This highlights one of the big problems with liberal democracies - how do you provide efficient (and even innovative) public services? There is no free market for many public services like water (and where there is I’m all for privatisation). But the people (I am in the UK) do not tend to elect a government on its ability to manage these types of services. I do wonder if there some other structure that blends a not for profit ethos with employee ownership and just enough competition…

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alephnerd 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I do wonder if there some other structure that blends a not for profit ethos with employee ownership and just enough competition

Legislate that certain public services are to only be managed and administered by the civil service managed and autonomous statutory boards. That's probably the easiest thing to do in a parliamentary system like the UK. Sort of like a "Water Management Board".

Not every function in a democracy needs to be democratic in nature.

Heck, this is how the UK managed colonial territories like Singapore and HK with the civil service run HDBs, and how a lot of the UK was run before Thatcher's privatization.

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e-khadem 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is the classic answer to these problems, but I think these "non-profits" and "civil managements" are inherently problematic.

Let's say that John Doe is a very accomplished visionary individual, and has quite a few revolutionary good ideas around improving the water system. Obviously Mr. Doe needed lots of lab equipment to gain experience and insight into these systems, and realistically needs a lot more if he wants to live to his full potential and benefit the public. He is determined to work towards the greater good, but also needs a lot more power [than the average citizen] to test his ideas.

Therefore in order to [be able to] accept this role, he has to be well-compensated (as a one in the world person). Therefore the payment package must look a lot more like the CEO compensation or a high-end management position, which is contrary to the idea of civil management.

Said differently, money can be a good proxy of the power to bring about changes, and if we truly want to try radical ideas (as we should in challenging problems), we need powerful individuals that can risk [their own fortune of course], not committees of less powerful people best suited for maintaining the status quo. In other words, the average citizen is much too risk averse to accept (or approve the payment package of) John in this position, and this can lead to stagnation.

I believe a better way to manage these systems that simultaneously protects the public from adverse incentives and allows high risk high reward behaviour is a middle ground. For example a risk averse non-profit for day to day operations + prize systems + modest (not too big) government-run research facilities.

Fundamentally speaking, there is always a risk / reward tradeoff, and I believe the current society is too conservative and is missing out a lot of opportunities (compared to let's say the cold war or WW2 era). We need to somehow rebalance this scale to live near a better operating point.

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alephnerd 4 days ago | parent [-]

> but I think these "non-profits" and "civil managements" are inherently problematic.

I'm not talking about "non-profits" or NGOs. I'm talking about legislating autonomous organizations within ministries with full autonomy and remit to execute on their jobs and only report directly to the Minister or the Permanent Secretary.

This is what Singapore does, which itself is based on the British colonial model.

At some point, too much democracy is delerious, and Tom, Dick, and Harry need to know their place. Not everything needs to be politicized and democratized.

> Therefore the payment package must look a lot more like the CEO compensation or a high-end management position, which is contrary to the idea of civil management

What country are you from? Even the UK has begun developing statutory boards like the FCA and SFO that pay market rate salaries for critical roles.

And until the Thatcher era, civil service pay was comparable or slightly better paid compared to other white collar roles.

	▲	wpm 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Sounds a bit like the Chicago MWRD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Water_Reclamation... Albeit, we elect the commissioners

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FridayoLeary 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That sounds like more quangos? I'm not an expert on them but the way people complain about them, they have a penchant for wasting fantasic amounts of money, and have no accountability even by the standards of the civil service.

Politicians are simultaneously engaged in a desperate struggle to close down the defunct ones while opening up more, because they are a great way to avoid responsibility, which of course is one of the major operational goals of the civil service.

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alephnerd 4 days ago | parent [-]

Not like Quangos - Statutory Boards at least in Singapore are a part of a ministry, but they are given full autonomy [0] to recruit, administer, and manage within their remit as legislated.

Quangos are a half assed attempted at doing something similar while trying to include some "inclusion", but with none of the checks and balances.

The reality is, not every Tom, Dick, and Harry should have a say on water management or R&D prioritization.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_boards_of_the_Sing...

	▲	MrDrDr 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Was not aware of these - thank you for sharing. But I’d be concerned that such organisations will not stand the test of time, from say a sustained period of governmental (on in this case institutional) incompetence. I’d like to see some mechanism (competition perhaps) that would allow the system to self correct - when the group responsible fail for a sustained period of time. Not saying I have any answers.

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Lord-Jobo 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

A triumvirate of Unions, government, and private enterprise are supposed to be balanced and keep each other in check the same way the three branches of government in the United States are supposed to keep each other in check.

And just as the executive branch has bloated into a monolith at the expensive of Congress, private enterprise has bloated at the expense of Unions (just as true in the U.K. as far as I can tell).

You have the two primary governmental/economic systems of balance failing in the same way, at the same time, both failing due to the actions of corporations.

This kind of failure may be common with liberal democracies but is not inevitable. We have simply been bad stewards and let corporations vacuum up everything with little resistance.