It is a solid general rule that if you draw sneering opposition from Nathan Robinson you are doing something right. For a bunch of reasons his variety of socialism (not exaggerating, he actually identifies as a socialist) is a leading candidate for the party to throw under the bus to signal centrist appeal. MGP is picking a smart fight here.
This also seems like a prime example of the problem—both within government operations and in terms of government policies regulating people and businesses—of creating an environment of “No one seems to know for sure what the laws/regulations do or don’t allow; you only find out for sure if someone decides you’ve broken them and takes enforcement action.” Everyone just sticks to whatever seems the safest option, whether it’s not peeling fruit or mandating an Enterprise Service Bus.
It should be easier to get definitive answers about what is allowed!
To be fair, such answers do exist for plenty of things, e.g. getting building permits approved prior to construction. But far too many other things effectively operate in a way that’s analogous to “we don’t issue building permits—just do your best to interpret the law, and we’ll take enforcement action after you’ve built the building if we decide you were wrong.”
People inside and outside of government ought to be able to get more definitive answers in the form of “GO energy” and not just “STOP energy” (as you referenced in the other post).
Ugh. Yes. Great story! Thanks for your reference to user research and usability testing. We need more of this *so badly* in gov. But it requires more work and more effort and more empathy and more passion….and it seems like so many people shy away from these things to take the path of least resistance. Why?! Why are we so afraid of hard work?!
I love your words here. It also requires 1) executives and 2) programmers with exalted job titles like "engineer" to actually PAY ATTENTION to the people who do the work with effort, empathy, and passion (not to mention the users.)
There's nothing more humbling than sitting down and watching someone use your wonderfully clever user interface. Tons of examples, but one of the standard ones is requiring typists to take their fingers off the keyboard because they have to keep using the mouse, as opposed to putting in useable tab sequences.
I own a building in Washington state that rents to a preschool. (MGP is my rep) You can't use the same sink for food prep as you do for washing hands, for example, so we had to install an extra sink. When we were going through the permitting process to get ready to open, the building department rep made a careless mistake that cost us an extra $10,000 and two months. They would sometimes give us incorrect information, we would follow their instructions, and then the inspector would tell us it was something different. No recourse - we just had to eat their mistakes. We have a huge waiting list for parents desperate to find care for their kids, but can't accommodate any more kids due to the bog of regulations that would make it prohibitively expensive to expand.
It's really absurd when government regulators can give you specific instructions and then go "never mind". There should be accountability. On the other hand, it's very reasonable to require that food prep sinks not be the same ones people use in toilets for washing their hands.
That is an excellent question. I've written about this in my book, and I'll find the right passages for you..but essentially it's culture and incentives. Also see the link to the cascade of rigidity piece.
In my experience in environmental review, the agencies subject to regulations are extremely risk-averse. I wouldn't be surprised if that contributes to the culture (and the incentives always include "don't get sued."
I read an article about why subway construction in NYC is so ridiculously expense. One factor was that state courts have a history of being overly sympathetic to contractors who don't deliver, so the city transport attorneys started writing more and more specific contracts in hopes of being able to hold contractors accountable, but ended up with huge complex contracts that were burdensome but not effective for purpose.
I work for a state-affiliated nonprofit that basically exists because public construction procurement is so broken that the only way to control costs is to do the work outside of government. For example, construction contracts held by my state are structured such that contractors CANNOT lose money unless what they've done is somehow criminal. Screwing up a project literally makes them more money than if they did it right the first time, and the incumbent large contractors spend a lot of money lobbying to keep it that way.
4 hrs ago·edited 4 hrs agoLiked by Jennifer Pahlka
Has Nathan J. Robinson ever worker in government or deal with regulation? No. But he is a PhD candidate in sociology and cowrote a book with Noam Chomsky and another explaining why we should be socialists. So, of course we should folow his advice, lol. https://www.nathanjrobinson.com/
Fantastic article drilling down on huge ideas through the lens of a very clear, specific example. I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusions, and really appreciate this clear portrait of the entire landscape and its complexities.
This feels so validating, I took this same case and wrote [1] last week about how it doesn't make sense to be angry at this JUST because it smells like "anti regulation". You can believe that regulation & gov is good, AND that there's lots of bad regulations that are actively causing harm. To me the root cause is that people identify by the mechanism of a solution, and not with the ultimate goal. I think it's OK to want to side with your people/with your tribe, but we can't define our tribe by "those who use THIS specific tool to solve problems"
These issues should have been fixed by now. I became a government performance expert (nag) about 50 years ago when a lady who provided child care in her home told my mom, a new state licensing agency employee, that her previous contact person “just made her feel thrown away.”
Sometimes your constituents are wrong because someone lied to them or because they have some political goal. People tell me all sorts of nutty things about the government or schools that turn out to be what someone on Facebook heard from a friend's ex-wife - or may be traceable back to deliberate disinformation. "Listen to constituents" can be deceptive. Our school district refused to listen to parents who wanted Biology class to teach Creationism. Good for them. My friend pulled her kids from public school because she believed that students were "identifying as cats" and using litter boxes as toilets in school. That was, of course, not true. If you are going to push an argument with "well, maybe that was not strictly true", you contribute to the problem. In this case, the regulation that day care businesses don't prepare food in the toilet seems perfectly reasonable. Maybe Washington State's building inspectors are too slow and inaccurate (probably they are not funded sufficiently), but that's not an indication of governmental overreach.
I sense your frustration, and I acknowledge that these regulations came from somewhere, often - but certainly not universally - for a good reason. But when an edge case like, "is peeling a fruit that is understood to possess its own natural packaging 'food prep?'" why does the risk all sit with the childcare center employee? I think that's a fair question. You know what the inspector is going to say if asked, because they know that if they make the "tool free fruit peeling is not food prep" decision and a childcare center has an e coli outbreak they're screwed. But this is where it's all falling apart, Victor. The collective effect of those conservative decisions have ossified to the point that government's role is altogether under threat, ironically making the inspector's job and the people they serve far less safe.
"And I think a key part of this disconnect, illustrated by the pushback I got when I started asking about the sinks, is this ingrained disregard for working people by policy makers in DC. They did not take input from someone working in a daycare seriously, and that's wrong.”
It's a STATE regulation, no wonder people in DC didn't take input.
You'd think a Congress member would know the difference between state and Federal regulations, but given this one's track record, it is not surprising.
Let's just let the day care feed the kids Boar's Head supplies - now that they were freed from burdensome government regulations about rats and insects and things.
It is a solid general rule that if you draw sneering opposition from Nathan Robinson you are doing something right. For a bunch of reasons his variety of socialism (not exaggerating, he actually identifies as a socialist) is a leading candidate for the party to throw under the bus to signal centrist appeal. MGP is picking a smart fight here.
This also seems like a prime example of the problem—both within government operations and in terms of government policies regulating people and businesses—of creating an environment of “No one seems to know for sure what the laws/regulations do or don’t allow; you only find out for sure if someone decides you’ve broken them and takes enforcement action.” Everyone just sticks to whatever seems the safest option, whether it’s not peeling fruit or mandating an Enterprise Service Bus.
It should be easier to get definitive answers about what is allowed!
To be fair, such answers do exist for plenty of things, e.g. getting building permits approved prior to construction. But far too many other things effectively operate in a way that’s analogous to “we don’t issue building permits—just do your best to interpret the law, and we’ll take enforcement action after you’ve built the building if we decide you were wrong.”
People inside and outside of government ought to be able to get more definitive answers in the form of “GO energy” and not just “STOP energy” (as you referenced in the other post).
Ugh. Yes. Great story! Thanks for your reference to user research and usability testing. We need more of this *so badly* in gov. But it requires more work and more effort and more empathy and more passion….and it seems like so many people shy away from these things to take the path of least resistance. Why?! Why are we so afraid of hard work?!
I love your words here. It also requires 1) executives and 2) programmers with exalted job titles like "engineer" to actually PAY ATTENTION to the people who do the work with effort, empathy, and passion (not to mention the users.)
There's nothing more humbling than sitting down and watching someone use your wonderfully clever user interface. Tons of examples, but one of the standard ones is requiring typists to take their fingers off the keyboard because they have to keep using the mouse, as opposed to putting in useable tab sequences.
I own a building in Washington state that rents to a preschool. (MGP is my rep) You can't use the same sink for food prep as you do for washing hands, for example, so we had to install an extra sink. When we were going through the permitting process to get ready to open, the building department rep made a careless mistake that cost us an extra $10,000 and two months. They would sometimes give us incorrect information, we would follow their instructions, and then the inspector would tell us it was something different. No recourse - we just had to eat their mistakes. We have a huge waiting list for parents desperate to find care for their kids, but can't accommodate any more kids due to the bog of regulations that would make it prohibitively expensive to expand.
It's really absurd when government regulators can give you specific instructions and then go "never mind". There should be accountability. On the other hand, it's very reasonable to require that food prep sinks not be the same ones people use in toilets for washing their hands.
But why does not each layer, closer to the actual practice, make the reg more flexible?
That is an excellent question. I've written about this in my book, and I'll find the right passages for you..but essentially it's culture and incentives. Also see the link to the cascade of rigidity piece.
In my experience in environmental review, the agencies subject to regulations are extremely risk-averse. I wouldn't be surprised if that contributes to the culture (and the incentives always include "don't get sued."
I read an article about why subway construction in NYC is so ridiculously expense. One factor was that state courts have a history of being overly sympathetic to contractors who don't deliver, so the city transport attorneys started writing more and more specific contracts in hopes of being able to hold contractors accountable, but ended up with huge complex contracts that were burdensome but not effective for purpose.
I work for a state-affiliated nonprofit that basically exists because public construction procurement is so broken that the only way to control costs is to do the work outside of government. For example, construction contracts held by my state are structured such that contractors CANNOT lose money unless what they've done is somehow criminal. Screwing up a project literally makes them more money than if they did it right the first time, and the incumbent large contractors spend a lot of money lobbying to keep it that way.
I used to work in NYC and this totally tracks, unfortunately...
This is excellent, thank you.
Has Nathan J. Robinson ever worker in government or deal with regulation? No. But he is a PhD candidate in sociology and cowrote a book with Noam Chomsky and another explaining why we should be socialists. So, of course we should folow his advice, lol. https://www.nathanjrobinson.com/
Fantastic article drilling down on huge ideas through the lens of a very clear, specific example. I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusions, and really appreciate this clear portrait of the entire landscape and its complexities.
This feels so validating, I took this same case and wrote [1] last week about how it doesn't make sense to be angry at this JUST because it smells like "anti regulation". You can believe that regulation & gov is good, AND that there's lots of bad regulations that are actively causing harm. To me the root cause is that people identify by the mechanism of a solution, and not with the ultimate goal. I think it's OK to want to side with your people/with your tribe, but we can't define our tribe by "those who use THIS specific tool to solve problems"
[1] https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/blue-tribe-is-starting-to-win-by
These issues should have been fixed by now. I became a government performance expert (nag) about 50 years ago when a lady who provided child care in her home told my mom, a new state licensing agency employee, that her previous contact person “just made her feel thrown away.”
Sometimes your constituents are wrong because someone lied to them or because they have some political goal. People tell me all sorts of nutty things about the government or schools that turn out to be what someone on Facebook heard from a friend's ex-wife - or may be traceable back to deliberate disinformation. "Listen to constituents" can be deceptive. Our school district refused to listen to parents who wanted Biology class to teach Creationism. Good for them. My friend pulled her kids from public school because she believed that students were "identifying as cats" and using litter boxes as toilets in school. That was, of course, not true. If you are going to push an argument with "well, maybe that was not strictly true", you contribute to the problem. In this case, the regulation that day care businesses don't prepare food in the toilet seems perfectly reasonable. Maybe Washington State's building inspectors are too slow and inaccurate (probably they are not funded sufficiently), but that's not an indication of governmental overreach.
I sense your frustration, and I acknowledge that these regulations came from somewhere, often - but certainly not universally - for a good reason. But when an edge case like, "is peeling a fruit that is understood to possess its own natural packaging 'food prep?'" why does the risk all sit with the childcare center employee? I think that's a fair question. You know what the inspector is going to say if asked, because they know that if they make the "tool free fruit peeling is not food prep" decision and a childcare center has an e coli outbreak they're screwed. But this is where it's all falling apart, Victor. The collective effect of those conservative decisions have ossified to the point that government's role is altogether under threat, ironically making the inspector's job and the people they serve far less safe.
"And I think a key part of this disconnect, illustrated by the pushback I got when I started asking about the sinks, is this ingrained disregard for working people by policy makers in DC. They did not take input from someone working in a daycare seriously, and that's wrong.”
It's a STATE regulation, no wonder people in DC didn't take input.
You'd think a Congress member would know the difference between state and Federal regulations, but given this one's track record, it is not surprising.
Let's just let the day care feed the kids Boar's Head supplies - now that they were freed from burdensome government regulations about rats and insects and things.