Originally Posted by raymor

You make a lot of good points there.

Grumpy, if a single company is so big that they are the only company in the sector, I agree that doesn't work well. Otherwise, I wonder which government agency would make better cars than we get from GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Fiat, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Nissan, etc., all trying to outdo each other? Auto companies are some of the largest companies there are and competition seems to keep them on their toes. Based on my experience with political government bureaucracy, I'd expect government to make a car that's not as well thought our as a Hyundai, but costs as much to produce as a BMW, and it would take fourteen years to develop. Personally I'd rather select from the many car options on the free market rather than have the government tell me I have to buy a government car. I don't know where you live, but is there some agency there who could build cars as well as BMW or as efficiently as Kia?

Again, if there's just one maker, a monopoly, sure they have little reason to do a good. In that case I don't suppose it matters if the company is large or small. If Strongbox had no competition, we might have less reason to do as much R&D. Perhaps it doesn't matter if the monopoly is private or public. The employees at the driver's license office don't appear too motivated to be the best, perhaps because they have no competition.