[frankish]

Isn't one of the key distinctions here that government does not have to be concerned about failing? Businesses can end or change something to survive. Government bureaucracy can keep protecting itself without having to face harsh realities.

[mezzie2]

There are plenty of businesses that aren't concerned with failing, particularly post 2008 and post COVID, and this is more likely the larger they are. Furthermore, there is little correlation between the business failing and adverse impacts for the people running it, which is similar to the government.

If you're very high up in a giant organization and the business fails, you have the network to land somewhere else - the COO of a 10,000+ employee company is not going to end up penniless working at Walmart. In an organization of that size, responsibility is so diffuse you just blame it on other people/departments/etc. and parachute away.

If you're a worker bee in an organization of that size, whether the business succeeds or fails doesn't have much correlation with your job security or performance.

I'd agree in a vacuum that in a capitalist society that would be a major difference, but post 2008, business leaders are well aware that the appetite for letting large businesses fail is not there. We'd lose too many jobs/the economic hit would be too large, and we'd rather prop up bad businesses to keep people employed than help low-level employees after their leaders run their businesses into the ground.