I've never understood the argument. I've worked in several different private companies, and calling them "Efficient" is so off base as to be laughable. Remember, a private company will happily let an import engineer go instead of giving them a small raise.
Either they are publicly exaggerating the scope of the projects they are working on (eg the “million mile” battery and “full rewrite of FSD”), severely underpaying engineers and understaffed, or something else.
Neither is inherently inefficient. It’s just that both types of organisations can afford inefficiencies, while a small private company usually can’t afford it.
That doesn’t mean that small companies always are more efficiently run in all aspects. I expect my local McDonalds be much more efficient than the small sushi place around the corner, which can afford being inefficient due to low rent and probably close to minimum salary for the owner.
I suspect the confusion is due to the term "efficient", which has two meanings:
1. (technical) creating minimum waste
2. (common) effective.
In the real world, firms are undeniably effective compared to most/all real organization schemes. This article is simply saying that there are things that firms do which generate waste (meaning they are not "efficient"). This is a little silly in a way. Unicorns are also better than dogs (and all other real pets).
I would go further and define “efficient.” They are, in western society, efficient at accumulating private capital in the hands of capitalists. No claim is made by anyone to the contrary.
In Europe, companies were originally gifts of a private trading monopoly made by a monarch. The Post Office model happened a lot later.
There should be more of a distinction between "efficient" used to mean "gets things done effectively and invents new and clever ways to get things done while saving everyone time and money", and the capitalist meaning of "accumulates profits by screwing everyone except senior management and perhaps the stockholders."
It's perfectly possible for the latter kind of "efficient" company to be very inefficient in the first sense.
In fact if you have a market with a very limited number of established large players, it's pretty much the default.
This sounds about right. This is why I don't believe in the "industry is more efficient than government" dogma. Large organizations of people are generally inefficient unless extraordinary care has gone into the engineering and maintenance of the organization.
Big companies are amazingly efficient, just not in terms you consider. They earn way more dollars for each dollar spent than smaller companies. They can do that by having income sources beyond wildest dreams of smaller companies. That's the reason they got big in the first place.
And why from the point of view of footsoldier things don't look as efficient as they could be? Because they don't have to. Because inefficiency you see is negligible and trying to eliminate it could cost more money than it's worth. Heck, some income streams are larger if you work slower than you could. You could be harming your bottom line by making things more efficient.
You overstate the reliability a bit (or rather, the things we take for granted are not so reliably supported) but I'm not going to argue your broader point at all.
However, this:
Because efficient companies produce goods and services for lower prices than inefficient companies
Is not correct. Efficient companies are capable or producing goods and services for lower prices than inefficient ones, but they will typically only do so in the presence of true competition. Otherwise, companies are always quite happy to realize the fruits of higher efficiency as higher margins.
That may be an nit to pick, but it's an important one.
You should consider that you might be the one wrong here. What you think is efficient is just an individual perspective.
I’ve come to accept this after years of fighting “the system”.
The system doesn’t care about you or what you want. It is a ruthlessly collective thing and it makes short term mistakes you will pay for but long term builds foundations you benefit from.
Also over and over efficiency in many cases proves to be maladaptive as it kills flexibility.
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