State universities are not always quite so insulated from either state bureaucracy or political influence.
Tell me about it... our universities have been brought to the ragged edge of dysfunction by a right-wing imbecile of a minister who insists on micro-managing everything.
There is a point to those americans saying that whatever the state touches, becomes inefficient, a perk and a political territory.
And this isn't true for the things corporations do?
It is of course true inasmuch as "inefficient" is taken to mean "catering to other purposes than blindly maximising profit." Which is the usual wingnut definition. As to whether public institutions are in general less efficient at fulfilling their roles in society... well, no, as public railways and utilities can attest.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Corporations do other kind of bad things, they don't do bureaucracy. Their goal is always the market and the profit, which is normal, their reason of existence, and which must be well regulated to avoid abuse (like insurance corporations refusing to reimburse people on pretexts).
OTOH state's role is to serve the society, and bureaucracy or political perks are NOT normal. Not the same thing.
As it happens, the private railways example is IMO an example of bad regulation, even though I tend to consider this a domain of public service and a strategic domain, and so I even wonder whether it should not be, as such, state property. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Corporations don't do bureaucracy? ROFLMAO! Oh, they certainly also do those other Bad Things you mention. But they sure do bureaucracy too... Yeah, it makes them less effective and hurts their bottom line, but that doesn't prevent them from doing it.
I agree with you that railways are a bad example, though, because you're right, they shouldn't be private. They were just the most obvious example I could think of off the top of my head of excessively bureaucratic private organisations vs. much more efficient public sector ones providing essentially the same services.
