New Government

Lately, I have had this idea in my head: that governments are nothing more than big businesses, and should be treated as such. And, they should behave as big businesses. The U.S. Government is the largest employer in the country (Wal-Mart being the second largest). The U.S. government is just a big company whose job it is to...well, to govern. They make sure the roads are paved, the enemies stay out, and their job is (or at least should be) to provide a great service to its customers: you and me. We pay a subscription fee (aka "taxes") to live here and take advantage of their services, in the same way that you pay your cable company to enjoy their services, or you pay a membership fee to Sam's Club to take advantage of their company's offerings.

Which brings me to my second realization along this line of thinking. When I think of the U.S. government, I think of a bloated, money-sucking organization which gets bigger and bigger each year, requiring more and more money to operate, but getting no more efficient along the same timeline. This is common among large corporations. But, there comes a point when -- as a survival mechanism -- they must hemorrhage their faulty or inefficient ingredients the way a hot-air ballon loses its sandbags in order to fly. Large organizations must innovate; must change in order to meet the needs of their customers.

So, in my thinking, what the U.S. government lacks is competition. Not competition from other countries (though there is a clear point to be made that, yes, you can enjoy freedoms in Canada, or Denmark, or France, even Cuba, that you cannot find here, and can choose to move to one of those places). What I mean is that there is not an OTHER government you can sign up for here. In other words, the U.S. government is a monopoly. And the power that the government does have has been given to it by the people. We say the government can do as it pleases because we will let it do so, unchecked by us mostly. Its checks-and-balances system exists only within itself. This is the common problem of "who polices the police?" In the corporate sector, this process is built into the free market. Competition checks itself.

Poltical parties are the 'brands' in the market of politics. What brand of politics do you commit your life to? The choices are more limited than they are in the free market. We have dozens of brands of ketchup, but only two notable brands (re: dogmas) of politics.

If America is the epitome of Capitalism, we should be able to sign up for our choice of government, the way you may be able to choose a cellphone provider, or cable company. Would this be privatization gone awry? Discuss....