Raw data: A cautionary tale
6 hours ago
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Public Servants
Matthew Yglesias responding to a rant about the DMV by Keith Humpheys makes a point with has also occurred to me. Namely that liberals who want a society with a bigger role for government should worry more about making government work well than they do. People are naturally reluctant to give more responsibilities to an entity that doesn't appear to be handling its current responsibilities well.
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There are many examples of inefficiency, inconsideration, and stupidity in our society, but they are not perpetrated solely by the government. Who do you think could run the DMV better, and what evidence supports your choice? More generally, what evidence is there that, compared to other institutions. the government's handling of its responsibilities is below average?
ReplyDeleteI think you are missing the point I, and the liberals I linked to, was trying to make. Many (most?) people have had unpleasant experiences at a DMV office. I haven't had any recently as New York sensibly allows you to do many things on the web (and without charging extra unlike California apparently). However I did have some bad experiences when I first moved to New York. For example multiple long lines with it being unclear which one you should be in. And the thing that sticks out in my mind is the form that had to filled out in ink with no pens provided. These bad experiences fuel hostility to government which hurts liberals politically. So it is in their long term interest to try to minimize negative experiences by providing honest and efficient government services.
ReplyDeleteI did not miss your point, but you seem to have missed mine. I agree that interacting with the government, particularly the DMV, is often an unpleasant experience. However, interacting with many other organizations in our society is likewise unpleasant. So why pick on only the government? To adapt your phrasing: Conservatives who want a society with a bigger role for private enterprise should worry more about making private enterprise work well than they do. People are naturally eager to take responsibilities away from an entity that doesn't appear to be handling them well.
ReplyDeleteBy chance an article supporting my view appears on The Financial Page of the September 6 New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2010/09/06/100906ta_talk_surowiecki
See also: http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_15976410?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com&nclick_check=1
I renewed my license this week in Colorado. The lines here are just as long as they were in NY, but the service is very much better. My only gripe was that I couldn't renew online any more as the DMV requires me to appear for an eye exam. In NY one time I went to renew the driver's license. The clerk told me I couldn't renew as my insurance had lapsed two years before! This wasn't true, but it gave me quite a start. The NY DMV, it seems, did not cross check to add all drivers in the same family when the car insurance is changed to a different insurance agency. It seemed that our former insurance agent had wickedly notified the DMV that we were no longer covered by his company. The DMV then assumed we were uninsured. It was the agent's way of giving us a hard time for dropping his policy.
ReplyDeleteWell if noknot is any indiction there is no danger liberals will be taking my advice any time soon. Although it is unclear to me why the idea of improving government services provokes such a defensive and hostile reaction.
ReplyDeleteDon't waste your time on that one / not worth your time. This guy will ask for examples just to bring a matching number of anecdotal nit-picky counter-examples and it will all lead nowhere. I wish him a good (long) vacation in venezuela.
ReplyDeleteAll I did was explicitly agree with the criticisms of the DMV and suggest only that they be broadened to include private enterprise, and I get indignant responses.
ReplyDeleteWell, if Shearer and seinfeld are any indication, there is no danger conservatives will be taking my advice any time soon. Although it is unclear to me why the idea of improving private enterprise services provokes such defensive and hostile reactions.
As for seinfeld, I won't waste my time on that one.
You (noknot) eventually agreed that government service is often bad. You didn't agree that this hurts liberals politically or that they would benefit politically from improving government service. Instead you tried to change the subject to bad service from other entities. If I complain about bad service from my cable TV provider I would consider a response that service at the DMV is also bad as defensive and unhelpful.
ReplyDeleteAs for the political effects of bad service from private companies for the most part people blame this on the individual company rather than on the market economy in general. This makes sense as in a competitive system companies that provide unusually bad service will lose customers and market share giving them an incentive to make a reasonable effort to provide good service. And receiving bad service is less annoying when you have options.
Alas, I must now correct misrepresentations of what I have written. Since the first sentence of my first comment (Aug. 31) presupposes that government provides examples of inefficiency, inconsideration, and stupidity, your adverb "eventually" is inaccurate. Your view of the consequences for liberals is so obviously correct that I found no reason to mention it (until now). Since you immediately generalized your discussion from the DMV to the entire government, I do not consider further generalizing it to our entire society to be a change of subject (and I regard remarks about appropriate responses, whether by liberals or by conservatives, to be a single subject). Your example involving two specific entities (a cable TV provider and the DMV) sheds no light on what degree of generalization is appropriate. Finally, I have not blamed the market economy for anything.
ReplyDeleteI share your view that a significant contribution to the problem with the DMV is that it is a monopoly. Non-governmental monopolies have similar problems, as exemplified in the second reference at the end of my Sep. 3 comment. However, my first reference (to the New Yorker) suggests that the same problems also occur in many competitive situations. Nevertheless, I would be interested in any ideas on how natural monopolies, such as the DMV and public utilities, might be made competitive.
The DMV has problems with service because no one is motivated to provide good service. They are most likely all in civil service jobs which they must keep for a long time without job performance ratings. Perhaps if they do have a rating, it doesn't include customer service. The way to change this is to elect a politician who really cares about this problem and requires a return to good service. The unemployment office is Denver has a feedback option because a carpenter turned politician there made good service mandatory when he took office.
ReplyDeletethe service there was excellent. It can be done.