We see government waste when the Pentagon buys $600 toilet seats. Why don’t we see corporate theft in that same picture? The excess profit, after all, does not go to greedy government clerks. The money goes to greedy defense contractors. They, not “the government,” enjoy the spending of it.
Why should wasting our money disturb us less than stealing our money? The difference is that we expect Halliburton to steal. We consider it natural and even desirable — under economic theory dreamed up by economists in the employ of the mob.
We demand higher standards of the government, though, and reserve the whole of our outrage not for the criminal, but for the victim. What corporate defense contractors do is just business, we say. But if we lost $600 in a mugging, we wouldn’t say, “Well, what more can you expect? That’s just crime as usual.”
Supposedly, the Obama administration is reversing the expensive outsourcing that's become the norm. Of course, as you said, there'll be a hue and cry over increasing the number of government employees because denouncers don't consider the overall reduced cost of not passing work and projects along to some politically anointed contractor.
Posted by: Joyful Alternative on September 9, 2009 1:10 AM