Why governments shouldn't nationalize

If the AIG fiasco teaches us anything it should teach us why governments shouldn't try to own or manage businesses.

As should be obvious by now, a bureaucrat is different from a business person. Their training is different and their motivations are different. They have different objectives and they have different points of view, which is why a bureaucrat shouldn't be assigned the job of managing a business.

By now, it also should be obvious that government ownership inevitably becomes political. The hearings yesterday in which congressmen and women beat up on AIG's CEO demonstrated the idiocy of combining politics and business.

Still not convinced. Read up on Britain's experience of nationalizing businesses starting in the 1940s, Britain's near bankruptcy in the 1970s and Margaret Thatcher's denationalization in the 1980s. The latter resurrected Britain's economy.