Published Thursday, July 26, 2007 by Ben O'Neill
Ben O'Neill examines the difference between private and public decision making. Government solicits the views of the relevant "stakeholders," identified by the bureaucracy. Who are these stakeholders? Why, they are the people and groups that have a stake in the decision of course. And when we say "a stake," we must be a little selective. After all, government spending is paid for, at least in part, by the myriad of taxes that are stolen from virtually every person in the population. And since we do not wish to take a complete census of the population, we must therefore limit ourselves to only some stakeholders, or more precisely, to those stakeholders who have the biggest stake in the decision.
(Original Text)
Why Government Can't Make Decisions Rationally (1.29 MB)