Yes, I'm quite familiar with the right-wing dogma behind the talking point. It is highly naive, at best. It misses at least two important realities:
lol, "right wing dogma". Apparently you've never been to an economics class? Beyond the "duh, water is wet, competition drives improvement" aspect, I can provide links to many studies that conclusively show that competition drives increased efficiency, not just in small companies, but also in large ones. Surely you have data and facts to back up your contention that such a notion is "naive at best" right?
You seriously want to argue that without competition from Samsung, Apple would have the same product improvements? (and Samsung without Apple would be the same?). You seriously want people to believe that without competition there would be as much incentive to improve on the product?
1. Competition is overrated as a driver of efficiency and improvement, especially in larger organizations.
And your basis for this knowledge is....? This
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...sCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false says differently. Granted, the research was done in the UK, but there is no reason to assume it doesn't apply in the US as well. Also, someone should tell The Economist that their "right wing dogma" theory on
the link between competition and innovation is completely wrong
http://forums.anandtech.com/“...ou can take business from is yourself?” . Nice quote from that one:
“what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself?”
Why the heck would you spend a lot of resources on innovation or efficiency when the customer is already captive and has no other options?
First, there are other, often easier ways to handle competition (e.g., buy them, use deep pockets to drive them out of business, bury them in court, legislative changes, etc.)
Large organizations with deep pockets have to compete against others in the marketplace that also include similar deep pockets. As long as there is competition in a marketplace, everyone faces competition, so no, there are not "easier ways to handle competition" in a competitive marketplace. All participants are driven to get more efficient and innovate, or they will get pushed out of the market (or to extinction) by those that do.
Second, while competitive pressures may ideally drive executives, the workers (including low- and mid-level managers) are driven by their paycheck. There is usually no more than a weak, indirect connection between external competition and their paychecks, so their main drivers are more mundane things like workloads and staying out of trouble. There are exceptions, of course, examples where company leaders really drive that connection down to the ranks. They are exceptions, however.
Again, completely delusional. Have you ever worked in a large company? Leadership sets the direction, and puts in place policies to get them in that direction - which includes training, compensation etc. Leadership has a strong incentive to have the business be successful, and that will be reflected in their decisions that drive the activities of the business. Without the buy-in from associates, the business goes nowhere.
2. It is a right-wing myth that government workers feel little pressure to perform well and be efficient.
Yeah, "logic" is a "right wing myth" apparently
First, most government agencies feel tremendous budget pressure.
No more so than their private sector counterparts. In fact, less so because <gasp> there is no competition and 'customers' can't go to another 'provider' if you don't get the job done to their satisfaction.
While they may not have a competitor nipping at their heels, they do have a Congress or legislature that won't provide full funding.
lol, Congress and their hyper vigilance will drive efficiency. We all know how tremendously vigilant Congress is with spending levels! Now there's a good one. Can you say that with a straight face?
Government workers are usually under pressure to do more with less, just like their private sector peers.
Again, no more so than their private sector peers. No difference... except private sectors have to worry about losing their job when customers go to their competition if they are unhappy.
Second, government workers are largely motivated by the same drivers as private workers, things like workloads and staying out of trouble.
With one CRITICAL problem: the feedback loop is, to a large extent, broken. Customers voting with their wallet and heading to the competition is the feedback loop that companies use. It drives them to do things to avoid losing customers and to gain new ones. Since government doesn't have the threat of competition, there is very little in terms of a feedback loop, and there is no need to deliver a better product to win over customers.
Regardless of simplistic theories about competition being a magic driver
I look forward to seeing all that evidence supporting your theories that competition doesn't actually drive efficiency, innovation and improvements. This oughta be good!
I'm challenging the simple-minded dogma that government is automatically less efficient and more incompetent than the private sector.
Again that "simple-minded dogma" = "logic". Absent competition, any organization (not just government) will tend to be less efficient and innovate less, because there is less incentive to do so.
My challenge is your insinuation that this is because it's government.
Reading comprehension fail. I did not say they got hacked because it's government, as private companies get hacked as well. My point was that if private companies get hacked, government agencies are most certainly going to be in even more danger as they are even slower to react to the market and are even less efficient.
The next step is to understand that competition isn't nearly the magical driver that you've been trained to believe. It's a simple theory that works much better on paper than it does in the real world.
Again, looking forward to all the evidence supporting your "competition doesn't drive innovation, efficiency or customer service" theories.
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