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SoullessAutomaton comments on Open Thread: May 2009 - Less Wrong
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Is there any evidence that massive systems are efficient no matter who is running them? Government-run utilities don't seem to do worse, and the USA health care system is demonstrably less efficient than many countries' public systems.
Can you give an example? All the government run utilities that come to mind are disasters. There are probably examples of government run utilities that are efficient but I'm having trouble thinking of any.
My local town provides unusually good garbage collection service. An attempt by the borough council to save money by hiring private contractors for garbage collection was met by many, many outraged people showing up to the council meeting to protest.
Efficient implies cost-effective: government run garbage collection might be a reasonably high quality service but come at an unreasonably high price. It sounds like cost concerns were the motivation for the change in your example.
The protesters made it very clear that they preferred to pay more for the higher level of service.
But since this is a government run monopoly they don't have that choice as individuals so instead they have to take political action.