Government is Inefficient, Evidence #347139 / Deep Anarchy

Marginal Revolution reports on yet another piece of evidence on how the government is more inefficient than markets:

Guess how much would it cost a farmer to get telephone service in a small rural county far from a major city? Let's say $800 for satellite service.

Now guess how much the government subsidizes rural phone carriers to provide this service. The answer? As much as $13,000 per line per year.

Max T. O'Connor writes on "Deep Anarchy" in "Report #TL07D: Deep Anarchy -- An Eliminativist View of 'The State'":

Political office holders, who make laws and oversee and coordinate a wide range of statist behaviors, are clearly guilty of statism much of the time, as are the physical enforcers of unjust laws. Obviously they can be more or less statist depending on what they do and say. Bureaucrats who organize and execute statist activities, lowly office workers in the FDA, DEA, IRS, and INS, and those who support their activities are all sources of statism. Business people who gladly accept and encourage subsidies, tariffs, and "government" licenses are not excused from charges of statism simply because they are supposedly not part of "the State." Workers in state-run and monopolized businesses - such as the post office and state schools, are also contributing to statism. Voters are statist because they legitimize the system. The person who uses the power of a "State" agency unjustly against someone (rent control, for example) is being statist. Anyone voting for, verbally supporting, or turning a blind eye to statism is thereby statist.

In so far as there is any sense to talk of "the State" then, it is talk of statist behavior. And this is not confined to easily specifiable individuals.