Drezner: Government Are Not Corporations

Actually, there's a whole bunch of sh!t that isn't corporations. In fact, all the non-corporations--that is, all the other goddamned types of organizations known to man are not corporations.

Oh...link. [Via Sullivan]

Reagan fired up business-worship in this country. It seemed to die down for a bit, but it never quite went away, and now its back in full force. One of the things ruining American universities is the view that they are businesses, that the faculty are employees and the students are customers. (Students are frequently referred to as "customers" at my own rapidly-deteriorating institution. A new sign at the check-out desk at the library says "blah blah customers should blah blah." As a friend of mine who works there pointed out to them, there is actually a perfectly apt, perfectly common term for people who use libraries, and it is not 'customers'. It is, of course, 'patrons.'

I expect that it would probably be a bad idea to try to run your business as if it were a university. I assure you that it is no better to try to run a university as if it were a business.