When problems with social security, health care, airport security or other national issues come up, many people say that we can’t trust them to private companies. They say government must take this over so that we can trust it will be done right.
Even though we all know of the $1000 toilet seat that the government buys and have experienced the DMV and the post office it would seem that people still trust government most to solve problems. From what I have gathered from discussing this with many different people, they trust government because they feel they have some control through the election process.
The government is just a bunch of people, just like any other company. We feel we have little control or oversight over private companies. On the other hand since we elect government officials, we feel we have quite a bit of control and therefore oversight over government actions. Though the government has oversight over business WE have oversight over government through electing its officials.
There is a little problem with this. If you think you have much control or over government agencies through the election process you may be in for a depressing surprise. By the governments own account there are “nearly 2 million civilian employees” in the federal government, not including the postal employees. Government documents from 1995 put the number of elected officials of the federal government at 542, which shouldn’t have changed much if at all today. Here is how it breaks down.
“The Federal elected officials includes the 540 members of Congress: 100 Senators, 435 Representatives, a resident commissioner from Puerto Rico, and 1 delegate each from the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. Also included under other elected officials are the President and the Vice President…”
If every one of them brought in 100 of their own people and let 100 of their predecessor’s people go (the number is probably more like 10 or 20 but I’m not really sure) we would only be changing just over fifty thousand of the two million people in our ELECTED government. We control less than 3% (probably a lot less) of the federal government through elections. Not much control or oversight.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that your vote isn’t worth anything. Your vote can change the general direction of the government, judicial appointments, taxation, some spending priorities and some other things.
The people we elect do hold oversight committees on important government agencies. How much control would you feel you have over a company or a group of people if you had a meeting with them once or twice a year or for that matter even once a month*. Does anyone reading this, that works for almost any size company, only see their boss every four weeks or less.
Our control and oversight of government agencies is an illusion. Our trust in these agencies should be limited to our faith in them functioning without any direct oversight by the American people. This may be the best explanation for the $1000 toilet seats and the efficiency of the DMV or the post office.
This is an argument I’ve never encountered…very provocative…
Comment by jeremiasx — February 11, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
People don’t trust private companies because of things like the Enron scandal. After that, I think they’re entirely justified. I’m not saying they should trust the government either, FWIW.
Also, we vote for the people who are in charge of those 2 million people, just like shareholders vote for members of the board, not middle management. So, it’s just a really, really big company in a sense, which makes sense given its mission.
Oh yeah, and representation is not proportionate to wealth. Oh yeah, maybe that’s why many people don’t want to hand everything to private industry.
Comment by dolan — February 18, 2007 @ 6:15 pm