By Jennifer Nagorka, KERA 90.1 commentator.
Dallas, TX – It's a comment that has always grated on me. In the middle of a discussion about a struggling school system or an unresponsive public agency, somebody always mutters, "just run it like a business."
Oh yeah? Would you really want the Social Security Administration run like Enron? You think City Hall is unresponsive and incompetent? Have you tried to get a health insurance claim paid lately?
It was, and is, too simplistic to pretend that the ills of the public sector can be cured by transforming it into a pseudo-business. A poorly-functioning public body needs to become a well-run public body, not a private company. Conversely, too many corporations have focused too much attention on influencing public policy - whether to garner tax breaks or minimize regulation - and not enough on balancing their books and producing the goods and services that consumers want or need.
Each sector, business and government, has a different role in American society. Business is there to make products and profits. I don't expect a business to protect my best interests.
The government's role, according to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, is "to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." I expect the government, with my and every other citizens' active participation, to tackle all these tasks.
Think for a minute about all the reasons why public sector agencies shouldn't be run like businesses. Democratic government requires transparency and openness. Business requires the opposite: careful hoarding of proprietary information. Our government is constitutionally bound to protect minority rights; businesses have a natural tendency to grow into monopolies. For-profit corporations can simply ignore unprofitable lines of business. The government, meanwhile, is stuck with establishing justice and insuring domestic tranquility; money losing propositions if I've ever heard them.
We shouldn't confuse the fundamental aim of each sector by throwing around phrases like "corporate citizenship." First of all, the term "corporate citizen" is an oxymoron. Corporations are legal entities. Only human beings can be citizens. Second, "good corporate citizenship" too often means, "this corporation donated some money to a local charity." That's not citizenship, that's a form of advertising.
Enron was considered a good corporate citizen partly because it supported Houston arts organizations. Those donations, along with its largesse to political candidates, helped shield it from the sort of public scrutiny that might have prevented its implosion. Too bad Enron didn't act more like a real business by balancing its books and making real profits.
There are mundane government tasks, like collecting garbage that can be out-sourced to for-profit firms without shredding the fabric of democracy. And some companies internalize public service as a core value. The key differences between the two sectors, however, don't change.
What both sectors share is a need for good management: ethical leadership, efficient operations, clarity of mission, and a willingness to obey the law. And they need to maintain a healthy distance from each other. When the two sectors interact, they should greet one another with a firm handshake, not an intimate embrace.
Jennifer Nagorka is a writer in Dallas.