I think almost any idea is a better idea than that.
>It sounds like you're trying to make a "taxes are theft" argument against fines for committing theft which is pretty hard to take seriously.
I'm not making an argument that taxes are theft. I'm really just trying to illustrate that while there may not be an institutional profit motive for governmental bureaus, there is a personal and/or professional profit motive for whoever gets to spend that money. A lot of young people seem to think that it's always better to have the government providing a service because "they care about more than just profit" or something similar.
Moving the money between a third-party contractor that provides a service bought by the government into the actual government itself doesn't necessarily mean anything good is going to happen. You don't have to look very far, either into the past or into the map, to see that; in many countries, the absolute richest people are politicians and bureaucrats.
It's a lot easier to fire a contractor that does a bad job than it is to replace a government bureau that does a bad job. I think it's important to convey that bureaucrats can and sometimes do still get a large amount of money, and that can affect their motives and decisions just as easily as it can for anyone else. These positions deserve scrutiny and oversight too. The people running the private sector are not that different from the people running public services.
> I think almost any idea is a better idea than that.
Okay I'll take that as a "no", then.
Again, this is a fine, not even a tax. Whatever ethical considerations are bothering you about levying fines for corporate criminal behavior are not going to be addressed by handing over the fines to some third party instead, or whatever you're going on about.
Frankly, they could take the money collected from the fine and launch it into a heliocentric orbit, for all I care, because the primary aim of levying the fine in the first place i.e. as a punishment for criminal behavior is still achieved.
I think almost any idea is a better idea than that.
>It sounds like you're trying to make a "taxes are theft" argument against fines for committing theft which is pretty hard to take seriously.
I'm not making an argument that taxes are theft. I'm really just trying to illustrate that while there may not be an institutional profit motive for governmental bureaus, there is a personal and/or professional profit motive for whoever gets to spend that money. A lot of young people seem to think that it's always better to have the government providing a service because "they care about more than just profit" or something similar.
Moving the money between a third-party contractor that provides a service bought by the government into the actual government itself doesn't necessarily mean anything good is going to happen. You don't have to look very far, either into the past or into the map, to see that; in many countries, the absolute richest people are politicians and bureaucrats.
It's a lot easier to fire a contractor that does a bad job than it is to replace a government bureau that does a bad job. I think it's important to convey that bureaucrats can and sometimes do still get a large amount of money, and that can affect their motives and decisions just as easily as it can for anyone else. These positions deserve scrutiny and oversight too. The people running the private sector are not that different from the people running public services.