The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today that hammers my preferred candidate, Mitt Romney. That's fair enough--this is certainly an appropriate time for implicitly choosing sides. Nevertheless, I must take issue with the worldview evidenced by the following passage:
A major theme of (Romney's) candidacy is that he'll bring that business model to a "broken" Washington, apply it to Congress and the bureaucracy, and thus triumph over gridlock and the status quo. To which we'd say: Good luck with that. Washington's problem isn't a lack of data, or a failure to calibrate the incentives as in the business world. Congress and the multiple layers of government respond exactly as you'd expect given the incentives for self-preservation and turf protection that always exist in political institutions. (Emphasis in original)
First of all, it must be said that the passage sets up something of a straw man. Mitt Romney didn't just fall off the political turnip truck. He knows full well that a Democratic congress won't allow any president to "manage" it, let alone a Republican one. The president, however, is responsible for managing the executive branch, and that's where competent management would have an enormous impact.
The "self-preservation" and "turf protection" that the Journal references are not unique to political institutions. Indeed, they plague every business in our economy larger than a sole proprietorship. For some reason, many media members seem under the impression that every for-profit enterprise is a money-making machine where each employee gladly sacrifices himself for the company's greater good.
As anyone
who's ever run a company knows, it doesn't work that way. All but the best employees have "self-preservation" as their primary impulse. As a boss, you know you'll never have to face the day when an employee comes into your office and says, "You know, I'm not making much of a contribution here, and the company would be better off without me. So even though I have no other job prospects, no looming unemployment benefits, and no likely means of financial sustenance, here's my resignation." The "turf-battles" that the Journal references are merely one of the more pernicious manifestations of this self-preservation instinct.
IT'S INTERESTING how so many journalists have such a skewed perspective on private companies. Many commentators and politicians who harbor antipathy to the Romney campaign have pointed out the putative differences between private industry and government agencies. But human nature does not somehow suspend itself in the private sector.
Okay, a lot of media members and politicians have never worked in an organization that seeks profit with the ruthless, single-minded focus that most companies need to have in order to survive. But can't they at least look around at the companies they know about? Don't they see unions showing more concern for their members' "self-preservation" than their employers' profits?
One of the canards used against the Romney campaign is that "private sector techniques" would never work in government agencies. But successful "private sector techniques" are usually little more than 10 percent vision and 90 percent competent management. If a large for-profit company had a division that went rogue (not to mention incompetent) like the CIA has the past seven years, the Board of Directors would fire the CEO if he failed to either reform that division or euthanize it while handing off its pressing responsibilities to a part of the company that could capably handle them.
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