Apple isn’t what it used to be but there’s no more efficient way to waste money or cause destruction than by handing it over to a government
As if corporations spent every dollar wisely, never paid mediocre executives tens or hundreds of millions annually, never poured huge sums into projects that never got off the ground, never owned corporate jets that sat idle for days or weeks on end, never built lavish headquarters buildings with gourmet executive dining rooms, never spent fortunes on ineffective advertising, never acquire other businesses for much more than their true value (all while failing to adequately fund their pension plans)...
Capitalist
theory is that businesses will do the right thing, spend wisely, etc., due to the profit motive. By definition, that means operating very conservatively. Meantime, the stock market wants to see the kinds of capital appreciation that comes from aggressive and risky business practices. Investors pay 50-100 times earnings (or more, if the business is still in the aggressive growth/constant-loss stage - which can go on for decades, as we see in the case of Amazon) in hopes there will be huge profits down the road. If there are not, the investment value plummets, and the last investors holding the stock take a bath. The bubble pops; a total waste of investment capital.
Now, some will say that this aggressive, wasteful behavior is part of healthy competition - the weak will fail, leaving the survivors as far stronger businesses than they would have been otherwise. And all of that waste and destruction is tax-deductible. Wasteful behavior is rewarded with a lower tax bill. "Gee, Harry, if we don't spend it, it's just going to the tax man anyway!"
When you scratch the surface, is it any less "wasteful and destructive" than "wasteful" government programs? People ignore the many benefits we get from government, from roads and bridges to universal education, police and fire protection, parks, clean air and water; and as much as people hate rules and regulations they don't like, society would crumble entirely without a body of laws. People can't "do the right thing" unless there is a system in place to determine what the right thing is.
My proposition is that neither business nor government are inherently superior or inferior to the other. Either can be wasteful, either can be efficient. It depends on management. So, if you have government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then it's up to the people to manage it efficiently.
Of course, if you want no government at all, then efficient management is the last thing you want. Gum up the works, under-fund as many programs as possible, do your best to ensure that government can't succeed. If it wasn't ours to destroy, one might even call that treasonous behavior.
However, there has yet to be an example of a case where, after self-government failed, another form of government didn't take its place. Only those other forms of government exist only for the benefit of those in charge, and will be far less interested in the well-being of the population they rule.
