Conservatives; why do you think profit driven private interests would do a better job than not for profit?

Question

government run interests in education, health care, etc?

Do you remember the excesses of big business regarding polluting our environment (all those superfund sites didn't come from nowhere), exploiting labor (child labor, excessive hours, discrimination) early last century?

Don't you see any conflict of interest with profit driven interests controlling health care and education?

Can you not envision abuses and inequities based on income levels?

What's your small government solution to these problems, assuming you don't want government oversight as well?

Booman; you evaded the question.

Johnny 2 times; Thanks for the answer. I understand about competitive markets but my question is more about the unavoidale abuse that private control would have on education and health care. Small gov proponents typically are even against gov oversight. See the problem?

Answer 1

Because private competition encourages companies to find ways to provide more of what people want while using fewer resources.

Also, profits provide information that a company is (at least temporarily) providing what consumers want, thus providing a signal to the market and increasing the flow of capital to companies that are most effectively and efficiently using their resources. (i.e. more people invest successful companies)

Contrarily, governments must rely on imperfect sources of information. They will typically make their decision based on which lobby can scream the loudest or gain the most journalistic coverage.
Typically, anything that the government controls will be performed less adequately using MORE resources than private enterprise.

Edit: There may indeed be some areas where government oversight or control may be needed. However, at present, the government is well beyond this thresh hold.

And regarding exploitation and environmental abuse, I think that may be a product of NOT ENOUGH private ownership. Think about the fact that we kill millions of cows (etc) every year, yet they never even come close to extinction. Why? Because private ownership has been established, and it is in the ranchers best interest to maintain some stable population level of his herd. Sure he could make alot of money this year by slaughtering his entire herd, but that would obviously be foolish. Ownership encourages conservation, for the sake of the owners own benefit.

Why would private control of health or education encourage abuse? Competition among medical providers would maintain a level of service that consumers desire to pay for, the same way it works for grocery stores.

We all need to eat, yet grocery stores are not burdoned by undue regulations forcing them to provide food by certain methods. According to your theory, lack of government oversight should have led to grocery stores selling rotten food to unsuspecting customers at always rising prices. However, in reality, we have seen fairly stable food prices, coupled with stable and very acceptable quality. This is a result of competition among grocers. We would see similar results by introducing competition into our education system, and by removing the government imposed limits on purchasing interstate health insurance coverage.

Answer 2

It's all about freedom. Government is the absence of freedom, therefore it must be limited.

Take government run schools for example: every year we spend more money on them, and every year they get worse. However, I am forced (taxes) to pay for a broken system. My freedom to send my children to a good school has been stolen from me. Only the rich have the freedom to send their kids to good private schools. The rest of us have no freedom.

Now you want the same system running our health care? That's retarded. The system will suck up tons of money and be a failure. The worst part is, we will be forced (taxes) to pay for that failure, even though it is a failure. Therefore we won't have enough money to pay for good health care (except the rich). Universal health care is one of the worst ideas in human history.

The only reason Wal-Mart has cheap prices is competition. If you eliminate competition, Wal-Mart prices would sky-rocket, and service would plummet. MONOPOLIES ARE BAD! Any 2nd grader will tell you that. How stupid do you have to be to be in favor of a government monopoly? Don't they teach any math or economics in school today?

We have replaced "give me liberty, or give me death" with "give me free stuff so we can stick it to those evil rich people". No foreign enemy can destroy us, but we are rapidly trying to destroy ourselves. Just say "no" to slavery, just say "no" to government monopolies.

Answer 3

Name one thing the government runs efficiently?