I have never argued that government initiatives may not be just as good as private initiatives. The problem with government is not in the things it tries but in the absence of any mechanism for recognizing error. What you need — what the private system abounds in — is survival of the fittest. What the governmental system abounds in is expansion of the mistakes. And there is no mechanism for eliminating governmental agencies which either have — no longer are needed or have behaved perversely.
If you’re trying to think back and ask yourself, how many government agencies can you think of that have ever been abolished, you can count those on the fingers of one hand. One of the government agencies that was abolished was — there once existed a system of personal savings, where the Post Office had savings. How come it became abolished? Because when it was passed, the law was passed, and it could not pay — it was limited to paying interest at the maximum of two percent. Now, during the Great Depression, that was wonderful because it was safe. And Postal Savings deposits expanded, became very large. So during the later ’30s, and particularly after the war, when interest rates started going up and above two percent, everybody took their money out of Postal Savings. There was no more money in there, and it was allowed to die. Now, that’s one of the very few examples of a government agency that has been eliminated. Can you name any others?