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Procuring goods and services through the market, hiring non-government/civil service managers, introducing forms of competition, changing perverse incentives - all these can be implemented in government-run organisations to capture efficiency and productivity gains without resorting to selling them. Especially when they make a profit. The record of corporatising government services does not have a good record. Bringing in outside management does not eliminate the perverse incentives that exist, it only presents them to a whole new group of rational beings that will act in their own self interest. The government is also in conflict - where is the moral authority for state owned enterprises to make profit? Since the legitimacy of state owned organisations is based on the provision of essential services in areas of market failure, there should be no way for these organisations to make profit. If there were, the market would step in and supply those goods and services, and there would be no market failure for the state to correct. Why as a tax payer am I not entitled to believe that when I pay taxes, I am paying for government services already. Why should I pay again when those services are delivered? Should my taxes not be reduced if I am going to have pay for government services? This is the minefield you enter when you advocate state owned corporations.
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