The situation is not as black-and-white. The private sector is more efficient in some cases, but that doesn't mean _everything_ should be privatized.
A trip to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) will probably leave anyone with the impression that government offices are dens of inefficiency and bureaucracy. And that may as well be.
I think the sweet spot lies in the middle. There is no reason, for example, for the government to put a (say) landscaper on its payroll to maintain a public park. The overhead of a FT government employee is just too much; the job can be done well by a myriad of private companies. Same goes with bus drivers, janitors, painters, etc.
If the job requires domain knowledge and other such intangibles, then it usually can't be outsourced. This is why many IT projects designed to "upgrade" or replace existing IT systems at government agencies suffer: there are a lot of intangibles that just can't be all laid out on the contract form.
Comments
The situation is not as black-and-white. The private sector is more efficient in some cases, but that doesn't mean _everything_ should be privatized.
A trip to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) will probably leave anyone with the impression that government offices are dens of inefficiency and bureaucracy. And that may as well be.
I think the sweet spot lies in the middle. There is no reason, for example, for the government to put a (say) landscaper on its payroll to maintain a public park. The overhead of a FT government employee is just too much; the job can be done well by a myriad of private companies. Same goes with bus drivers, janitors, painters, etc.
If the job requires domain knowledge and other such intangibles, then it usually can't be outsourced. This is why many IT projects designed to "upgrade" or replace existing IT systems at government agencies suffer: there are a lot of intangibles that just can't be all laid out on the contract form.