In the last couple decades, it’s the vogue thing in politics to say the U.S. government should be run like a business — hence the rise of CEOs and other businesspeople within elected offices.
Here’s the thing: The government is not supposed to run like a business.
Businesses are designed to sell a product to a consumer with the express purpose of turning a profit that benefits a select handful of people, like the CEO and corporate shareholders.
Governments are designed to manage the resources and laws of a nation full of disparate individuals and groups, with the express purpose of supporting everyone in the nation (though sometimes to varying degrees).
Businesses only see a person’s worth in terms of productivity and asks, what can that person do to benefit the business?
Governments see that every person within its country’s borders has worth and asks, how can government benefit the people?
A business has no need nor any desire to ensure that children receive an education, that retirees don’t up end destitute on the streets, or that disabled individuals have access to health care. A business doesn’t care if your neighborhood roads are passable, or if you have local parks to play in, or if you’re being protected from crime.
But a government has a vested interest in all of these things, because government has a vested interest in us — that is why we have government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Yes, there are flaws in our government systems: they sometimes benefit certain people or groups over others, they can be inefficient and cumbersome, and they sometimes overreach. Are there things government can do better? Of course. There is always room for improvement.
But imagine if we really ran the country like a business:
There would be no Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, supplemental nutrition assistance, children’s health insurance, veterans’ benefits, unemployment, and more.
A business has no use for people who can’t produce a product or provide labor; such people cut into a business’s bottom line, and providing for them in any way would be considered an unnecessary expense. It wouldn’t matter that they were once productive, or that they have the potential to be productive; in this moment, they cannot produce value for a business, therefore they are not worth the investment.
There would be no national infrastructure system, no safeguards to protect the environment, no regulations to protect consumers.
A business’s sole function is to profit itself, so it’s not going to spend money on infrastructure that supports the competition, it’s not going to curtail its own endeavors to protect the environment, and it’s not going to care about doing what’s in the public’s best interest as long as what it’s doing now is making money.
There would be no national parks, no post office, no arts grants. None of these things generate revenue, but they aren’t supposed to. They exist to make our lives better, not to make money.
We’re getting a glimpse of what happens when a government is run like a business: Right now, there are two businessmen at the helm of our nation, and they are slashing services and departments — and all the people who work in them — that don’t benefit them personally. They are focusing on the bodies in charge of regulating business — the ones that protect the public against businesses’ self-serving actions — and the ones that serve the public interest but that don’t generate revenue the way a business would want.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is raking in federal contracts and his DOGE has received tens of millions in taxpayer dollars for its endeavors, and Donald Trump has spent just as much in tax dollars so he can attend events and play golf at Mar-a-Lago.
A government, for better or worse, is designed to serve all a country’s people, as equally and equitably as possible. A business is designed to serve a handful of stakeholders, even to the detriment of other people.
That is why a government should never be run like a business.
J. Nelson - Writer 