Kludgeocracy

Kludgeocracy refers to the hidden costs of government complexity. It was coined by Steven Teles in his paper
Passages
:Similar stories could be told in a variety of other policy areas, where liberals got bigger government, but conservatives funneled benefits to business while keeping liberals from reaping political credit. The conclusion of the last three decades of ideological trench warfare is that the American public got a more active, but also incoherent and frequently ineffective, state. - Steven Teles
:Conservatives over the last few years have increasingly claimed that America is, in Hayek’s terms, on the road to serfdom. This is ridiculous, for it ascribes vastly greater coherence to American government than we have ever achieved. If anything, we have arrived at a form of government with no ideological justification whatsoever. - Steven Teles
:Making kludgeocracy into a recognized public problem will be an uphill battle. First, ordinary citizens need to be helped to see the problem, to recognize its manifestations in their ordinary lives. When they get frustrated trying to figure their way through federal education aid programs, or flustered trying to understand their taxes, or perplexed at the complications of our civil litigation system, they need to recognize their problem as a part of a larger system that connects up to other, seemingly unconnected grievances. This is, quintessentially, the work of public intellectuals, bloggers, researchers, and entrepreneurial politicians. Only the shapers of public debate can help the public recognize that the source of the insider dealing and special interest politics they detest is the policy complexity that their own ideological incoherence helps to create. - Steven Teles
:Only, in short, when Americans give a name to their pain — kludgeocracy — are we likely to get a government that is simpler, more effective, and better for democracy. - Steven Teles
See Also
*Demonstrated preference
*Government success
*Other people's money
*Privatizing profits and socializing losses
*Rational ignorance
*Rent seeking
*Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor
*Tax choice
*The Logic of Collective Action

Main Menu