Lol my email to you about the Constitution (in draft, sorry, I’ve been busy) prominently cited Fukuyama’s work on the importance autonomous civil service
I don't actually think I disagree fwiw, I am pro-civil service. But when bureaucracy is invoked, people are going to think about their time spent at the DMV
Joseph Heath's The Machinery of Government is very good, although he has this strong pareto-improvement framework that I can't really abide. Nevertheless it's one of the best direct treatments of the question IMO.
I don't need the answer personally -- I think when anyone says "Americans don't understand the value of X," they should feel an obligation to tell us why Americans should value X. Otherwise what's the point?
It's a fairly deep-seated difference! For example, another difference that comes to mind is in many countries judges are a merit-based civil service profession, while in the US they are elected officials or political appointees. Looking at our supreme court, maybe we could learn something...
Comments
I encountered this type of thing reading Mills iirc, where bureaucracy/civil service was defended without any elaboration