Customer Reviews

The Trouble with Government

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This book's title immediately caught my attention. Currently many of us are not totally enamored with the present state of affairs in both the federal government and national politics. After completing the book, I am convinced that its title is somewhat misleading. Bok ultimately is not totally persuasive in that the real source is "Trouble With Government;" but instead his major conclusion is that the trouble is with us, the U.S. electorate.

Bok, Harvard President Emeritus, presents a very well researched and articulated analysis of the shortcomings of present day government. However, if you looking for highly entertaining big-ticket recommendations on how to improve government, you will not find them here. Instead, the book seems directed toward the more informed student of government and politics, who is seeking a comprehensive and well thought out analysis.

I found Bok's more academic approach and style in sharp contrast to Robert Reich's recent work, The Future of Success, which is an analysis of our current economy. In the latter, Reich is more entertaining and captivating with perhaps more mass appeal. Bok's style, on the other hand, is more intellectual and ultimately attractive to the political or social scientist type.

The Trouble With Government is Bok's companion volume to the State of the Nation, which was published in 1996. He begins with an empirical analysis, which shows the U.S. lagging behind other advanced democracies in several key quality of life indicators. In his search for the cause of these shortcomings, he first looks at the "usual suspects," which are politicians, political parties, the media and special interests. Instead of these culprits, Bok maintains the problem lies with poorly designed legislation, burdensome regulation, and the neglect of working-class interests and failed antipoverty policies. For each of these he offers his own solutions. For the most part, Bok's solutions are attainable and not too far-reaching. His recommendations would not require dramatic structural change to our existing political system. Conversely, some seem rather idealistic and romantic such as increased civic education and a call for added national community service. Ultimately, Bok places much of the root cause squarely on the backs of the general populous. Our own disinterest and disengagement are seen as the ultimate culprits. In Bok's own words we end up with the type of government we deserve. This is certainly a message worthy of our attention.

This book provides a comprehensive and well-documented analysis of the primary reasons for our government's many failings. The upside is that the book is painstakingly evenhanded and non-partisan. The downside is that every chapter seems to end in a frustrating stalemate between two or more opposing policy positions that have equal merit (or that lack merit equally). This book is sort of an annotated restatement of Churchill's assertion that democracy, though a terrible form of government, is still better than any of the alternatives. I don't blame the author for democracy's shortcomings. His title, after all, is The Trouble with Government, not The Solution for Government.

Author ignores heterogeneous nature of the US, both geographically and ethnicly, comparing the US to smaller and less populous democracies elsewhere. He also fudges the poverty level concept: whereas senior citizen households are almost entirely composed of one or two people, households below the poiverty level which include children show three, four or more persons trying to live on an income sufficient ONLY for one or two, and alleviating this siituation (voluntary on the part of the parents) would only condemn future generations to bare existence levels by encouraging this prolific breeding by those who cannot adequately support their offspring. He also does not give due weight to the immigration (legal or illegal) of millions of workers qualified only for manual labor, which depresses the wage levels at the low end; he should observe the day labor lineups which occur in all of our metropolitan areas, to realize that these people just do not work every day and it is impossible to sustain a family on such work. An oversupply!

Nearly every page of this book exudes this ivory-tower academic's desire for more socialism. In effect, his solution to "the trouble with government" is more government, higher taxes, more support and loyal allegiance from the proletariat, and less personal liberty and freedom.

He praises professional politicians, impressed at how well informed they are about issues near and dear to his heart. (No wonder; the issues near and dear to Mr. Bok's heart involve big government programs, socialistic wealth redistribution, and grand societal architectural schemes that are near and dear to every power-loving politician.)

Bok never questions the basic premise that we need big government. He claims that as we have come to depend on the State to meet so many of our needs, our welfare depends more than ever on how well our government performs. Wouldn't it be nice to see instead a realistic exploration of how much better off we'd be if we didn't depend on the State to meet so many of our needs; if we had much lower taxes, more money to meet those needs ourselves, more time and money to support charities that can more effectively address societal issues than tired, failed government megaprograms.

Bok acknowledges that government is ubiquitous and involved in every facet of our lives, yet his view of "the trouble with government" isn't that it's too invasive, but that it's not invasive enough and isn't always run by the most effective bureaucrats. He claims that a shoddy performance by public officials today can mean:

* inadequate schooling for children (alternative suggestion: vouchers, or even get the government out of the education business entirely),

* hunger for needy families (alternative suggestions: quit trying to increase the size of a government that already consumes half of our nation's production and we'll have a lot more individual wealth available to solve problems for ourselves and our neighbors, and quit building a government so large that everyone comes to expect it to solve their problems instead of taking personal responsibility),

* sluggish growth or even a recession for our economy (sounds like the old discredited Keynesian theories that the only way to have prosperity is for the government to orchestrate it), and

* substandard health care (again, his implication is that only through government can we have good health care).

If you are a bleeding heart liberal, you'll probably enjoy this book.

If you believe in liberty and personal responsibility, however, this is just another book to add to the list of liberal mumbo-jumbo that you won't want to waste your time reading. It's further evidence that all the education in the world won't necessarily produce an author with common sense and an understanding of how a free society should operate.