OPINION:
Critics of libertarianism often take a wise and worldly tone as they hold forth on the limitations of free markets. They sound quite reasonable as they explain why the market can’t provide this service or that one for reasons spanning a familiar range, from “it’s just not practical” or not “safe” or would require “perfect people” to work.
The odd thing is that despite the popularity of these anti-market views, the idea that private businesses are more efficient still persists, even within the hallowed halls of government itself. However, we see [“GPO profits go to bonuses and trips,” The Washington Times, March 27] that when clueless bureaucrats actually try to harness these free market efficiencies, the results can be grotesque.
How else to explain the Government Printing Office, “which is a monopoly printer for the U.S. government” racking up $100 million in profits and handing out large bonuses “under the assumption that a private-sector business model is more efficient”?
Think about it. A government agency is “playing at” being a for-profit entity. But why? If a private business would be better, then why not abolish the GPO and contract out the work to real private firms? For whatever reason, apparently no one thought of that, and instead tried, essentially, to put lipstick on a pig.
The point is that free markets don’t work that way. A government monopoly agency does not suffer the risks of the marketplace. This profit and bonus plan brought the rewards of success in the marketplace when those rewards hadn’t been earned. This shows a total lack of understanding of why the private sector is more efficient.
You can’t just skip the risk-taking and entrepreneurial aspects of building a business and pretend you really added any value to the process just because the State Department overpaid you. That’s putting the cart before the horse.
As I think about it, this backward thinking reminds me of when education faddists observed that successful high school students had high self-esteem, and concluded they would just teach self-esteem directly, figuring the self-esteem caused the high achievement.
It was apparently too simple and too inconvenient for them to realize that the high achievements led to the high self-esteem, even though it seems like something they should have considered.
These GPO people used the same logic, thinking the handing out of rewards — by itself — automatically caused good work to be done.
Wrong. It’s time we realized freedom isn’t something you dabble in, with government agencies like the GPO, and it isn’t something you add an office for, like the “Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties” within the Department of Homeland Security. Securing our unalienable rights is the very reason governments are instituted among men.
THOMAS H. DESABLA
Libertarian commentator/analyst
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