When Public Industry Goes Private

Friday, February 27, 2026

For years, we thought there were things “only government could do.”  Interestingly those things have fallen by the wayside and are now going private while government tries to do something else it thinks only it can do.  It makes one wonder if there really are things only government can do.

We once thought only government could put man into space.  And the government proudly did so.  But now with the likes of Blue Origin and SpaceX space travel is going private.  Oh, there is lots of government money involved, just like in the Apollo programs the various components were built by private government contractors, but government is no longer leading the way.  In point of fact the government program to return to the moon keeps running into problems and delays, while SpaceX and Blue Origin keep hitting marks.  Maybe private industry is better at things.

It was once thought only the government could provide nuclear energy.  Hence the Manhattan Project.  But then, of course, that was a weapons program.  But from it the government built truly massive enrichment facilities that provided enriched nuclear materials for everything from naval ship-board reactors to medical research and even larger facilities to make plutonium.  And yet those facilities are relics of the past – disassembled, decontaminated.

Those facilities are also being replaced – by private industry.  Oak Ridge, TN where the original Manhattan Project site was located is undergoing a major boom as many new private nuclear companies are setting up shop to provide the new materials for the new generation of power reactors.  Maybe private industry is better at things.

I suffered a bureaucratic healthcare nightmare this week.  I’m fine, I was just run around the horn and back again to get a simple blood test.  And I had an appointment months ago.  Why?  Well, because government interference in the healthcare industry has resulted in the centralization and bureaucratization of that industry.  So now getting healthcare requires a gauntlet of paperwork, card waving and scanning and in my case facility hopping.

We’re told this situation developed because only government could provide healthcare to everyone, even the financially disadvantaged.  Yet in my youth the nation was littered with “charity” hospitals, operated by churches  and charities of all sorts.  People could just show up and receive the healthcare they needed based on charitable contributions from those churches and charitable organizations.  In some places hospitals retain the name (“Presbyterian Hospital,” “St. Joseph Hospital”) but they are owned and operated by large conglomerate health providers – driven to such by the massive overhead burden created by government intervention.  (There are a few private fund-raising hospitals left, you see their ads on TV all the time, but they are few and far between.)

My situation this week would indicate that things are not actually better with all this government interference.  What cost me a couple of hours and a lot of irritation would have cost someone with fewer resources days as they waited on buses and shuttles and so forth.  The really bad part of that is they would have been robbed of potentially productive time – time they could have used to overcome their difficult financial situation.  Is government making matters better or worse?  Maybe private industry is better at things.

When public industry goes private things seem to get better, not worse.  Yet way too many people keep thinking government is the only way to fix a problem.  It’s not.  It cannot even produce justice as it must take from some to provide for others.  There is no justice in taking – only in charity.

Will we ever learn?