To the editor:
Mayoral candidate Joshua Kraft, a person so fortunate as to enjoy enormous wealth himself, has received a million-dollar contribution to his campaign from a large and well-known corporation. It is to be anticipated that his campaign will focus on the old and oft-repeated theme that the governing of, in this case, the city of Boston, must be “run like a business” so as to increase efficiency and avoid waste. Sound familiar?
A government, at any political level, can not and should not be run like a business, because it isn’t one. Business inherently assumes, and avidly pursues, the competitive tenets of exclusion and inequality. Consequently, it necessarily tolerates, and not infrequently exacerbates, the deprivation which follows from the application of these “values.” Citizens, accordingly, are merely employees or consumers to be utilized or otherwise exploited in the interest of maximum profit. Government, conversely, presumes the equality and inclusion of a citizenry to be protected, often from the impositions, exclusions, and harms that business commonly generates. This is because the citizenry is superior to, not subordinate to, the economy.
Governmental efficiency can, and must, be achieved without a formal deference to the principles of business, because they are antithetical to those of government! To promote the general welfare, for example, is not the responsibility or even the province of business; but it is the indispensable obligation of government. Moreover, we are currently witnessing daily the destructive ravages upon the citizenry of the notion that government must be run like a business. Trump echoed it just the other day in his attack on the civil service. It would seem then that people are going to be understandably wary, if not terrified, of the jaded argument that business will solve our problems!
Joseph R. Noone
Lynn
