"However I do assume that people with the ability to economise don't magically lose that ability when they're working for the government."

What if you're wrong? Have you even considered the possibility? If you are wrong, then you're assuming what is in issue, aren't you? Assuming that government has the ability to economise when the ASSUMPTION was never justified in the first place.

As we have just seen, when called upon to justify the assumption, you can't do it.

If you had thought about it, you would see straight away that there are two *categorical* differences:
1. market actors obtain their revenue by consensual means, government by coercion; thus self-evidently refuting your naked assumption that payment reflects any kind of equivalent demand for any government service, rather than what the payer would have preferred to spend the money on, if it wasn't confiscated;
2. market actors are able to economise by reference to profit and loss, but the whole purpose of having governmental decision-making is so that the relevant decisions will *not* be made on the basis of profit and loss, otherwise there'd be no need for government intervention, would there?

Both of these categorically affect values and valuation, and invalidate your assumption.

If I am right, this has explaining power:
1. it explains how you are incapable of coming up with any rational criterion to distinguish wasteful governmental behaviour from that which confers a net benefit on society
2. it explains how when you try to come up with one, you have to try do it by reference to market methods
3. it explains how and why government can never reconcile those market methods with its own purposes of economising because it has to start, as you did, with rejecting market-driven valuations as the basis for decision-making
4. it explains that, short of recourse to such market methodologies, the only methodologies available to government involve comparison of mere physical quantities for all different production possibilities = economic incoherence.

But if you are right, how come you can't come up with any rational criterion to justify your assumption?

Jardine,

"Obviously if government is presumptively superior at economising, then there's no such thing as human rights"
That's like saying "Obviously if roads are presumptively made of concrete, then there's no such thing as elephants"!

"The very fact that you refer to cost-benefit analysis only proves that government cannot hope to make out a justification of the rationality of its actions without trying to mimic the actions of the market. But value is subjective. You can't claim the validity of cost-benefit analysis by government IMPUTING to people what government says their values should be."
It's not perfect, but it's much better than assuming it to be zero.

"Just answer the question. If government can access finance more cheaply, and profit is presumptively an immoral waste, then"
I do not presume profit to be immoral.

"a) why should not all production be vested in government,"
Because although government can sometimes be more efficient than the private sector, it often isn't. At the moment I'd go so far as to say it usually isn't, but that does vary according to what the requirements are, and just presuming either sector to be more efficient is itself a recipe for inefficiency. There's an old saying among engineers:
YOU GET WHAT YOU INSPECT, NOT WHAT YOU EXPECT!

"b) if not, by what rational criterion do you decide what should and should not be?"
For goods: full market competition. And it wouldn't normally be worth governments getting involved unless there's an obvious market failure.
For services: if the infrastructure cost is a high proportion of the total cost, if cross subsidisation enables a better overall outcome or if the environmental and social benefits make up a significant proportion of the total benefits, it's usually worth having at least some government involvement. But this doesn't mean the private sector should be frozen out; opportunities for contracting out work should at least be investigated.

There are many exceptions, but generally the private sector is quicker to implement innovations but bad at managing the subcontracting of projects to achieve good value for money.

"What if you're wrong? Have you even considered the possibility?"
If I'm wrong it would be utterly extraordinary, as it would contravene a huge amount of recent historical evidence; also there's no credible mechanism for people to magically lose their ability to economise when they're employed by the government.

"If you had thought about it, you would see straight away that there are two *categorical* differences:
1. market actors obtain their revenue by consensual means, government by coercion; thus self-evidently refuting your naked assumption that payment reflects any kind of equivalent demand for any government service, rather than what the payer would have preferred to spend the money on, if it wasn't confiscated;"
Firstly, government ownership of an organisation doesn't prevent it obtaining revenue by commercial means. Secondly, people's spending decisions are dominated by how much money each one has, and more heavily biased towards the short term than most government decisions. Thirdly, governments are better placed to gain economies of scale.

"2. market actors are able to economise by reference to profit and loss, but the whole purpose of having governmental decision-making is so that the relevant decisions will *not* be made on the basis of profit and loss, otherwise there'd be no need for government intervention, would there?"
Governments have then advantage that they gain revenue when the operating profit is passed on to customers. But there's still a need to cover costs, except sometimes where the objective is to reduce external costs. Either way, there's a lot to be gained from efficiency improvements.

"also there's no credible mechanism for people to magically lose their ability to economise when they're employed by the government."

We have already established the circularity and stupidity of this assumption, and all you do thereafter is repeat it.

It's not that people "magically lose" their ability to economise when employed by government, it's that your ASSUMPTION that the ability applies to the categorically different activities of government, has no basis in reality or reason. So you're being DELIBERATELY stupid in repeating this assumption after it's was refuted and you have no answer but going round in circles again.

At no stage have you established that government is better at economising anything, while you agree that it is not in most things, and I have proved that it's not in all things and you have no answer but just more arbitrary moralising.

So we have now established that
1. You believe in using aggressive violence and physically attacking people to force them to submit to and obey your political opinions. You are reduced to arguing that state enforcement of law and policy cuts out at some imaginary stage, which is wrong, and you know it's wrong, which you prove by denying that compliance becomes voluntary. So it's complete nonsense and you know it is.
2. The policies you support are irrational without exception and you have at no stage advanced any reason to believe otherwise, but only gone round and round and round and round in circles, endlessly *assuming* rubbish and nonsense and bullsh!t, even after proved untrue.
3. You know that what you are saying is untrue, and you keep saying it anyway.

You are only demonstrating that your complete economic illiteracy makes you ignorant of the ethical wrongs of the socialism you advocate.