It’s a shibboleth here in the states, both among liberals and conservatives, to presume that the government is more prone to waste, fraud, and abuse than markets. Putting aside the fact that in any advanced capitalist economy, the distinction between public and private sectors is considerably blurred, it is important to note the sources of this misconception. Good places to start would be Suzanne Mettler’s The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy or Mariana Mazzucato’s The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Myths in Risk and Innovation. Both books, when read together, suggest that the credit for positive government action is often snatched by private actors, if not neglected altogether, while real or perceived government deficiencies are forever advertised by politicians and the business elite for self-serving gain. Likewise, due to structural imbalances in wealth and power, the corporate media tends to downplay market failure. Even with something as catastrophic as the 2007 financial collapse, the discourse is frequently redirected elsewhere.
Furthermore, there is a tendency for voters and journalists to compare apples and oranges — that is, we fall into the trap of comparing actually-existing government with mythical notions of the free market. The reality is that there are few markets in an advanced capitalist economy that come even close to meeting the economists’ standards of perfect information and perfect competition, which is mostly what we learn in Econ 101. The economic landscape is rife with complicating factors of market power and negative or positive externalities, all of which require more complex approaches to the organization of society and governance, especially when it comes to questions that have traditionally fallen under the umbrella of “public goods.” When apples are compared with apples — when actually-existing public action is compared with actually-existing private action — the picture is rendered at once murkier yet more helpful than standard libertarian or neoliberal credos. This couldn’t be more true than in the field of education.
