"All of life works on responsibility," says Philip K. Howard. "Everybody listening to this…has achieved what they've achieved in life because they took responsibility to make it happen. Government is no different than that."
In 1995, Howard wrote The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America, kicking off a national conversation about bureaucratic overreach and stupid regulations. In his new book, The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government, he extends and elaborates his analysis. It isn't bureaucratic gridlock or partisan polarization that's keeping Washington in perpetual mismanagement, argues Howard, but a fog of rules and regulations that has made it nearly impossible to figure out who is responsible.
Until civil servants can use common sense and practical judgement, he says, the government won't gain the flexibility needed for solving today's problems.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Reason's Nick Gillespie, Howard discusses many topics, including the following: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's inability to quickly raise the height of the Bayonne Bridge to accommodate newer, taller ships (00:57); why even President Obama doesn't control the executive branch (5:37); why regulations haven't made nursing homes better (7:50); how even New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo couldn't shut down an unused juvenile detention center due to union rules (9:12); the long history of doctors gaming Medicare (10:31); why businesses are more flexible than governments (12:10); how technocratic views of government took over America; why mandatory minimums have led to abuse by prosecutors (18:42); specific reforms to shift from "automatic government" to individual responsibility (25:44); the goals of the Common Good Foundation (43:00); and the high probablitiy of "seismic change" in America's political culture (44:10).
About 45 minutes.
Shot by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain. Edited by Swain.
Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube Channel to receive automatic updates when new material goes live.
Read Gillespie's review of The Rule of Nobody.
This video is an example of why I subscribe to Reason.TV. I wish I could
say that about more of their videos.
See: Hank Williams Jr’s – “Coalition to ban Coalitions”
This is why I think its the gov agencies that are the real gov and the
politicians are just fluff.
Why don’t you just get rid of govt, then we wont have to deal with all this
bullshit.
At 5:10 they talk about how the president does not have control over the
administrative state. I was under the impression, however, that he only
has control over the hiring and firing of the very top level executives
i.e. secretaries. Therefore, he wouldn’t have much any control over things
like the EPA, and for better or worse, it was designed that way. Can
someone clarify?
Well, the better-designed agencies (so, not the EPA) are designed so that
the President’s influence is split with Congress preventing any one entity
from dominating its operations.
For the worse agencies, having the influence of the President be limited
probably sounds like a good idea, but if that influence isn’t
counterbalanced by some other entity that links back to the people through
elections or referenda, then what you end up with is an autonomous
bureaucracy, which is an even greater threat to liberty than a Congress
that disregards the Constitution. It’s hard to say exactly what was the
intention of those original designers, but regardless of intention, this is
a serious flaw in the design.
Most Tea Party folks are constitutionalists. I wish they wanted no
government. Mr. Howard wants an independent commission to review laws
because Congress can’t be trusted to do it? How about we keep the
commissions and get rid of Congress? These could be private commissions
who could only exist if the public willingly subscribed to their rules for
a fee. If you don’t like their rules, no need to organize a march, just
cancel your service and switch to a competing commission.
he even acknowledged that all government schemes are broken… still he
would keep them and only hire more bureaucraps to “manage” them “better”…
I say: magical thinking 🙂 There is no “independent” commissions…
+Xenthoid
indeed – most people must still break out of their mental chains of
statism… For some it’s a religion – even more difficult to deny it 🙁
I like : “working with what we have instead of …”
THIS IS THE SPIRIT OF EVOLUTION
Liberalism is the problem, nothing else.
The problem with our government isn’t a partisan issue; both parties have
passed worthless, failed “bipartisan” laws and programs that have fleeced
the American public for trillions of dollars….
There is no greater regulator than the free market … if only we actually
had one. Corporations as we know them today can not exist in a free market.
The reason corporations are so powerful, and we “need regulation” to
protect us from them is because the government is already protecting them
from us.
Because of government regulations, corporations enjoy “limited liability”
as well as a list of other legal advantages which individual citizens do
not enjoy. It is this list of advantages which allow them to grow so large,
and gain such influence. Strip away all of their legal protection, and they
would have to compete on a level playing field. They would be held FULLY
LIABLE for all harm done to their customers, their employees, and to the
environment.
People love to blame corporations, but it is the power of GOVERNMENT which
makes them dangerous. Get the government completely out of the market, and
the market will regulate itself. In order to succeed in a free market, a
company must offer the best product, at the best price, while causing no
harm. Competition between marketeers keeps prices low and quality high,
while fear of liability keeps their operation safe.
Amen brother!!
An article a good as the interview above. Thanks so much for sharing with
us.
Is the ‘limited liability’ bit about LLCs?
+Keenan Webb
All forms of “incorporation” hold some degree of limited liability, or
legal buffer, which shields the operators of the business, to one extent or
another, from prosecution. These legal protections effectively redirect
lawsuits away from the operators which make the choices and act in the
market, and to the corporate entity name, which isn’t really a person and
doesn’t care. If the corporation is harmed or bankrupted by prosecution,
the operators can simply close shop, and open an identical business under a
new corporate name, never having had to personally pay the full cost of
damages they might have caused to the market.
+ZombieTex So, it’s not really ‘corporations’ who have the advantages, but
the owners of the corporations, then?
Corporations are no different than government. Both are human
organizations full of humans who are fallable. I wish both weren’t so
large and powerful.
This is a great interview. Gillespie asks the questions I want asked
despite insisting on dressing like a middle-aged biker dude. I think if he
put on a tie his interviews would easily be 20% more effective.
Well done Nick and Philip, I shared the video and ordered the new book.
“Philip K Howard has always struck me as an eminently reasonable,
articulate advocate for common sense solutions. No wonder no one listens to
him.” (Jon Stewart, The Daily Show)
We should be thankful that bureaucracies are formed. Without bureaucrats
and bureaucratic rules, all government actions would be done with
discretion. You can’t allow discretion with government operations. Why?
Because they are the only provider of that particular activity. The
customer for the government is not the one they serve. Thus there’s no
market process for destroying those that don’t serve customers. Discretion
can be allowed where the customer is king.
Where has the Tea Party said they want to get rid of ALL government?
There are NO “isolated special interests”. These “interests” are the power
behind the Political class
Wait, the Tea Party wants to get rid of government altogether? OK, this
shows he is not in touch with reality.
Huh? An independent commission appointed by whom? This is laughable.
Mr. Howard, how about restoring the constitution? Article V gives the state
governments a clear, constitutional path to taking back power from those
who have made the constitution into something it was never meant to be,
using legal tricks, judges who have no virtue, etc.
Nick!!! The common good? What the heck is that?
Dam shitty law that built up like sentiment in the harbor. Fick
LOVE Your Channel !
It takes so much awareness, and then the guts to tell the truth to make the
world wake up. So proud of you for this video.