On What Should Be Public Sector and What Should Be Private Sector

Solving this puzzle is the key to a healthy society

Nothing gets people’s undies in a bunch quite as much as the debate over public vs. private control over major institutions and services that affect our lives. It quickly digresses into Socialism vs. Capitalism. Public vs. private Healthcare. Public vs. private Education. Public vs. private Military. Oh wait, private armies are called mercenaries and no one is calling to privatize our military. Why is that? You see, we don’t like the idea of a large corporation taking over all our nukes and soldiers because then such corporation would be able to dictate to us all terms of living under penalty of death. We also don’t like the idea of a bunch of competing military companies trying to coordinate our national defense and keeping corporate secrets from each other that could save us. We do however like private defense contractors competing and bidding on jobs the Publicly Controlled, unified military requests such as “build us a better plane and within our budget.” We like having a military that pledges its oath to the Constitution and not the CEO or Chairman of the Board. We don’t even let them pledge an oath to the President of the United States. We let them follow his lawful orders in an act of trust in our civilian-led government.