Re: corruption - the reason and a simple solution

["Praveen Hombaiah" <ph_one@hotmail.com>]

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  >> Coming to the examples given, i would only ask one question
  >>
  >> Why should the government run a cemetery ? or a driving test facility
  >> for that matter ?

>I think you're asking the wrong question- or at least oversimplifying.
>Suppose there's only one available cemetery in area X.
>The cemetery used by the community could be community owned.
>Eventually, it gets so much traffic that a full time staff is put >together
>to attend to upkeep, scheduling, collection of fees and accounting. The
>staff reports to in theory 'the community', in reality, to the person >or
>person's appointed/elected/claiming to represent 'the community'. At >this
>point the cemetery staff have 'power' to inconvenience and harass >people
>of
>the community at their most vulnerable moment- after the death of a >loved
>one, and in practice the victims are largely unable to resist. In >theory
>they can appeal to the representetive who has power over cemetery >staff
>and
>if the representative [read government] is unresponsive, in a democracy
>[s]he can be replaced in the next election by someone who is
>responsive- not much immediate use to someone dealing with a
>death in the family.

  >> These can be perfectly handled by a private concern. there is a
  >> demand for cemetries and for driving test services. Why should these
  >> be done by the government?

>Well, lets take the corresponding bad scenario that could result here.
>So, the formerly community owned cemetery is sold to a corporation,
>or possibly, the operation is contracted to the corporation for a fixed
>period [sort of like the way we entrust power for the duration between
>elections, if you get my drift]. Since there is only one cemetery, the
>corporation can raise rates and decrease service leaving consumers >with no
>immediate recourse- unfortunately even the invisible hand of the >market
>does
>not stop people from dying and needing a cemetery. So consumers still >end
>up
>being gouged & harassed in a time of grief- paying more than may be
>reasonable- OK so they pay over the table rather than under- not much
>comfort.

     More than likely if the only private cemetary in town is misbehavaing (
by not providing adequate service at the cheapest possible rates), more
cemetaries will spring up in the town within a short span of time( given
there are no exclusive licences granted to the one existing crappy cemetary
by the ever concerned government, of course).
     And there is a world of difference between paying a little more for a
service and paying a bribe to obtain a service.

>Both of the cases can fail- or succeed- I believe a more
>productive discussion here would be to find out what would
>make private or public enterprise best serve the interests of
>the greatest number of people over the long term- i.e. how
>can we prevent ANY entity from grabbing the power that
>corrupts.

     Compare any service provided by any govt. in any country with the
services provided by the private sector and it should be obvious that most
anything the govt. does sucks.  Is it not obvious that is why most
everything in the U.S is the best in the world, some things in India are of
the same quality ( like the soaps, detergents, toothbrushes, retail stores)
and some things in India suck ( like the telephones, power, roads )  and
everything in Communist countries like Russia suck.
Of course there will be exceptions to this, but I think we are looking for
the broad pattern and not exceptions.

Regards,
Praveen Hombaiah.
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