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Comment by CPLX | Hacker News Reader

Democratically elected governments exist to make the world a better place, at least in the views of those who vote in their leaders. Businesses exist to make money.

That's the distinction being drawn. Pretending there's not a fundamental distinction between the two types of entities is disingenuous.

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If you start from "democratically elected governments exist to make the world a better place," then you're going to end up somewhere wrong. Even in the best of times, democratically elected governments exist to give the majority power over the minority. This is considered an improvement over other forms of government, where often a minority had power over a majority and treated them poorly.

There are actually some "fundamental distinctions" between government and business. For example, most governments (democratic or not) are slow, monolithic, and effectively immortal. Since governments have tax and police authority, they can survive bad periods, including those caused by their own errors, for longer periods of time. Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis. The businesses that fail the test typically die and new businesses replace them.

> Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis.

they would if they could...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

> Most businesses do not have tax and police authority and must face the market test on a daily basis.

The only thing that keeps businesses from claiming tax and police authority is the government monopoly on violence; they'd happily take if they could. Same goes for having to face the "market test": businesses certainly don't want to that and would happily get rid of it if governments allowed them to (or did not exist).

Wouldn’t governments also do all sorts of bad things if they were allowed to? History is full of examples and there are far more examples of rogue governments doing bad at scale than private businesses.

If there was something that inherently made governments to be “good” actors more than a person or a business, we wouldn’t need checks and balances.

I didn’t say they were good. I said they were democratic, and that the lead to better outcomes in the view of those who control those outcomes, which is a tautology, purposefully so.

That can lead to good or bad outcomes in your judgment depending on your values. But it’s fundamentally a different dynamic than a for profit entity.

Democratic governments exist to make their territories a better place, often at the expense of anyone who isn’t a resident of their territory.

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