Reply #109: One not grounded in rigorous research!

[durutti]

Generally speaking, right-wingers (both lay and professional) rely on abstract models of how they think things are supposed to work. Emprirical studies supporting their cases are almost always shoddy or fraudulent. Examples are legion: the idea that minimum wage hikes cause unemployment, "facts" about the supposed benefits of neoliberalism, the idea that there are welfare queens driving welfare Cadillacs, etc. all follow this pattern.

In the case of nationalization or regulation, they generalize from the abstract principle that market pressures ensure business is always more efficient than government bureaucracy (a favorite bogeyman). The trouble is that it's demonstrably false. Lots of businesses are spectacularly inefficient due to monopoly and oligopoly, externalities (passing costs on to the public), biased price signals (the poor are always underserviced), the pressure to cut corners, and corruption. A good examination of the anti-bureaucracy mythology is The Case for Bureaucracy by Charles T. Goodsell.

Here's a good article on why government is more efficient than business when it comes to healthcare: http://www.monthlyreview.org/1204himmelstein.htm