There’s a lot not to like about the weekly magazine The Nation. It is the epitome of technocratic, government-focused, managerial liberalism, the kind that believes compassion can best be reflected in line-items on a budget and that “social justice” is just another bureaucratic program away from being achieved.
But all the same, they are often scathing in their critique of the managerial state and executive power. I particularly like this:
In the spirit of top-down government, talk abounds about the appointment of a czar, kaiser or gauleiter to run the reconstruction of the Gulf communities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The name of Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO, is mentioned. He’d be perfect, famous, as he is, for his considerate treatment of subordinates.
The hundreds of thousands of low- and moderate-income people whose lives have been blasted are not heard from. Nor will they be, scattered and unorganized as they are. If reconstruction continues in the direction it has been going, the displaced will get what they are given and can start practicing how to look grateful for it.
Reconstruction does not need a manager. Certainly not a czar. It needs, more than anything else, for government at all levels to get the hell out of the way and allow people to make whatever decisions are best and fit them best given what little many of them have. It’s not going to be perfect, but it will be both decent and human if the planners — private and public, corporate and government — are prevented from attempting to shape the outcome in ways they want and in ways that suit them, rather than the people rebuilding.
I know that is not, of course, what The Nation writer had in mind.
3:37 pm on September 20, 2005
