6 ms·

The inability of modern states to operationally keep up is deeply distressing. I have no political orientation with respect to the 'size' of government so much,

by jariel 6y ago

The inability of modern states to operationally keep up is deeply distressing. I have no political orientation with respect to the 'size' of government so much, but at very least, it needs to be effective for whatever it is doing. The massive backlogs in the justice and immigration system, the lack of innovation in so many areas, ultra powerful unions, lack of material investment in anything other that known quantities like 'roads and highways' the seeming inability to have coherent identity solution for elections. Yesterday, large swaths of Canadian government stats site 'Stats Canada' - a federal agency was just down and completely broken. It's 'COVID', hey, we're not going to fix that. Can you imagine of Amazon.com just 'went down' for a few days? SF and California in particular lose all credibility when trying to 'lead' the country in any capacity really - Gavin Newsom's words about 'California is the future of America' are toxically arrogant in this regard. Dysfunction is just another form of corruption. This is an existential problem for some modern nations.

baggy_trough 6y ago
The problem is that government is a low-accountability sector, but many people have a quasi-religious belief that due to elections, it isn't.
- jariel 6y ago
  I think people's belief about 'government not needing true accountability' is one of civic mindset, and a kind of naivte to how inefficient things can truly get. The word 'incentives' triggers the socialist crowd with 'capitalist speak'. I for one value good governance, and I don't think it's all about incentives, but that's definitely part of the issue and we don't have any popular measurable accountability for the bureaucracy.
seibelj 6y ago
The problem is incentive. No one in the government has any incentive to do anything. In fact not rocking the boat is far safer than doing something new, which is risky. While I do wish the government would shrink heavily, another idea I have is to pay department heads a percentage of every dollar saved each year. As it stands, agencies want to increase their budget and headcount every year as that leads to prestige. If 10 cents of every dollar saved went straight to the head of the department, you would magically see millions and millions cut each year as they install better software, streamline, etc.
- ip26 6y ago
  Rather than efficiency, I suspect you would simply see everything dissolved. Mayor closes up shop on the spot, walks away with $1.5B, and the city no longer has a government. https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2018/03/etowah_sheriff_pocketed_over_7.html https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2018/03/etowah_sheriff_po...
- jariel 6y ago
  " another idea I have is to pay department heads a percentage of every dollar saved each year." We can't reasonably measure how much money is 'saved' because there would have to be some rational benchmark agains which there would be 'savings'. What you would be inducing is merely 'less spending'. The 'spending' is not the problem, it's the efficiency. We want governments to spend wherein the can be a high ROI on that spend, but not where there is less obviously. As the article hints, if SF had an amazing new subway system for it's squandered billions, that would probably be a net win. In other words what we want is 'surplus' to be generated from government spending, the 'more surplus for the dollar', the better. Because most government services are free, we don't have any direct way of measuring said surpluses (we don't in the private sector either, but assuming any degree of market efficiency than price can be a proxy for surplus). So either we have to 'guess' at the value of services created (easier for subways than for say, having 'judges'), or create some kind of direct measurement. Or perhaps levels of spending and baseline measures of output could be measured, and then held to account against other cities in the region/country and have cities more comparably 'benchmark' against one another. And finally, just transparency: if people see how much money is going where and it's popularized, published, widely disseminated, it can have a populist effect.
phobosanomaly 6y ago
Public policy is tremendously complex, and difficult to do well. Before boiling down large, complex government programs to simple dysfunction and corruption, I recommend a read-through of Deborah Stone's book Policy Paradox. It gives you some idea of what real policymakers are up against in the real world. The city managers are optimizing for the preferences of a million people in a city with geographic restrictions and tremendous external factors at play. https://wwnorton.com/books/Policy-Paradox https://wwnorton.com/books/Policy-Paradox "Policy Paradox offers a needed alternative (or complement) to economics-based or rational choice books that treat policy making and policy analysis as distinct from one another—the former as a messy political process, the latter as a clinical, "rational" exercise."
- jariel 6y ago
  Thanks for the reference, however, with only having read the description, I'm a little bit cynical already in that they highlight issues of 'values, politics and policy' - when I don't think that's the problem. The problem to me is one of operational effectiveness. 'Making stuff work' is a grind - it requires focus, dedication, leadership, a bit of vision, commitment. Even if SF were to have made the 'wrong choices' ie it should have built light rail instead of subway ... the benefits would be tremendous. It's not at the level of 'policy' that US/Canada have 5 year backlogs in their immigration systems - it's a lack of operating intelligence and the ability to adapt to new scenarios. It doesn't matter what policy is if nothing ever gets done.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    Operational effectiveness is highly tied to values, politics, and policy. From federal down to local, every bureaucracy has to deal with changes and interventions from outside in the form of budget, direction, etc. Bureaucracies are only as effective as the political environment in which they operate, and they are directed at the behest of voters and politicians which tend to change every few years or-so. My point in sharing the reference isn't to say 'oh, I know something you don't know.' It's that I read it, and went, 'oh, I know nothing, this stuff is waaay more complicated than I thought it was, and no wonder nothing gets done.'

by jariel 6y ago

baggy_trough 6y ago

The problem is that government is a low-accountability sector, but many people have a quasi-religious belief that due to elections, it isn't.

jariel 6y ago
I think people's belief about 'government not needing true accountability' is one of civic mindset, and a kind of naivte to how inefficient things can truly get. The word 'incentives' triggers the socialist crowd with 'capitalist speak'. I for one value good governance, and I don't think it's all about incentives, but that's definitely part of the issue and we don't have any popular measurable accountability for the bureaucracy.

seibelj 6y ago

The problem is incentive. No one in the government has any incentive to do anything. In fact not rocking the boat is far safer than doing something new, which is risky. While I do wish the government would shrink heavily, another idea I have is to pay department heads a percentage of every dollar saved each year. As it stands, agencies want to increase their budget and headcount every year as that leads to prestige. If 10 cents of every dollar saved went straight to the head of the department, you would magically see millions and millions cut each year as they install better software, streamline, etc.

ip26 6y ago
Rather than efficiency, I suspect you would simply see everything dissolved. Mayor closes up shop on the spot, walks away with $1.5B, and the city no longer has a government. https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2018/03/etowah_sheriff_pocketed_over_7.html https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2018/03/etowah_sheriff_po...
jariel 6y ago
" another idea I have is to pay department heads a percentage of every dollar saved each year." We can't reasonably measure how much money is 'saved' because there would have to be some rational benchmark agains which there would be 'savings'. What you would be inducing is merely 'less spending'. The 'spending' is not the problem, it's the efficiency. We want governments to spend wherein the can be a high ROI on that spend, but not where there is less obviously. As the article hints, if SF had an amazing new subway system for it's squandered billions, that would probably be a net win. In other words what we want is 'surplus' to be generated from government spending, the 'more surplus for the dollar', the better. Because most government services are free, we don't have any direct way of measuring said surpluses (we don't in the private sector either, but assuming any degree of market efficiency than price can be a proxy for surplus). So either we have to 'guess' at the value of services created (easier for subways than for say, having 'judges'), or create some kind of direct measurement. Or perhaps levels of spending and baseline measures of output could be measured, and then held to account against other cities in the region/country and have cities more comparably 'benchmark' against one another. And finally, just transparency: if people see how much money is going where and it's popularized, published, widely disseminated, it can have a populist effect.

phobosanomaly 6y ago

Public policy is tremendously complex, and difficult to do well. Before boiling down large, complex government programs to simple dysfunction and corruption, I recommend a read-through of Deborah Stone's book Policy Paradox. It gives you some idea of what real policymakers are up against in the real world. The city managers are optimizing for the preferences of a million people in a city with geographic restrictions and tremendous external factors at play. https://wwnorton.com/books/Policy-Paradox https://wwnorton.com/books/Policy-Paradox "Policy Paradox offers a needed alternative (or complement) to economics-based or rational choice books that treat policy making and policy analysis as distinct from one another—the former as a messy political process, the latter as a clinical, "rational" exercise."

jariel 6y ago
Thanks for the reference, however, with only having read the description, I'm a little bit cynical already in that they highlight issues of 'values, politics and policy' - when I don't think that's the problem. The problem to me is one of operational effectiveness. 'Making stuff work' is a grind - it requires focus, dedication, leadership, a bit of vision, commitment. Even if SF were to have made the 'wrong choices' ie it should have built light rail instead of subway ... the benefits would be tremendous. It's not at the level of 'policy' that US/Canada have 5 year backlogs in their immigration systems - it's a lack of operating intelligence and the ability to adapt to new scenarios. It doesn't matter what policy is if nothing ever gets done.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  Operational effectiveness is highly tied to values, politics, and policy. From federal down to local, every bureaucracy has to deal with changes and interventions from outside in the form of budget, direction, etc. Bureaucracies are only as effective as the political environment in which they operate, and they are directed at the behest of voters and politicians which tend to change every few years or-so. My point in sharing the reference isn't to say 'oh, I know something you don't know.' It's that I read it, and went, 'oh, I know nothing, this stuff is waaay more complicated than I thought it was, and no wonder nothing gets done.'