Can someone please explain to me the magical transformation that occurs when a person (a.k.a human being) enters the workforce as a government employee?   I ask because I frequently seem to find myself arguing with people that don’t seem to have any capacity for logic.

In my most recent discussion and deliberation with a collegue, the argument centered around the effectiveness and efficiency of any government employee.   My collegue is a huge advocate of eliminating any and all government entities, firing all government workers and privatizing all government jobs.

I understand his position fairly clearly, in some of my day dreams, I too often think of a world like this but then I snap back into reality and realize that it would never happen and if it did nothing much would change.

The logicical conststuct is as follows:

Government workers are the same people that exist on the planet as everywhere else (like the private sector), they are not robots or aliens with a different intellect, capability, capacity or goals.

If indeed we are to assume that all government workers perform in a mediocre way then what magical transformation will occur when a government worker goes into the private sector?   Won’t this same person be as medicre in the private sector as they were in the government sector?

If the above statement is not true then it must be the environment that “transforms” a “good” private sector employee into a “bad/mediocre” government employee right?   So let’s explore this phenomenon….

The government environment consists of levels of hiearchy, departments, staffs, and a great deal of bureacracy.   Hmmm….that sounds a lot like almost every private sector job I’ve ever had…

Perhaps it’s the source of income that these entities use that distinguishes “good” private sector jobs from “bad” government jobs right?   The private sector gets its money from the public and other public sector entities it sells its products and services too and government gets its money from taxpayers (you know, those people that make up the public) and the government taps the private sector for money too.  Hmm…strange come to think of it, it seems the money comes from the same places.

Aha!  I’ve got it!  It must be POLITICS that makes a big difference between the government sector and the private sector.  After all, we all know that government is full of politics and we all know that the private sector is totally and completely free of any politics right?  Well, no…there is plenty of politics in the private sector and I can attest to that since I’ve worked there my whole life.

Well I’m running out of ideas, it seems we’ve determined that the people, enviornment, money, processes and politics are all the same or fairly similar in government and in the private sector so how will eliminating government solve any problems?

What magical transformation takes place when we move a person to/from the private sector to the government sector?   Does anyone have an answer based in rational logic?