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Comment by mise_en_place | Hacker News Reader

It's crazy how much power government bureaucrats have. They can instantly ruin someone's life if they want to. They're unelected and leech off of the taxpayer as well. Our government should be run like a public, for-profit corporation, with each taxpayer as shareholder.

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The government is not a corporation. It most certainly should not be driven by profit. It exists to deliver value and do things that no private corporation would do, and to be a check on corporate power.

> It most certainly should not be driven by profit.

Stop right there, because it currently is.

Where do we go from here, is the question?

Ah yes, the super profitable US government that still finds itself trillions of dollars in debt

> Ah yes, the super profitable US government that still finds itself trillions of dollars in debt

Can't believe I have to spell this out, but am happy to — it's the individuals making it up who are benefitting...obviously the organization has not been benefiting/improving from good leadership for some time.

Because large private corporations are well known for never ruining an individual's life. This is satire, right?

It's honestly mad that people still believe governments should be run like for-profit corporations. Like, properly insane.

They find divisions between us that won't be reconciled, then tell us they'll deal with the people we don't like. Democracy has pathologies that people don't appreciate, especially at a national level.

Genius! I wonder how that would look....

Perhaps we should model it after insurance companies. Those guys are great at ruining peoples lives on a whim. And no one has ever once complained about insurance paperwork (at least in your fantasy land this is true i bet).

Or maybe we should model it after agricultural giants. Monsanto would be a good model, they've never done anything to hurt millions of people nor have they ever converided up any evidence that they intentionally ignored the issues their products could cause.

Perhaps you're thinking more in the tech space - this is HN after all. Facebook could serve as inspiration - the idea that they would push propaganda and surveil you in ways that the government wouldn't even think of is just nonsense right?

To prevent leeching we could hire the best hedge fund managers like bernie madoff and the best financial architects out there - accenture (formerly arthur anderson).

Point being, structuring things like a corporation does exactly what? Sure accuse me of cherry-picking but I have backups and backup-backup examples for each one I've named.

So anyway - for your amazing idea, please tell me how:

* this company would make money?

* one share per person == one vote per person, so how does that change things?

* do you handle citizenship changes? A buyback?

* do you handle new people being born? Dilute my shares?

* does this reduce absurd policies from idiots at the top?

yes because corporates are pillars of freedom, security and honesty right?

They can go out of business at least and not be a burden to the public anymore. I think the point of the comment was there would be some accountability being for-profit or at least a metric that the bureaucracy is performing correctly. I dont agree with this notion but I wont resort to attacking him like a rabid dog for suggesting such a thing like all the responses seem to do.

Yeah I get this notion too.

Given the relative difference in size and complexity of structure, there is a vast power imbalance between the state and the citizen. There needs to be much more accountability.

agreed, but mega corps aren't really the peak of accountability. i'd argue that a panchayat (local self govt in India) is far more accountable and transparent (tho still far from perfect, and having real problems too) than amazon.

People calling out the poster for presenting an ill thought out, old and long debunked idea is "attacking like a rabid dog"?

not if they are a monopoly. that only leads to crap service. the state-company will be a monopoly. what's the guarantee that a state-company won't instantly ban all competition in every industry? oh they will be elected you say? guess who's making the voting machines.

thats why I often say real democracy and republics stop existing shortly after creation.

They always descend into some sort of plutocracy where you can buy politicians loyalty or a dictatorship.

for example: america - plutocracy, russia - dictatorship

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