In their own separate ways, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina are both bringing back the tired old proposal to “run government like a business” to the campaign. For Trump, a real estate developer, government, like his business, is primarily a dealmaking process in which the best (i.e., the most aggressive) negotiator wins. For Fiorina, the former CEO of a tech company, the problem with government is its inefficiency, which can be resolved with (surprise!) better use of technology.
The problem with this is that government is not a business. In economic terms, it is a monopoly that is designed to provide goods and services for consumers regardless of their ability to pay for them. Its essential objectives are to dispense justice, provide security, and promote the general welfare (a concept open to much debate), as opposed to simply making the largest possible profit. The American system further diffuses power instead of concentrating it, and emphasizes transparency and fairness over speed and agility. Its success or failure is not subject to easy quantification–there is no “bottom line.”
As a result, anyone who is elected to “run government like a business,” and anyone who selects a candidate on that basis, is doomed to disappointment.