Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009

There are two meanings, specific (institutional) and general
(rhetorical.)
1.  Many governments adopted in the 1970s the new policy
that designated units of government ought to become "profit
centres", i.e. collect (in fees charged to clients) more than
they cost.   E.g. the original policy of the Dominion Bureau
of Statistics was to provide Canadian government information
free of charge to anyone who could benefit, and that of the
Geographic Survey of Canada was to map the whole country
in case anyone might want to buy maps in future.   The
"profit centre" policy required that designated units of DBS
and GSC start charging fees for information earlier
distributed free and/or adjust prices (e.g. of maps) so as
to demonstrate a net profit in each fiscal year.

2.  Generally, the political rhetoric of the last 50 years has
been that government ought to operate "on a businesslike
basis."   The general assumption is that bureaucratic methods
are ipso facto wasteful and business methods are not.  (Students
of Enron, AIG, Bank of America, etc., might disagree.)  From time
to time (e.g. at elections) this general idea gets extra emphasis.
Politicians often claim to follow proven business methods
rather than abstract ideas of the national welfare etc.

Your first mistake was reading Brooks.  Find someone who isn't such a
toady.  CEO's should be forced to adapt to life in prison - or at least
to subsist on high-typical wages.  But what CEO didn't have political
skills to get to that position?

--Jeff