Where Profit Is Perverse
The market is a tool, not a religion. Where the profit motive works against society — health care, defense — privatization fails. Some things must never be run for profit.
Know where the market stops
We believe in markets because of what they do well: reward value, punish waste, unleash innovation. But a tool used in the wrong place does damage. There are sectors where the profit motive is perverse to society — where chasing margin actively harms the public good. New Republic names them honestly.
Health
In health care, profit and patient interest pull in opposite directions. A market paid to deliver care makes money by denying it, delaying it, and pricing it out of reach. Sickness becomes leverage. Here the profit motive is perverse, and the function belongs with non-profit or public provision — not a margin to be maximized off human suffering.
Defense
Hand the core of organized force to the profit motive and you do not get efficiency — you get warlords: private power with guns and an incentive to use them. Defense is the textbook case of a function that requires security and control and must remain firmly public and accountable.
The test
For every sector, ask: does serving the shareholder conflict with serving the public?
- No → let competitive enterprise do it (see Competition by Design).
- Yes → keep it non-profit or public (see The Smallest Possible Government).
Markets are a means. People are the end. We never confuse the two.
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