldn't be privatized like medicine, military arms, basic science, road maintenance, and emergency rescue operations. Elon isn't going to work on particle physics without a direct commercial purpose.

[kingstoned]

Private does not mean for-profit. Funding and performance are two different things. Road construction is funded by government, but performed by private companies.

[rqtwteye]

Typically huge profits are made when government contracts are managed by private companies. You see this in defense, space (SpaceX broke this) and big construction projects.

[edgyquant]

Who decides what “basic science” is?

[myself248]

For the longest time, scientific research performed two significant functions beyond its stated mission of discovering things:

1: It kept a workforce advancing, both at the labs themselves, and at all the suppliers and manufacturers who fed into them. Those mega-budgets weren't buying mega-yachts for the lab directors; they flowed into mega-upgrades for industry, who could score "juicy government lab contracts" and advance their capabilities, which then paid dividends for the rest of the sector.

2: It supplied national prestige. The best and brightest from all over the world would fall over themselves to work in labs here. The moon landing shattered records for the most-watched TV broadcast ever, and a billion people knew America was on top of the world.

Both of these had significant trickle-down effects, which I don't think were fully appreciated until we let them rot on the vine.

I think "science" in the sense that GP uses it, should refer to any research that ticks both of the above boxes.

[luckylion]

"Road maintenance" shouldn't be done by private companies that are given contracts by the government? Why not?

[photochemsyn]

It really depends on where responsibility begins and ends. It might make a lot more sense, financially, for the government to manage maintenance using supplies and equipments purchased from private companies, with the people working on the roads being government employees instead of employees of the contractors. However, for specific jobs - say building a new bridge, etc. - it might make sense to have that be a complete private contract, and then, after it's built, maintenance becomes the government responsibility.

In general however, there's too much opportunity for corruption if contracts are just blindly given to private interests by politicians. Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction contracts were a good example of how bad that can get.

[luckylion]

I think there's a good reason to have anti-corruption measures and bring down the hammer hard on everyone in the administration that tries to circumvent them, but I do believe that government is just too inefficient when it comes to doing things.

I'd rather risk that every tenth contract is fraudulent than have every contract cost twice as much with the government doing it themselves. There's just zero incentive for government employees to work quickly and efficiently.

Check private contractor's work to make sure they're not cutting any corners, make corruption harder and incentivize whistle-blowers, but letting the government do things is not something I want as a taxpayer.

[1letterunixname]

Privatized electric grid as a market led to Enron causing unnecessary rolling blackouts to make money.

The government is not a static hivemind, and deregulation and privatization are not panaceas.

The US political class (elected fraction of government) is among the most corrupt in the world. Campaign finance reform will never happen because the rich run America. If you think the rich have the needs of the many in mind when they spend billions on lobbying to get their way, I don't think you're fully aware of the situation in which America finds herself.

[wolverine876]

> I'd rather risk that every tenth contract is fraudulent than have every contract cost twice as much with the government doing it themselves.

If you create the numbers, you'll reach your expected conclusion.

> There's just zero incentive for government employees to work quickly and efficiently.

Stop demonizing people. Just talk to some government employees. The article talks about how management works at DOE labs.

[luckylion]

I'm not demonizing anyone, I'm talking about incentives.

And I've come to my understanding of how they work on government employees by talking to, and working with (as a consultant), government employees. There's a certain bureaucratic counterproductivity that I've only ever encountered in government employees.

If that doesn't match your experience and government in your area is highly efficient and you wouldn't change a thing, that's great and I envy you, but it's not my experience at all.

[wolverine876]

> government in your area is highly efficient and you wouldn't change a thing

More strawperson hyberbole. Hyberbole expresses only emotion; it adds nothing and gives us nothing to talk about on the merits.

So, you're feeling frustrated? Angry?

[1letterunixname]

"Please insert your FriendlyCard to unlock the street in front of your house."

And toll turnpikes.

"Public-Private Partnerships" are neoliberal fantasies of privatized, for-profit monopolies performing government functions while taxing working people. Most often, there is some sort of corrupt and unethical favoritism and revolving door between government official(s) and the vendor corporation.