A recent Op-Ed in the National Post reviews a just published paper by Steven Horwitz that describes how much more effective Wal-Mart was as delivery aid during Katrina than the Feds. Here are a couple of parts I thought were insightful.
"A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level," was
Scott's message to his people. "Make the best decision that you can with the
information that's available to you at the time, and above all, do the right
thing."-Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart
A company that alienates a community will soon be forced to retreat from
it, but the government is always there. Companies must, to survive, create
economic value one way or another; government employees can increase their
budgets and their personal power by destroying or wasting wealth, and most may
do little else. Companies have price signals to guide their productive efforts;
governments obfuscate those signals.
It was really not necessary to produce more information about how much more productive the private sector is than government, but it nice to get such firm evidence now and then.
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