Yes, thank you, I understand that. My point is that a publicly traded company is not necessarily able to provide accountability in the sense of the parent comments, more so than a governmental organisation. It is not 'private' enough. (Which is logical, since the control by the state runs deep into it.)
When speaking of public vs. private in the government vs. not-government sense, the CEO of GE would definitely fall into the private category. That's what's under discussion here. In what sense do you mean private?
I mean 'private' in a very strict sense. I think this is important here, if we want to reach a meaningful distinction between 'public' and 'private.'
The free market and personal responsibility can very well drive prices down and maximise efficiency. But a CEO of a public traded company is operating with other people's money and he is strongly regulated by a government. Both factors that hinder the optimisation by the above mentioned forces.
'Private' would mean at least that every penny wasted is out of the personal pocket of the people doing the work; in a very direct sense.
> 'Private' would mean at least that every penny wasted is out of the personal pocket of the people doing the work; in a very direct sense.
That is an odd sense of the word. It's a state that basically doesn't exist anywhere except in your back yard when working on DIY projects. Even in startups, the people doing the work only lose a fraction of a penny for every penny wasted, according to their share of ownership and liquidation preferences.
It's not a useful concept for talking about issues like infrastructure projects, because there will never be a case where the people doing the work are the ones who suffer 100% of the consequences of loss, or even close to it. I would suggest you stick to the generally understood meaning of the word when having conversations with other people, but I'm an internet commenter, not a cop, so do what pleases you.
You are making assertions that may or may not be true. That aside, the point that I am trying to argue during the whole thread is two-fold.
First I do agree with matt4077 that the difference in accountability between the CEO and the mayor is not big enough to warrant a distinction in the context of the discussion. I also agree with BjoernKW that accountability is one of the root-problems here.
Second, I do want to say that a public traded company is not a form where the CEO is personally accountable enough to call it 'prvate' in the sense of BjoernKW's comment and therefore dismissing matt4077 example as a valid example for what BjoernKW was hinting at.
I do think that others have very well understood what I was trying to convey, see for example the comments from paulddraper or cmurf.
In that sense, the kid mowing your yard with your mower for you is a public entity.
This is an extremely different use of the word than I'm familiar with, and doesn't really do us much good when trying to discuss government projects vs. non-government projects.
I have to disagree. My point was that the difference in accountability that a publicly traded company provides vs a governmental organisation is to big enough to support the parent's point. I suggest the reason is because the state is too heavily involved in the governance of these entities for the to be truly private.
Yes, I understand that public traded companies are not state-owned.
That's sole proprietorship or partnership vs a publicly traded company.
There are a number of examples on Wall Street, e.g. Goldman Sachs, where when they were partnerships, the partners were personally liable for company losses and the firm provably was taking fewer risks than once it became a publicly traded company. The organizational make up of a company can affect the distribution of liability, and that can lead to the company making different choices than it otherwise would.
Maybe not, but then again I wouldn't consider the CEO of GE as somebody leading a private entity in the sense of the argument.