Merijn Knibbe — Can water be non-neoliberal? The Dutch case

Dutch drinking water is despite the absence of the use of chlorine the best. According to Science. Look also here. And here is Wikipedia. The secret? Good maintenance (according De Volkskrant of today, no link). And state of the art purification (without chlorine). Also, Dutch water companies do not have to pay dividends. They are government owned companies at arms length of the bureaucrats. They do not have to pay dividends and have, therewith, the money as well as the long term orientation to care about their product. This is a conscious choice. According to Wikipedia (didn’t know this before preparing this blog, thank you mister Pronk): ‘In 2004 the Netherlands passed a law which prevents any privately owned company from providing drinking water services to the public‘.…

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Can water be non-neoliberal? The Dutch case
Merijn Knibbe

John Harvey — Why Government Should Not Be Run Like A Business

The idea that government should be run like a business is a popular one with both Republicans and, albeit to a lesser extent, Democrats. But this betrays a basic misunderstanding of the roles of the private and public sector. We should no more want the government to be run like a business than a business to be run like the government....
But while we might all grant that there are exceptions, the general question still stands: does it make sense to run government like a business? The short answer is no. Bear in mind, first, that “efficiency” in the private sector means profit. Hence, to ask that the government be run like a business is tantamount to asking that the government turn a profit. The problem in a nutshell, is that not everything that is profitable is of social value and not everything of social value is profitable.

Forbes | Pragmatic Economics
Why Government Should Not Be Run Like A Business
John T. Harvey | Professor of Economics, Texas Christian University