Common Good

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System Failure at DOD

Andrew Park

The world order is in danger – with major conflicts raging or threatened on three continents. America needs to be strong.   
 
Instead, as RAND defense expert Michael J. Mazarr explains, the Department of Defense is “overgrown with rules [and] bureaucracy,” and “more concerned with following procedure, preserving institutional habits, and hoarding power and resources than generating positive outcomes.” It is imperative that “the United States...overhaul its defense institutions.”
 
It is also difficult for America to be strong abroad while weak at home. Citing our work, Mazarr describes “enervating bureaucratic requirements [that] invade every area of economic and social life, from education to medicine to starting new businesses.”
 
It’s time to get serious. America must “be prepared for a more dangerous era.” But no amount of money, and not even bold leadership, can overcome structural paralysis. America is in the grips of system failure. The only option is to change the system.
 
In Philip Howard's new short (84-page) book, Everyday Freedom, he explains how post-1960s legal systems disempower human responsibility and must be replaced by simpler goal-oriented frameworks, more like the Constitution. Nothing will work sensibly until people at all levels of responsibility are re-empowered to roll up their sleeves and do the job.
 
Washington will not take the lead. The idea of system overhaul is nowhere in the 2024 debates, because it will upset partisans that feed at the public trough. We need a movement to change that. That requires a campaign, and all that entails, including resources and alliances with like-minded organizations. Common Good can’t begin to do this alone. We hope you will have ideas.
 
If you’re interested in learning more:

  • C-SPAN this Sunday is airing a discussion of Everyday Freedom with Philip and his daughter Charlotte Howard, Executive Editor at The Economist.

  • The Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh is hosting a forum on March 1: “Powerlessness and Populism: Does America need a new governing vision?” The forum will be live-streamed. We’ll provide more details next week.

  • Here is a column in News Items suggesting a candidate’s speech for overhaul addressing populist resentment.

Please think about where we are as a country. Look at Washington. The red tape state can’t even reliably defend us. Big change always comes from outside pressure. America needs a campaign for system overhaul.

  • David Brooks cites Philip's work in a recent New York Times column on “the growing bureaucratization of American life,” writing: “As Philip K. Howard has been arguing for years, good organizations give people discretion to do what is right. But the trend in public and private sector organizations has been to write rules that rob people of the power of discretion.”