[lbo-talk] Ideal left (was: Obama & the white guy)

[Max B. Sawicky]

"The government does not need top graduates, administrative offices staffed with MBAs from Wharton, or policy shops full of the best and brightest whatevers," wrote Terry Cutler, one of Devine's assistants, in a 1986 op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal. "Government's goal should not be employee excellence but employee sufficiency."

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Uncle+Sam+doesn't+want+you%3B+government+agencies+are+a+haven+for+the...-a09218074


>
>On Feb 21, 2008, at 3:46 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
>> How come that we want efficient
>> technicians to perform most specilized tasks of
>> everyday life - from flying aircraft, to designing our
>> homes, bridges, or automobiles, to teaching our
>> children, and to treating our illness - but then we
>> suddenly settle for bumbling idiots who can play the
>> crowds when it comes the management of the most
>> complex institution even created - the state?
>
>There are things to be said for having good technocrats run the state  
>- e.g., NYC under Bloomberg, as I've said here before. But politics  
>isn't just about administration - it's about, in Margaret Atwood's  
>words, who does what to whom and gets away with it. It's about the  
>distribution and use of resources and coercion. That sort of thing  
>can't be settled technocratically.
>
>Doug
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