Review: Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress - and How to Bring It Back, by Marc J. Dunkelman
by
Stuart Holland
A fascinating book. A deep dive into American government action (or really inaction) in the time since the 1970s. It goes into detail on several exemplar case studies that draw out obvious general case paralysis across many government institutions, born not from malice, but from a series of well placed cautious approaches that coalesce to restrain all action, both good and bad. You can see it in the headlines of cost overruns in government projects across the west, and how series of separate but commonly-motivated decisions lead to that outcome.
At the core, the book posits that there is much good that is within our power to do, and therefore through our elected governments. There will always be nefarious detractors acting in bad faith (like Trump and his ilk), but to suggest they’re the only problem risks, paradoxically, empowering them even further. It’s a compelling argument that Trump and similar people to him succeed not only because of support for their ill-meaning policies, but also because of dissatisfaction with government to deliver on its promises. That the best way to undermine the fundamentals of support for that movement is to invest enough authority in figures that want to do good to be able to legitimately achieve it.
Every review of this book will include a definition of “Hamiltonian” and “Jeffersonian” approaches to power and governance (respectively, the approach of either investing centralized power in decision-makers or diffusing power out to individuals), because it uses that vocabulary a lot. And it makes the point that both approaches, in the extreme, cause bad outcomes (Hamiltonianism resulting in authoritarian abuse and Jeffersonianism in gridlocked paralysis), and that currently America has swung too far towards Jeffersonian (which has opened the door for Trump and his illegitimate authoritarianism).
It’s a nuanced take that I’m not going to try to repeat in full. I liked this book a lot and feel like I learned a bunch as well. The historical case studies in particular draw a lot of interesting connections to how modern American laws became as they are.
Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress - and How to Bring It Back
