The military notoriously fights the last war. French military wizards touted the cavalry and the Maginot Line as invulnerable to the impending World War II Nazi Blitzkrieg. The last United States Cavalry Unit was not disbanded until 1946.
Always fighting the last war is not a sclerosis confined to the military. Government in general fiercely resists change to accommodate new circumstances. A feature story in The Washington Post today about the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) reliance on a 1977 Dictionary of Occupational Titles 45 years later to deny disability claims speaks volumes.
The digital age and companion technological advances have sounded the death knell for scores of occupations over the last four decades. The SSA told a disability applicant he could work as an “addresser”—a person who “addresses cards” by hand or typewriter. In rebuking the SSA in a 2015 reversal of a denial of benefits, Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit asked, “Does anyone use a typewriter anymore?” He disparaged a vocational expert’s claim that 200,000 such jobs waiting to be filled today a “fabrication.”
Hundreds of millions have been spent since 2012 to update the 1977 Dictionary without result. A branch chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to do the job, Byron Haskins, volunteered, “We thought we could do it in 10 years. It might take 20 years.”
Of course, resistance to change is not confined to government. The status quo always benefits some individuals or groups which change will dislodge or disadvantage. The Luddites destroyed textile machinery in hopes of saving their jobs. But government attachment to the status quo is orders of magnitude greater than the private sector because there is ordinarily no financial or other penalty for fighting the last war. No French general was court-martialed for sticking with cavalry over armored tanks. No one in the SSA has been disciplined or demoted for sticking with an obsolete Dictionary of Occupational Titles.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, then housed in the Department of Justice, stored information about Iranians in the United States in 1979-1980 when Americans were held as hostages in Tehran on 2 x 4 lined postcards.
The computer systems used by the federal government are typically two or three generations behind their private counterparts.
The Bureau of Land Management maintained a National Helium Reserve long after helium’s relevance to national security had lapsed. Is there any doubt that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will endure long after the United States has transitioned to a green economy? President Ronald Reagan famously observed, “Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”
Government is also characteristically backward-looking and lethargic because it attracts risk-averse mediocrities. The government does not reward innovation or invention. The disparagement, “It’s never been done before,” is the quickest way to stymie change. But great strides forward in material progress have come from new ways of doing business—what economist-sociologist Joseph Schumpeter applauded as “creative destruction.”
Further, merit pay is the exception not the rule in government. Job security is virtually guaranteed. The most gifted, ambitious, and industrious flee to the private sector where compensation is much more aligned with performance.
Prudence presumptively frowns on a government industrial policy as a cure for free market imperfections worse than the disease. The first attempt—Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures—dissolved five years after opening its doors. Adam Smith observed in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
Adam Smith does not argue for social Darwinism. He simply urges a reflective pause before the government acts to address a deficiency in justice when everyone marches to their own drummers although beginning at different starting lines. Mankind is made of crooked timber. Earthbound searches are for optimal solutions. Perfection is unattainable.
The military notoriously fights the last war. French military wizards touted the cavalry and the Maginot Line as invulnerable to the impending World War II Nazi Blitzkrieg. The last United States Cavalry Unit was not disbanded until 1946.
Always fighting the last war is not a sclerosis confined to the military. Government in general fiercely resists change to accommodate new circumstances. A feature story in The Washington Post today about the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) reliance on a 1977 Dictionary of Occupational Titles 45 years later to deny disability claims speaks volumes.
The digital age and companion technological advances have sounded the death knell for scores of occupations over the last four decades. The SSA told a disability applicant he could work as an “addresser”—a person who “addresses cards” by hand or typewriter. In rebuking the SSA in a 2015 reversal of a denial of benefits, Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit asked, “Does anyone use a typewriter anymore?” He disparaged a vocational expert’s claim that 200,000 such jobs waiting to be filled today a “fabrication.”
Hundreds of millions have been spent since 2012 to update the 1977 Dictionary without result. A branch chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to do the job, Byron Haskins, volunteered, “We thought we could do it in 10 years. It might take 20 years.”
Of course, resistance to change is not confined to government. The status quo always benefits some individuals or groups which change will dislodge or disadvantage. The Luddites destroyed textile machinery in hopes of saving their jobs. But government attachment to the status quo is orders of magnitude greater than the private sector because there is ordinarily no financial or other penalty for fighting the last war. No French general was court-martialed for sticking with cavalry over armored tanks. No one in the SSA has been disciplined or demoted for sticking with an obsolete Dictionary of Occupational Titles.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, then housed in the Department of Justice, stored information about Iranians in the United States in 1979-1980 when Americans were held as hostages in Tehran on 2 x 4 lined postcards.
The computer systems used by the federal government are typically two or three generations behind their private counterparts.
The Bureau of Land Management maintained a National Helium Reserve long after helium’s relevance to national security had lapsed. Is there any doubt that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will endure long after the United States has transitioned to a green economy? President Ronald Reagan famously observed, “Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”
Government is also characteristically backward-looking and lethargic because it attracts risk-averse mediocrities. The government does not reward innovation or invention. The disparagement, “It’s never been done before,” is the quickest way to stymie change. But great strides forward in material progress have come from new ways of doing business—what economist-sociologist Joseph Schumpeter applauded as “creative destruction.”
Further, merit pay is the exception not the rule in government. Job security is virtually guaranteed. The most gifted, ambitious, and industrious flee to the private sector where compensation is much more aligned with performance.
Prudence presumptively frowns on a government industrial policy as a cure for free market imperfections worse than the disease. The first attempt—Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures—dissolved five years after opening its doors. Adam Smith observed in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
Adam Smith does not argue for social Darwinism. He simply urges a reflective pause before the government acts to address a deficiency in justice when everyone marches to their own drummers although beginning at different starting lines. Mankind is made of crooked timber. Earthbound searches are for optimal solutions. Perfection is unattainable.