In the business world, the hope for profit and the fear of loss act powerfully to compel economizing in production. Freedom provides opportunity - and more. One producer's aggressiveness in cost cutting is another's challenge or threat. Governments, however, do not need to meet cost demands in the same sense as do businesses. They exist, but making them powerful and effective requires exceptional imagination, effort, and freedom within government.
Efficiency demands smaller rather than greater use of inputs per unit of output.
He must also be under pressure to do what seems best. Production possibilities differ widely from time to time, from place to place. Any single pattern, no matter how well adapted to some situations, will be unsuited to others, and definitely bad for some. Freedom permits the public to benefit from such variety. Government agencies cannot be expected to improve efficiency to the extent that, and as promptly as, permitted by changes in technology and changes in the prices of inputs.