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EC-2021's avatar

I think the bit on procedural fetishism is mostly correct, but I think misses a psychological point (putting aside the folks on power trips, which does happen, but not that often). If you're a federal employee and are trying to actually do your job, a fair amount of that is stuff you personally will think is unwise, unnecessary, counterproductive, or pandering. Because that's what congress has told you to do. The way you, or at least I, adjust to that psychologically is to say 'I may or may not be correct on the utility of this, but I am a civil servant, my job is to carry out the tasks provided by congress under the guidance of the president and his appointed leadership/policies.'

And that's the psychological out that means that, denying someone disability benefits because, hey, they help out around the house sometimes, so could work as a part-time janitor, isn't morally debilitating, merely unpleasant. That's the standard established by the courts and congress hasn't adjusted it, so it's the law of the land and I need to comply with that as a good civil servant (this obviously has some moral limits, but they very rarely come up in my experience).

But once you've taken that psychological step of accepting that your role genuinely is to be a servant of society and execute the policy laid out under the restrictions laid out...well, by what right do I decide 'eh, this bit of procedure is dumb and counterproductive to the overall goal of the project? It's exactly as much something I'm supposed to comply with as the desired end result of the action. Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed tobuild a project, I'm also supposed to comply with NEPA/ESA/NHPA/ETC. By what right do I prioritize one of those over the others?

ETA: Or, phrased differently, almost everyone thinks they're a problem solver, the question is, what's the problem they're solving? Is it how to build a project? Or how to comply with NEPA? Both of those are congressional mandates, after all.

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Nicholas Weininger's avatar

You mention unions in passing, but the political economy of reforming union rent-seeking seems like it deserves more emphasis and discussion. It's such a big factor in all kinds of state capacity and barriers-to-abundance issues, not just civil service reform.

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