Skip to content

Steve Frisch: “It’s Time to Kill This Tired Old Cliche That Government Should Run Like a Business”

Steve Frisch: “It’s Time to Kill This Tired Old Cliche That Government Should Run Like a Business”

March 29, 2017 SVadmin Comments 0 Comment

By SteveFrisch

Editor’s Note: Steve Frisch offered the following comments on his Facebook page in response to the article linked below, about Trump’s appointment of his son-in-law Jared Kushner to a “swat team to fix government with business ideas”

So I don’t think it’s a terrible idea to create an office to advance innovation in government. How we approach issues and how government provides services should always be getting a fresh look.

I am profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of putting someone in charge who has absolutely no experience in government, and whose success in business was inherited, reporting directly to someone else with equally no experience in government.

Government and business are not the same thing.

Government does the stuff business can’t do or won’t do because there is no profit in it, or the profits to be realized in it have such a long return on investment that the private sector won’t invest in it. The purpose of business is to maximize profit (much to my chagrin) and serving all of the people does not necessarily maximize profit.

Add to that the fallacy of the basic concept that competition inherently provides lower costs and higher efficiency. That concept has been disproved time and time again, in certain areas of investment. Sometimes it just provides an advantage for profit making businesses.

Let’s just take the example of pharmaceuticals. Costs are higher in the US with a basically unregulated market than they are in any other developed nation on earth, largely because government refuses to play the role of negotiating prices and centralizing supply.

Some things are simply so costly that the only way to provide them is for government to take on the burden. Infrastructure, basic research, national defense, and governance itself are prime examples.

The purpose of government as defined in our Constitution is to ‘promote the general welfare.” If one breaks that down based on the meaning of the words, it means, “to support or actively encourage advancements for most or all of the people that improve health, happiness or fortune.”

In essence business, with a mandate to maximize profits to shareholders, and government, with a mandate to promote the general welfare, have sometimes diametrically opposed objectives that are often in competition with each other….that is why we have governments, because what is good for GM is not necessarily what is good for the country.

The idea that reforming government to be like a business also ignores a basic reality of government itself, which Trump just learned by getting his ass handed to him over health care; government is inherently about collaboration between interests to get the best possible deal. Henry Paulson famously said, “You succeed in Washington by collaborating.” Business may be increasingly about collaboration but that ethic has not reached the board room yet; in the board room business is about making decision that affect shareholder value.

Finally this gets down to one basic truth, that not everything that is profitable is of social value and not everything of social value is profitable. Kim Kardashian is profitable but has low social value (I would argue the same of The Apprentice). Research has high social value but low profit. There is no worse place to be in business than “the first” one who pioneers a new idea or technology. They bear all the development cost and have to share the profit.

It’s time to kill this tired old cliche that government should run like a business. What we really mean is that government should run efficiently, should provide value, and should promote the general welfare.

There is no worse way to get to that ideal than to give the reins to a guy whose sole qualification for digging into the issue is running his parents real estate fortune.

If one is serious about governing one puts seasoned professional with a track record in the area of expertise being addressed in position of management authority.

Trump taps Kushner to lead a SWAT team to fix government with business ideas

Steve_FrischSteve Frisch is President of Sierra Business Council and one of its founding members. Over the last 20 years Sierra Business Council has leveraged more than $100 million of investment in the Sierra Nevada and its communities through community and public-private partnerships.  Sierra Business Council also manages the Sierra Small Business Development Center focusing on advancing sustainable business practices and linking new and expanding businesses to climate mitigation and adaptation funding. Steve manages SBC’s staff and programmatic development.

Prior to joining the Sierra Business Council, Steve owned and operated a small business in Truckee. Steve serves on the board of the California Stewardship Network, the Large Landscape Practitioners Network, the National Geographic Geo-tourism Council, Capital Public Radio, and Leadership For Jobs and a New Economy.  Steve is also a former Fulbright Exchange Program Fellow, sharing information and knowledge gained in the Sierra Nevada in China and Mongolia.  Steve is a graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.A. in Political Science.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Articles, Economics, Politics

Post navigation

PREVIOUS
Yubanet to Livestream NID Board Meeting Wed 3/21/17 9 AM
NEXT
Democrats – Lemmings in Search of a Cliff: Why You Shouldn’t Bet the Ranch on 2018

Join Our Mailing List

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

“Everlasting Arms”

Subscribe to Sierra Voices Journal

DONATE TO THE FOOD BANK OF NEVADA COUNTY

(CLICK IMAGE)

DONATE TO NEVADA COUNTY RELIEF FUND (click image below)

Jack Kornfield: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part I)

Erika Lewis, Shaye Cohn, Craig Flory – Got A Mind To Ramble

Tara Brach: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part II)

Recent Posts

  • Playing for Change
  • Like the Nazis & Fascists, the Republican Party Must Be Purged
  • “Blues Jam From Around the World” (Wonderful Six-Country Musical Collaboration)
  • What is mRNA? The messenger molecule that’s been in every living cell for billions of years is the key ingredient in some COVID-19 vaccines
  • How worried should you be about coronavirus variants? A virologist explains his concerns

Recent Comments

  • Hannah Flack on Is The Internet An Amplifier Of Crackpottery (Anti-Agenda 21, UN World Domination, Chemtrails …)?
  • STASIA KENNEDY on Have You Done the “Great Thing” You Dreamed of Doing With Your Life?
  • Board of Supervisors Tables COVID-19 Resolution Widely Misunderstood By Nevada County Residents on Comments by Eric Robins to Board of Supervisors Concerning “Open Nevada County” Resolution
  • Douglas Keachie on The Most Urgent Issue in U.S. Politics is Not Biden or Trump, Not Who is President This Time
  • The Most Important Issue in US Politics is Not Biden or Trump, or Even Who is President This Time on How to stop an Insurrection Caucus: These reforms could reduce GOP extremism and save our democracy

Archives

  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Aging
  • Anti-Depressant
  • Articles
  • Atlas Obscura
  • Authoritarianism
  • Black Lives
  • Black Lives Matter
  • Blog
  • Buddhism
  • Buskers
  • Capitalism
  • Cartoon
  • China
  • Climate Change
  • Constitution
  • Corona Virus
  • Corruption
  • Cosmology
  • COVID-19
  • Democracy
  • Depression
  • Disenfranchisement
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Election Fraud
  • Environment
  • Extinction
  • Farming
  • Fascism
  • Filibuster
  • Fire!
  • Food Insecurity
  • Foreign Policy
  • Forest Management
  • Fracking
  • Gardening
  • Gender
  • GOP
  • Health Care
  • High Country News
  • History
  • Humor
  • Hunger
  • Ignorance
  • Immigration
  • Insects
  • Labor
  • Local
  • Masks
  • Medical Care
  • Men
  • Mental Health
  • Middle Class
  • Mining
  • MMT
  • Modern Monetary Theory
  • Music
  • Native Americans
  • New Cold War
  • Nutrition
  • Oligarchy
  • Pandemic
  • Parenting
  • Physics
  • Poetry
  • Police
  • Politics
  • Populism
  • Press
  • Race
  • Reviews
  • Revolution
  • Right-wing terrorism
  • Rise Gold
  • Rivers
  • Romance
  • Russiagate
  • Science
  • Summer
  • Technology
  • Trump Virus
  • Tuba Skinny
  • Tyranny
  • Uncategorized
  • Vaccine Refusal
  • Vaccine Safety
  • Voting
  • War
  • War on Government
  • Water
  • Watersheds
  • Wildfires
  • Winter
  • Work

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2021   All Rights Reserved.