Michael Hiltzik: California fires show it's private enterprise, not government, that can't get things right

Critics of public sector inefficiencies have long declared that "government should be run like a business."

A business such as, say, Pacific Gas & Electric?

The current wildfire crisis in California should serve as an object lesson in the folly of expecting private enterprise to operate in the service of the public interest. It's common to hear ordinary taxpayers grousing about the DMV as a proxy for all that's burdensome and irritating about bureaucracy.

But the electricity shutoffs across the state, aimed at reducing the chance that a spark from utility equipment will start a fire, are the handiwork of our private utilities, artifacts of their failure to spend more money on their infrastructure rather than shareholder dividends.

Federal Judge William Alsup of San Francisco, who is overseeing PG&E's probation following its criminal conviction in connection with the 2010 gas line explosion that killed eight in San Bruno, implicitly acknowledged