Just my two cents worth on an interesting thread.

Firstly, I believe most of our subscribers have made a good case for
keeping the National Parks service as government employees.  However, 
the few who support privatizing have not made a good case and, in my
opinion, they have not mentioned the most commonly felt negative side
of bureaucracy.  

Recently, when privatizing another part of the national government was
a TV event, a spokesman for privatizing stated that once a person is a
government employee, (Civil Service) the rules and procedures for
firing or demoting poor employees are so onerous and time consuming
that only a minute number of these employees are ever fired.  Bosses
do not want to get into the endless delays, appeals and union
criticisms.  Instead, it seems, getting rid of an unproductive worker
is by transferring him/her to another department. 

The Peoples Republic of China had a name for this:  "Iron Ricebowl
mentality" ie: no matter whether you worked or not you will still be
paid (so long as you don't criticizes the system).  Not surprising,
the past 20 years has seen the PRC privatize industry and business and
as a result, the economy (and benefits for the people) has boomed.  

I guess the key feature here is that no one system is beyond reproach
or abuse.  Accordingly, if you don't have some practical form of
checks and balances, things will not be as good or productive as we
hope will be the case.

John Bing
ps BTW, I have spent over five years in China and know well of what I
write of their systems.

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 23:30:49 -0400, you wrote:

>In reply to the proposed, and then defeated, move to "outsource" the jobs of
>the National Park Service archeologists from the federal government
>"non-profit sector" to the "private for-profit sector", Mr. Atherton wrote:
>
>> Interesting question though - why do the archaeologists need to be
>> Government Employees (bureaucrats)? It would seem to make much more sense
>> for these services to be privatized, because on the whole, the work isn't
>> really "governmental". The argument for "loss of expertise" seems a little
>> spurious. For one thing, in this instance, the (ex) Parks Archaeologists
>> would be in an ideal situation to set themselves up as consultants.
>>
>> tim
>
>
>A question for Mr. Atherton and others of similar opinion:
>
>Take the following work situations:
>
>a private, nonprofit museum
>a state museum
>a city museum
>a county cultural agency
>a corporate museum
>a private, nonprofit house museum.
>
>If, at various times in a person's work life, that person is employed as a
>curator in each of the above situations and performs the same curatorial
>work in each situation, is the person a "bureaucrat" when working in a
>museum run by a governmental body, and "not a bureaucrat" when working in a
>museum that functions under a different governance structure?
>
>What is "governmental work" and what is not "governmental work"?
>
>Should everything be run by for-profit contractors?
>
>Is a job in the "for-profit" sector inherently "better" than the same job in
>the "non-profit" sector?  Or vice versa?
>
>If anyone wishes to respond, they can do it to the list or off-list to
>[log in to unmask]
>
>Thank you,
>
>Nancy Powell
>
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