Entirely disanalogous situations.
Agree with everything you’ve said, but note that both projects above are government projects. Neither is a commercial project.
Martin Sustrik
Karma: 3,596
The question is what happens when HOW contradicts WHAT. Would WHAT be prioritized or HOW or the other way round? In extremely volatile environments (war) there’s a reasonable argument that HOW should not even be specified, because it’s going to get obsolete, or even counterproductive, immediately (Moltke: “No plan survises the first contact with the enemy.”) but at the same time it will tempt the subordinates to follow it nonetheless.
Civil Service: a Victim or a Villain?
Here’s a nice article from Kevin Kohler from yesteday (apparently, everyone was waiting for the heat wave to subside before writing). https://machinocene.substack.com/p/make-europe-cool-again
He gives two concrete examples:
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Paris https://machinocene.substack.com/i/167478538/paris-mandated-reduction-of-house-energy-consumption “As of 2018, in Paris, an estimated 54% of primary residences in the private sector carry an energy grade of E, F or G. Meaning owners are under great pressure to decrease their energy usage. An installed AC unit raises the assessed kWh/m²/year, which can tip a property into a lower DPE class (for example, from E to F). So, landlords avoid installing AC to protect their DPE ratings and there is even anecdotal evidence of some owners removing old AC units to improve a property’s efficiency [to escape severe consequences including not being able to rent out].”
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Geneva https://machinocene.substack.com/i/167478538/geneva-bureaucratic-deterrence-of-ac-installments “Based on Art. 22B the Canton of Geneva’s energy law any fixed AC requires an exceptional permit to be installed. The law mandates that a “real need” for cooling be demonstrated and that the project is designed to minimize energy use and is integrated into the building’s overall energy concept. In practice, this means that all feasible passive cooling measures (insulation, shading, natural ventilation) must be fully implemented before an AC can be considered. Only if those measures cannot ensure a minimal summer comfort, can an AC permit be sought, and even then, an additional “proof of necessity” (e.g. a medical certificate) must be provided.”
I am personally living in Zurich. Similar problems here. Add to that that: a.) Switzerland is the country with the highest rental rate (most people do not own their flats) 2.) in the cities, it is a renter’s market (insufficient supply, landlords are choosing the tenants rather than other way round) not really putting you into a position to make demands 3.) approving an AC unit would likely require a permission from the landlord, who in turn would want it to be approved by other tenants in the same building etc. Heck, it’s hard to even get AC in the office spaces here.
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It’s an attitude issue. Here’s what o3 says on the topic:
Using air-conditioning in Germany is legal but “socially and regulatorily expensive.” No one will fine you for cooling your flat, yet the combination of permits, energy-saving rules, consumer advice and cultural scepticism means AC is de facto discouraged.
Using air-conditioning in Switzerland isn’t illegal, but fixed systems face planning red tape, efficiency tests and social scepticism. Portable units are easy to buy, yet electricity prices and cultural norms keep usage modest.
Using air-conditioning in France is legal but socially and regulatorily “expensive.” Expect red tape when you want a fixed unit, behavioural rules (doors shut, 26 °C set-point in public offices), and mixed social signals ranging from environmental self-restraint to calls for wider cooling access as heatwaves intensify.
Using air-conditioning in the UK is perfectly legal, but planning rules, inspection obligations, cultural frugality and voluntary “close-the-door” norms make it socially and administratively expensive.
The Cult of Pain
The story herein is the retelling by Lévi-Strauss of one of the texts in Franz Boas’ “The Religion of Kwakiutl Indians” (1930). That book itself is concerned with the Kwakiutl language (original texts and translations) and does not, as far as I can see, specify the origin of the texts.
That being said, Boaz lived with Kwakiutl in 1893-1894, so the text likely recounts events in mid- or second half of XIX. century.
The Way of a Skeptic
Hemingway Case
How Epistemic Collapse Looks from Inside
Oh, they haven’t had an option. Once private property of the means of production wasn’t banned any more, people started doing all kind of things to get their hands on the state property. Here’s Yeltsin in 1991: “Privatization in Russia has been going on for a long time, but wildly, spontaneously, often in criminal fashion. Today we have to seize the initiative.”
As for the government services: Yes, that was one of the points I was trying to make. Saakashvili could only shut down the traffic police because it did more harm than use. If Doge tried to do the same thing, traffic chaos, traffic jams, pain and eventually electoral backlash would follow. Reforming functional institutions is much harder than reforming dysfunctional ones.
It’s a complex topic, nobody is going to tell you for sure. But having lived through the period, although in Czechoslovakia, which handled it much better than Russia, I do have some intuitons. In essence, you are going to reform the economy. You are going to open the market. Arbitrage opportunities will abound. You are going to privatize. The entire economy will be up for grabs. Everything is going to be super fragile and exploitable for a while. At the same time you have the secret service inherited from the communist era. Communists were tough on crime, so people who would otherwise be mobsters often ended up in secret services. So you have this well-organized quasi-criminal network, endowed with the power of the state. And the secret policemen attend the same parties as the communist politicians who still form a majority in the parliament. Those guys are going to decide on what the law will be. No way that can go wrong.
Not disagreeing with you, just a funny detail: The e-government thing in Estonia was at least partly motivated by the need to fight corruption:
But while the economic situation was improving, many Estonian state institutions and infrastructure were still in disrepair and there was a constant danger of backsliding. One of the greatest risks came from inside the bureaucracy which was still replete with Soviet-era holdovers. While street violence, and petty and organized crime had been dramatically reduced, there was still a risk of corruption becoming endemic in the new system which would stymie economic growth and destroy Estonia’s burgeoning reputation as a great place to do business. Political leaders desperately needed a way to both defeat corruption and increase state capacity, each of which would be a difficult task independently. Thankfully, the youth of Laar’s cabinet and the Estonian political elite worked in the country’s favor as political leaders embraced the potential of new technologies to solve the country’s most pressing problems. After all, as former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is fond of saying, “you can’t bribe a computer.”
-- Joel Burke: Rebooting a Nation: The Incredible Rise of Estonia, E-Government and the Startup Revolution
Not as pronounced in Georgia, but Saakashvilli, speaking of weeding out corruption at customs, does mention that “models are now working at customs.” It’s software that does the work.
I wrote this after reading the Cowen/Pahlka interview. Cowen says: Maybe the agencies should be just shut down and rebuilt by the next administration? Pahlka: That would be too much chaos. Cowen: So maybe do it in gradual way? Pahlka: We’ve tried, it does not work. And my reaction was: “Oh my, I know these discussions from the 90′s.”
It was a cool natural experiment: A bunch of countries tried reforming at the same time, used different approaches, got different outcomes. So maybe there’s something to learn there.
Or to take the FDA example: You want to do a shake-up. How exactly would you go about that? Organizations are already in equilibrium. If you shake them, they just return to the previous state. Is the only way to shut them down and rebuild them from scratch? Or is there a less destructive, gradual approach? Again, we may get some insights from previous reform attempts, even if the problems don’t match in 1:1 way.
I am no expert, but AFAIU, in the Russian case there was an economic reform, but no political reform:
The parliament elected in 1990, before the parties existed. It was filled with communists and hasn’t been dissolved.
The civil service remained as it was. Yeltsin: “It would have been disastrous to destroy the government administration of such an enormous state. Where it was possible to put in experienced ‘old’ staff, we did.” This is the classic gradualist argument, as seen elsewhere.
Old secret services from the communist era persisted.
The result was a relatively isolated group of economic reformers around Gaidar and at the same time takeover of the economy and state by apparatchiks, secret services and organized crime. Kind of similar to the Bulgarian example in the article.
Don’t read to much into it. What I meant was that common naive attitude like: “Are people are doing X? Let’s punish it by law. Are they still doing it? Let’s punish it some more.”
Meditations on Doge
Laugencroissant
True about the single market. Luis Garicano had a nice blog post about those problems recently: https://www.siliconcontinent.com/p/the-myth-of-the-single-market
As for the regulations, I am an outsider, but the noises from Brussels feel quite ambiguous to me. I’ll believe it once I see it.
As for the cookie banners, those probably have close to zero economic impact, but frankly, it’s a terrible and at the same time highly visible PR for the EU.
A thoughtful reply. Just to fuel the discussion, here’s John Cochrane on ECB overstepping it’s mandate: https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/central-bankers-can-be-too-independent