That’s largely because one half of the elected officials are dedicated to defunding and deconstructing government organizations, so they can then point at those same organizations and go “look, the government doesn’t work! We should stop funding it!” The government is actually great at organizing a lot of things. But they’re all so engrained in society that you don’t even think about them as being organized by the government. Systems that just work, reliably, all the time.
The government’s job is stability and reliability, not being as efficient as possible. Where a corporation may only have one person doing a job, the government will have four or five. Those people aren’t bloat; They’re on the payroll because the government is expected to keep functioning during emergencies. People would lose their minds if the streets department (responsible for clearing downed trees out of public roads) shut down after a bad storm rolled through, just because a few government employees had a tree branch fall on their house. What if firefighters stopped working because a local wildfire burnt a few firefighters’ houses? What if the city water department shut down because three or four city employees’ water supply was affected? What if the health department shut down during a pandemic?
The people who work in government also live in the same areas they serve. Which means that they are affected by the same emergencies. The government needs enough redundancy to be able to continue functioning, even after those employees are affected by the same emergencies as the general public. If some emergency affects 75% of the public in a given area, then 75% of the local government employees are likely going to be affected. So if the government doesn’t have enough redundancy to be able to redistribute the work, people will see their government shutting down in the wake of the emergency. And to make matters even worse, during (and in the wake of) those emergencies, people look to the government for help. Which means that’s the most critical time for the government to continue functioning.
I say all of this because the same is true for the infrastructure that runs critical government systems. The government expands and implements things slowly by design, because everything critical has to go through multiple levels of design approval, and have multiple redundancies built in. If the government has updated a critical system, I can guarantee that new system has been in the works for the past two years at least. That process is designed to ensure everything works as intended. I wouldn’t want my city traffic lights managed by a private company, because they’d try to cut costs and avoid building in redundant systems.
I wouldn’t want my city traffic lights managed by a private company, because they’d try to cut costs and avoid building in redundant systems.
While they aren’t run by private companies, the traffic lights at the entrances to most housing estates are procured and installed by the developer, at least in Australia. Without fail, about 12-24 months later, the red and green LED lights will have half a dozen or more dead pixels on them. Meanwhile, newer LED lights installed by the roads department are still going strong years later.
That’s largely because one half of the elected officials are dedicated to defunding and deconstructing government organizations, so they can then point at those same organizations and go “look, the government doesn’t work! We should stop funding it!” The government is actually great at organizing a lot of things. But they’re all so engrained in society that you don’t even think about them as being organized by the government. Systems that just work, reliably, all the time.
The government’s job is stability and reliability, not being as efficient as possible. Where a corporation may only have one person doing a job, the government will have four or five. Those people aren’t bloat; They’re on the payroll because the government is expected to keep functioning during emergencies. People would lose their minds if the streets department (responsible for clearing downed trees out of public roads) shut down after a bad storm rolled through, just because a few government employees had a tree branch fall on their house. What if firefighters stopped working because a local wildfire burnt a few firefighters’ houses? What if the city water department shut down because three or four city employees’ water supply was affected? What if the health department shut down during a pandemic?
The people who work in government also live in the same areas they serve. Which means that they are affected by the same emergencies. The government needs enough redundancy to be able to continue functioning, even after those employees are affected by the same emergencies as the general public. If some emergency affects 75% of the public in a given area, then 75% of the local government employees are likely going to be affected. So if the government doesn’t have enough redundancy to be able to redistribute the work, people will see their government shutting down in the wake of the emergency. And to make matters even worse, during (and in the wake of) those emergencies, people look to the government for help. Which means that’s the most critical time for the government to continue functioning.
I say all of this because the same is true for the infrastructure that runs critical government systems. The government expands and implements things slowly by design, because everything critical has to go through multiple levels of design approval, and have multiple redundancies built in. If the government has updated a critical system, I can guarantee that new system has been in the works for the past two years at least. That process is designed to ensure everything works as intended. I wouldn’t want my city traffic lights managed by a private company, because they’d try to cut costs and avoid building in redundant systems.
While they aren’t run by private companies, the traffic lights at the entrances to most housing estates are procured and installed by the developer, at least in Australia. Without fail, about 12-24 months later, the red and green LED lights will have half a dozen or more dead pixels on them. Meanwhile, newer LED lights installed by the roads department are still going strong years later.