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The strength of America, I think, is our culture of self-determination. What we choose to do, and how we do it, is up to each of us. We can make a difference—to ourselves and our community. This sense of ownership creates what Tocqueville saw as “a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it.” It also creates a hopeful culture—the future can be better because we can make it better.
Americans’ confidence has eroded in recent decades. This is due in part to the intrusion of forces beyond any individual’s control—global markets that supplant jobs and opportunities; centralized bureaucracies that suffocate human instincts and interactions; and cultural clashes that dislodge community values.
Even Americans who are “doing well” feel pushed around.
Most Americans think government is broken, but the prospects for reform are bleak—no matter which party is in control.
The Economist this week hosted an episode of its “Checks and Balance” podcast on what’s needed for America to break out of this doom loop. The format was unique, at least for the Economist: executive editor Charlotte Howard interviewed her father (me), and then discussed the interview with U.S. editor John Prideaux and Washington columnist James Bennet. For the record, this was not my idea and Charlotte reluctantly was pushed into it by her colleagues. I wish we did it all the time.
Fixing what’s broken doesn’t happen because the political dynamic is aimed at beating the other side—not making government work better.
Philip K. Howard, a graduate of Taft prep school, Yale and the University of Virginia School of Law, says he never wore “white bucks.” This 1950s campus fashion waned before he matriculated. Those buckskin shoes were popular among young blades destined to become “white-shoe lawyers” at prestigious “white-shoe law firms,” such as Covington & Burling, where Howard, 76, is senior counsel.
He also is a genteel inveigher against the coagulation of American society, which is saturated with law. In his new book “Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America,” he argues that law’s proper role is preventing transgressions by authorities, not micromanaging choices so minutely that red tape extinguishes individual responsibility and the social trust that individualism engenders.
In Saving Can-Do, Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard unlocks the quandary of populist resentment and also of broken government.
America is flailing in legal quicksand. The solution is a new governing framework that allows Americans to roll up their sleeves and take responsibility. We must scrap the red tape state. What’s required is a multi-year effort to replace these massive failed bureaucracies with simpler codes that are activated by people using their judgment. As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the revolution, it’s time to reclaim the magic of America’s unique can-do culture.
Saving Can-Do was published by Rodin Books on September 23, 2025.