Why is the "private sector" better than the "public sector"?

[gulliver]

85. There's a good book called "The Gardens of Democracy"

It talks about how a good balance of government and the private sector is really the ideal system, not all government, not all private. It also talks about how important it is to tend the garden to maximize human potential. "We're all better off when we're all better off."

One of the things the book talks about is the idea of government "spending." People mistakenly think of it as money lost, as if taxes are money that is taken out of the system and sort of disappears. The authors point out that tax money is actually circulated money. It goes to the government and then back to the citizens...and then back again...

That might seem intuitively obvious, but I think the authors are right and a lot of people just think of taxes as an outflow and a burden. They aren't thinking of the goods they are getting for the taxes or the fact that people who receive, for example, Social Security buy things with it from the private sector.

I think government gives good value for the money it gets, and I like the fact that it has to account for everything it does openly. The private sector also does a great job. I like both a lot. I don't like people who try to drive a wedge between the two and declare one better than the other. That's complete nonsense.