27 Jun 2011
Government and Efficiency
“Government has no competition to force efficiency, and in fact has many influences on operations that preclude efficiency. “Investments” in public-sector growth inevitably produce less than similar investment in the private sector. The profit motive and competition forces efficiency in the latter, while both are absent in the former. Transferring capital from the private to the public sector guarantees a lower rate of production. That is one reason the founders attempted to limit the federal government’s jurisdiction, so that capital could only be seized for those purposes that only government could reasonably accomplish — field an army, a navy, conduct foreign policy, and limit responsibility to only those public works that relate to the federal government’s jurisdictions.”
–Ed Morrissey
(on February 8, 2011)