As the 2024 presidential election continues to heat up, I am reminded of the old refrain proffered by the Republicans, and usually to support the reason former President Donald Trump should be reelected to a second, nonconsecutive term. That refrain being that “we need a businessman as president since government should be run like a business.”
This notion didn’t start with Trump. It’s been a refrain used by the Republican Party in one form or another for my entire lifetime.
As the picture that opens this post points out, government cannot be run like a private business enterprise because government is often relied upon to perform tasks too big for any business enterprise to be able to profit from.
Business enterprises have to generate profits to survive and thrive. Government’s job is to create the conditions that support an economy robust enough for businesses to thrive in. Government is the issuer of the currency that businesses need to operate and seek to accumulate in order to build the aforementioned profits needed to survive and thrive. Government should never seek to make a profit.
Whether publicly traded or privately held, businesses have shareholders and stakeholders to answer to. Government has to answer to the people. Republicans and conservatives will argue that the people of this country ARE the shareholders and stakeholders, and that isn’t entirely wrong. However, the businesses that operate in a given country are just as dependent upon the government as the people are, and that is the fundamental difference between government and business.
I understand the rationale behind the idea of government being run like a business. Successful businesses are incredibly efficient. People understandably want their government to be as efficient as a successful business. However, going back to the fundamental differences between government and business, the latter is not much different than us individuals constituents. Again, business is just as dependent upon government as individuals citizens are, and both pay taxes to the government.
Another reason for this notion is the empirical experience we all have with waiting in long lines at government offices such as the DMV (department of motor vehicle) just to renew our licenses. Government agencies at all levels are creating more efficient ways to provide services to people. Automated kiosks and taking routine services online make the long lines at places like the DMV unnecessary these days. I recently renewed my vehicle registration using an automated kiosk. It only took five minutes and I didn’t have to wait in line to see a person for such a mundane and routine task.
The point of my comparative analogy is to illustrate that efficiency in government and efficiency in business can certainly look the same. Amazon is as successful as it is because like government agencies creating online services, Amazon was amongst the first and most successful companies at leveraging the internet to optimize their services by eliminating the overhead costs associated with maintaining brick and mortar retail spaces. Amazon’s competitors are still scrambling to emulate what the company perfected.
However, as efficient as Amazon is, Amazon can’t put a man on the moon, build a nuclear weapons arsenal, build a powerful military capable of projecting power anywhere in the world on short notice, or bailout businesses that are “too big to fail.”
While Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX can launch satellites and may one day build spacecraft capable of interplanetary travel, they wouldn’t exist without government funding. Government is their largest customer and largest source of revenue. “Government as a consumer” or purchaser of goods from the private sector is codified in law and is meant to leverage the efficiencies of private enterprise. It’s “Amazon in reverse,” so to speak. Government reduces its own overhead and support the economy by purchasing goods and services from private businesses. This has been true for a very long time. Most notably within the Department of Defense.
The notion of running government like a business is a very misleading and misguided campaign slogan. Government can never be run like a business. It is analogous to asking business to finance and fight the next war. There are simply tasks too big for any private-sector business to take on, much less accomplish.
-The Rational Ram
The Rational Ram 
Once the government turned into a business of being a user and producer of tax payers moneys, it now needs to be run like a business. Too much corruption, no accountability and basically poor management of the programs and money involved. It is a business, very much so right now. A lot of money exchanging hands and products being bought and sold as well as people being bought to influence law.
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Interesting perspective. However, the government is not just a user (read: consumer). They are the issuer of the money that taxpayers earn. The government provides the currency and taxpayer and the companies that they work for or own provide the real value of their labor and products. An economy is driven by the ability of a nation’s workers and private businesses to produce. The dynamic you describe is not the dynamic we live within. Of course, your point is based upon conventional thinking. Unfortunately, most of us don’t truly understand how economies actually function, especially in a capitalist society. I highly recommend reading the works of economists like Warren Mosler and John Maynard Keynes. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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