Be employees of the federal government. Others believe that while the government should pay for airport security, the workers should be hired by private firms, which would be monitored and held accountable for mistakes. This debate highlights the fact that people can agree that public provision of certain services makes sense, but still disagree over whether they should be produced publicly or privately. Part of the controversy stems from fundamental differences regarding the extent to which government should intervene in the economy (see Chapter 1). Part is due to different opinions about the relative costs of public and private production. Some argue that public sector managers, unlike their private sector counterparts, do not have to worry about making profits or becoming the victims of takeovers or bankruptcy. Hence, they have little incentive to monitor the activities of their enterprises carefully. This notion has an ancient pedigree. In 1776 Adam Smith argued