But why do public organizations in developed europe & co have infrastructure projects for cheaper then? Don't they have similar or even stronger public work cultures?
European view: the US in general seems to have a really procedurally-oriented way of doing things. There are good sides to this but it does sometimes break down: in particular the legal system seems to focus a lot more on whether the process was followed rather than taking a step back and asking whether this is the just outcome.
I understand the rationale for low-bid rules. But actually the US has pretty low corruption and a good public work culture; IMO those rules do more harm than good. If you were willing to trust the people evaluating the bids a little more and empower them to use their judgement and pick the overall best bid (and maybe pay them a little more), you'd get better outcomes.
> in particular the legal system seems to focus a lot more on whether the process was followed rather than taking a step back and asking whether this is the just outcome.
The legal system in caselaw countries has a concept called "Equity". Its potency varies from place to place, but it original introduced notions of fairness and good conduct that the Common Law, in and of itself, did not always provide.
You don't hear about it because "Judge makes sensible decision" is not a headline that sells. What sells is "Judge makes decision that we will wildly distort beyond all recognition for the clicks".
Ever notice how badly the mass media represents technology issues? They do it for law too, except worse, because they have an incentive to distort the reporting.
Traditionally, due to Andrew Jackson and the spoils system, the US had a far more corrupt civil service than you'd find in Europe. At the start of the 20th century the old progressives tried to fight this by making a very rule-bound process which doesn't allow civil servants either the ability to engage in graft or use their best judgement. Eventually contractors learned to work the inflexible rule system and here we are.
I remember an interview with the head of building Spain's high speed rail. I can't find it now, but one of the interesting points was that he refused to use contractors. All labor was full time employees so he had complete control of schedule.
Which makes decent sense. We need to do a lot of road building and maintenance. Why not make it a public corps? There's no reason to involve contractors.
