The point is (and unlike in abstract game-theoretic models), agents on the market are always faced with intense competition. Cutting corners diminishes both the country’s reputation and its profitability. This is no small matter – profits in competitive markets tend towards zero; profit losses can be a serious blow to a company that utilises unscrupulous measures. By contrast, bureaucrats face no such constraints.

Bravo on the article.

As for your final and main point that private and government employees are affected with the same mentality, I’m not sure what you mean…that both operate according to personal motivations and incentives…if so, I agree

If I’m wrong, somebody please correct me.

The number of structurally deficient bridges in the US has decreased from 138,000 to a mere 78,000. The government is doing a great job!

http://www.bts.gov/current_topics/2007_08_02_bridge_data/html/bridges_us.html

No, this is not the same as the incentives operating on a market. For one thing, the higher ranking politicians are not the ones seen to blame for this – lower level administration is. It is true that politicians will tend to avoid disasters (what better way to milk the public dry?), but as Vich pointed out this is a short-range incentive. It stops no one from implementing catastrophic policies with long-range effects.

Don’t you see this as a kind of incentive? Please, tell me what you think.”

Well, Bush wasn’t exactly held accountable for 9/11 or the FEMA Katrina disaster, and FDR was not held accountable for Pearl Harbor. Not even the continuing Great Depression was enough to get FDR out of office. For the most part he had little difficulty ruling through what ended up as a lifetime appointment.

These two politicians are not alone in the fact that they benefited greatly from tragedies. Look at Rudy Giuliani, for instance. Tragedies are often a boon for politicians.

Also, if say, a politician may be aware of the fact that a certain policy could ultimately lead to tragedy, the policy may still benefit him greatly. In the case where the detrimental policy is politically expedient and the negative results are too far in the future to be pinned on the politician, what reason would the politician have to refrain from implementing the most disastrous of policies?

The election incentive is one that is weak at best.

Don’t you see this as a kind of incentive? Please, tell me what you think.

A part of me wishes for the day when the government successfully taxes away all labor and equity so it resides within their coffers and under their complete control; and when the Hurricans hit and the bridges fall, and the government prat falls, there will be no sector left to blame or assess. Pyrrhic victory to be sure but perhaps that is what it will take for people to finally wake up and see what is going on.

That more or less happened under war communism in Russian from 1918 – 1921. However, contrary to your suggestion, that did not cause the revolutionaries to realize, “Gee whiz, I guess this communism stuff doesn’t actually work.” Instead they said, “Gosh darn it, I guess we didn’t do this communism stuff right. Maybe we rushed into it too quickly? Well, don’t worry, we’ll try again.” And they went on trying for most of the remaining century.

Even when the USSR actually dissolved, it wasn’t the result of a massive collapse of their system. The dissolution of the USSR came after years of perestroika which had been giving Soviet enterprises more freedom than they had had before.

So, personally, I’m not looking forward to a complete collapse of American society due to government intervention because I don’t think that will help us.

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