Conservation of government

Conservation of government refers to the principle that the amount of "whatever it is that government needs to do" is roughly constant for a given configuration of geography, demographics, and resources.

As a result, attempts to reduce the size of "big government" only outsource the targeted tasks to the private sector, increasing the size of private, for-profit government, and/or reducing the quantity and quality of government services, having a disproportionate effect on the poor and middle class. The public mind is not often enough drawn to the idea that a corporation is a government, reaching for power like any other. While a corporation is nominally accountable to any shareholders it may have, it is not accountable to the public interest. In their very charters, for-profit corporations are notably without any interest in furthering the public good.

Describing this outsourcing to the private sector as "Privateering" is a way to bring public attention to the offensive nature of unjust enrichment, which may otherwise be cloaked in Tea Party terms such as "opportunity" and "deregulation."