One thing about these sorts of gov run industry things is that when it works it almost always coincides with great national urgency where you get total civilian/private industry buy in.
Everyone points to NASA in the 60s as a perfect example of gov production but like all newly formed bureaucracies they are largely the sum of the people they recently absorbed into it. NASA mined all the universities and nerds from private industry who brought their work patterns, leadership, and attitudes to the organization.
But as these orgs age it’s the classic Iron Rule story of managers taking over and accountants ruining things etc etc.
Maybe we need to move away from monolithic mega gov orgs and create new ones to solve new problems each generation instead of being catch alls that do nothing well and never face any risk of being replaced. There needs to be ways to breed new life and kill off the natural development of bad management and crippling rulemaking.
Everyone points to NASA in the 60s as a perfect example of gov production but like all newly formed bureaucracies they are largely the sum of the people they recently absorbed into it. NASA mined all the universities and nerds from private industry who brought their work patterns, leadership, and attitudes to the organization.
But as these orgs age it’s the classic Iron Rule story of managers taking over and accountants ruining things etc etc.
Maybe we need to move away from monolithic mega gov orgs and create new ones to solve new problems each generation instead of being catch alls that do nothing well and never face any risk of being replaced. There needs to be ways to breed new life and kill off the natural development of bad management and crippling rulemaking.