Analyzes the problem of stagnation in america by looking at an internal struggle in progressive politics:
- the “Hamiltonian” urge to centralize power to allow government to accomplish large things,
- the “Jeffersonian” urge to “speak truth to power”, and enabling the small fish to prevent the government from doing bad things.
The book consists of a long series of anecdotes showing how these two conflicting philosophies have operated in the progressive movement. Some of the chapters towards the end are very good, looking at a specific area of policy and its history. For example, the section on the development of the highway system does a good job of illustrating how these two instincts conflict, and elucidates how the system of judicial review created in response to this has then been used to block good projects, like electricity transmission to allow Quebec hydropower to supply electricity to New England (c.f. NECEC Debacle).
The book does have trouble focusing though, and some of the earlier chapters are a lot harder to follow, with a much less clear narrative.
I also think that the lens proposed here is very incomplete. One big failing is that in many cases, there’s a genuine debate about whether or not the area in question should even be regulated at all by the government. Late in the book, the author frames the YIMBY movement as a kind of “ultra-Jeffersonian” movement, which wants to empower property owners against bad government zoning decisions. This isn’t a great frame, which is more so about limiting the scope of government control, rather than adding oversight mechanisms to that control.
We’ve created a system in which government is expected to be able to balance different interest groups through consideration alone in the executive branch, rather than being directed to do specific things via the elected representatives. As a response to this being undemocratic, rather than shifting control back to the legislatures, we’ve instead continued to delegate this power, but added requirements to consider certain interests. The problem is that the remedy for non-consideration is sought through the judicial system, wherein any actor can oppose projects they don’t like for trivial administrative procedural faults.
The problem here is that we’re conducting politics in an extremely inefficient way. Anyone with a reason to oppose a project can find some flaw in the procedure. Or, the government spends needless time developing a flawless procedure to overcome any objection, even when the studies conducted as part of the procedure don’t actually influence decision making, or produce any knowledge at all. Lawfare is inevitable given a judicial system, but it’s especially absurd here, where the pretense of being concerned about due administrative process isn’t even there, it’s obviously just a mechanism to achieve political objectives.
There are better venues to conduct politics, and we should use them. We also need to respect the results of these venues, and not allow small minority interest groups to place their political goals above everyone else simply by finding minor procedural flaws.
One mechanism of doing politics which isn’t advocated much in the book, but seems especially promising, is leaning more on the market to balance incentives. Imagine if you had a council which decided what food would be stocked in grocery stores. (If New York City is unlucky enough, this may be in the near future: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/nyregion/grocery-stores-city-owned.html). There would be many small interest groups which would benefit greatly from being stocked personally. There would also be other competitors who would like to veto the store being placed near to them. Under the current system, rather than even having their voices heard through representatives in such a council, or actual legislators, you’d have judicial vetoes launched by each opposition group. The council would then create a 1500 page study showing why exactly they chose to put the grocery store there, and what items they chose to stock, etc. Even if you actually chose politics, the process is still subject to interest groups imposing diffuse costs for massive concentrated benefits.
The actual system we have for choosing what stores stock what is much better, and does a much better job at squaring interests against each other. Consumers are free to buy the goods they like from the grocery store, the store is free to buy land to put stores where it think customers will be readily available to access them, etc.
In the case of transmission line placement, I think the use of eminent domain as caused a lot of strife, specifically because “market value” used there is a distortion. If a farmer doesn’t like a transmission line going through his farm, that’s fine, you can find another farm to go through. This is an indication not that we need eminent domain, but rather a more efficient market mechanism, which allows the government to collectively bid against the possible routes it could take, and land owners to auction off their rights, in a way that can find an equilibrium between different interests.