The Regualtory State

Apparently Phillip Howard has a new book out "The Rule of Nobody"  discussed here at Had Enough Therapy.  I read his first book "The Death of Common Sense" many years ago.  In his new book he apparently returns to the theme of overregulation and its pernicious effects on regulators' ability to exercise discretion and judgment.  Preventing the exercise of judgment and discretion results in absurdities such as being unable to remove a fallen tree from a stream even though it was causing flooding without spending thousands of dollars on engineering and planning work required by regulation.

As Schneiderman notes regulators and legislators like detailed regulations for various reasons.  The trade off for the regulators is that they in turn escape responsibility.  In addition to detailed regulations furthering regulators raison d'etre such regulations also prevent regulators from having to exercise judgment and discretion.  Regulators are thus able to avoid any responsibility.  This is an advantage as well for legislators who enact broad mandates and leave the detailed implementation to regulators.

This is a common problem.  Accountability is widely seen as something to be avoided at all costs.  Most people operate by the axiom that they don't care what happens as long as it's not their fault.   So, in my view the issue of overregulation is merely a symptom of a larger problem: how do we make our "representatives" in government accountable?  It seems to me that the trend over the life of our Republic has been to diffuse accountability.  Partly this is a result of a growing population more people means paradoxically fewer people to answer to.  But it is also a result of the human tendency to want to avoid responsibility the result of which is that people alter the structures in which they operate to deflect responsibility.   Here I am thinking of the tendency to pass laws giving regulators broad discretion in implementation. 

Moreover, even when the structures cannot be altered enough to avoid responsibility people try to form a narrative which absolves them of responsibility.  Currently this is manifest in Democrats seeking to persuade people that whatever ill effects Obamacare is inflicting are either 1) not that bad really or 2) not their fault.

It has seemed to me that the this problem can only be solved by devolving more governmental power to local political units.  It is much more difficult to avoid answering your neighbor's questions than it is to avoid the questions of someone whom you have never seen before and will never see again.  This in theory is an approach liberals and conservatives should be able to support.  It would allow both to have the chance to implement their particular world views more thoroughly than would otherwise be possible.

Regardless of the approach, something must be done to make those who govern us more accountable for their actions.