Thinking like an Economist
How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy
Read or listen offline
Right-click on the code to copy the image.
Note: On an ASP portal, the link behind the code is portal specific!
Recommendation
US political discourse is replete with references to efficiency and cost-benefit analyses. But the economics-inspired jargon didn’t come from the Founding Fathers: Rather, the “economic style” of policy analysis entered American debate only after World War II, professor Elizabeth Popp Berman writes in this intriguing study. And by the start of the Reagan era, economic analysis had consumed policy debates, elbowing aside considerations of equity and justice. Berman does an admirable job of describing how a technocratic mind-set took over both public and private governance in the United States – and why it matters today.
Take-Aways
About the Author
Elizabeth Popp Berman is a sociologist and an associate professor of organizational studies at the University of Michigan.
Comment on this summary or Start Discussion
The danger in viewing the PPBS as the solution to group decision making fails to recognize the importance of social values in determining the goals for government action. We need the political system to find a way to meet our social needs with the constraints imposed by economic thinking. An important example of a social need that our current government is not addressing is the impact of economic efficiency on the so-called rust belt. China has been using cheap labor to limit blue collar employment in the northern sections of the US (the states that elected Trump in 2016) without an effective response by our government to help the impacted citizens. Reagan made it clear that Republicans do not have a solution with his statement that “government is the problem.” I hope Biden’s economic recovery laws will prove effective. I do know that going to college is not the answer for everyone.