On efficiency

A simple but important point to keep in mind in cases of political discussion:

The United States government is specifically designed to be inefficient. This is what “balance of powers” and “checks and balances” affect: hurdles and roadblocks to prevent procedures from moving quickly. There is a reason for this.

In a system as large and powerful as a government, the capacity to do harm is at least as great as its capacity to help. Hasty decisions, made without full awareness of a situation, increase the likelihood of harm. Long-term decision processes, if they are properly vetted, considered, analyzed, and fact-checked, are more likely to be helpful. These factors become even more significant when we consider the presence of bad actors in our procedures. The desire to make a government more efficient primarily serves those who wish to subvert its ability to conduct itself as an effective tool of its constituents’ needs.

There are times when quick decisions are necessary. In those situations, we should expect that mistakes will occur, and we must try to mitigate them and solve them after the fact as well as possible. We should also expect to have contingencies in place to remove decision-makers in case they make more mistakes than is useful. The more authority an individual has, the more precarious their position must be (this principle is called the Sword of Damocles).

However, in the vast majority of situations, it’s beneficial to take as long as necessary to construct a wise policy, and involve as many voices as possible. If this process takes so long that no one remains from the initiatory process, so much the better, as it removes the factor of individual ego. However, such a long-term process leaves behind those who are in need of guiding policies in the present.

As an ideal, a system can be devised, or at least attempted, whereby the people will be empowered to solve their own problems and thus need minimal interference from a greater governmental body. In practice, there will likely always be a need for a body of collective power to intervene for the protection of the populace, and will need guiding policies to effectively do so.

The challenge is to find balance. The complexity of government, and the breadth of its reach, are matters of debate and experimentation going as far back as we have recorded history, proving that there can be no conclusive, simple model by which to construct a perfect system.

At the very least, I can offer one rule of thumb: A single individual should never be in charge of anything.