Academic

DAVID BROOKS WONDERS WHY THE GOVERNMENT CAN?T DO ANYTHING ANYMORE: Why are important projects now?

By Glenn Reynolds

DAVID BROOKS WONDERS WHY THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T DO ANYTHING ANYMORE:

Why are important projects now unaffordable? Decades ago, when the federal and state governments were much smaller, they had the means to undertake gigantic new projects, like the Interstate Highway System and the space program. But now, when governments are bigger, they don?t.

The answer is what Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal once called demosclerosis. Over the past few decades, governments have become entwined in a series of arrangements that drain money from productive uses and direct it toward unproductive ones.

That’s exactly right, and Rauch’s book, Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government, remains just as timely as in the 1990s, when it came out.

Brooks is also right about this:

This situation, if you?ll forgive me for saying so, has been the Democratic Party?s epic failure. The party believes in the positive uses of government. But if you want the country to share that belief, you have to provide a government that is nimble, tough-minded and effective. That means occasionally standing up to the excessive demands of public employee unions. Instead of standing up to those demands, the party has become captured by the unions. Liberal activism has become paralyzed by its own special interests.

But there’s a lesson that he misses. Brooks calls for a political party that won’t be for more government or less government, but for making the right choices. The problem is that any party given the power to create more government will likely do so, and to hell with making the right choices. The web of special interests is very strong.

There is at least a partial solution, and I wrote about it in my Vanderbilt Law Review article entitled Is Democracy Like Sex? which got some attention back when it came out. It’s all about enhancing resistance to parasitism through turnover. We’re likely to see some of that in November, anyway . . . .

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on October 13, 2010 (boomark / email).