You are assuming that the obsession with maximizing profit is limited to private industry, where the post you are replying to makes no such assumption.

I agree that the government ought to work for the public good, and not doing so is mismanagement and corruption. But following the logic of the parent poster, the postulate would be that the mismatch between what the government ought to do and what it does is an outgrowth of a society that values maximizing profit over satisfying needs. Which I find hard to deny if we are a bit flexible with the question "whose profit is maximized". This is just a different way to arrive at the word corruption, but it provides a frame for possible societal causes for that widespread corruption

The way greed applies to the public purse is mediated by zero cost accounting wherein a government agency is compelled to spend all of their year's allocation without completing their work so that they can justify getting more in the next budget cycle.