Old truths freshly revealed

A shock to the system such as Covid-19 serves to buttress old adages and tropes.

Generals always fight the last war.

Government is maladaptive to change, uncertainty and speed.

Free people in a free market are the best solution to uncertain events.

Useful information is the hydrocarbon of the digital economy.

Ronald Reagan's vivid warning is recharged.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

As is Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy

...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

As is Robert Conquest's Third Law of Politics.

The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

All are on display in Why Is the CDC Lowballing Numbers for the Coronavirus? by Claudia Rosett.

The CDC is America's lead agency for expertise and guidance on the Wuhan virus, so the CDC web site is where you'd look for up-to-the-minute data on this outbreak, right? Umm, nope, don't even think about it. As confirmed case numbers nation-wide soared over the weekend, the numbers posted Friday on the CDC web site didn't budge: 164 total cases, 11 deaths. No change. In CDC-world, the virus took a break over the weekend. Meantime, in the real world, the far more timely and accurate online dashboard provided by Johns Hopkins was reporting on the soaring case numbers for this virus, which by Sunday afternoon had topped 500 (more than triple the CDC's number) and 21 deaths (almost double the CDC figure).

The CDC, while a deep reservoir of technical expertise, has long been criticized in numerous circles for its bureaucracy and its mission creep. Getting distracted by defining gun ownership as a contagion, increasingly focusing on lifestyle choices over communicable diseases, duplication of other agencies' research, etc.

President Trump's restrictions imposed in January on China travel (much criticized in the media at the time) helped buy time to get ahead of this epidemic. The CDC has since been squandering that lead. The CDC botched the production of tests for this virus, made far too few, which turned out to work badly, imposed highly restrictive guidelines on who qualified to be tested, and overall wasted weeks of precious time, as the virus itself escaped the CDC's snail-mail surveillance and testing methods, and began hop-scotching around the country.

At the end of February, Vice President Pence took charge of a task force to coordinate a better response to the Wuhan virus. One of the first things they did -- hallelujah -- was scrap the CDC monopoly on testing, allowing state and local labs to run their own tests, and enlisting private companies to start producing (functional) tests in the huge quantities needed for a country of 330 million (as of March 5, the CDC, according to its own web site, had tested a grand total of 1,583 patients).

While Trump has been quite effective in reinvigorating the economy and reinventing the international order to America's advantage, I think one area where he has not achieved as much as he probably intended is the reform of Government to deliver services efficiently and effectively.

I suspect, given the turnover, that a lot of his Agency and Department appointments have not delivered to him the reforms he was seeking. Other than the narrow, but important, strategy of reducing regulatory burdens.

It is hard to think of a single Department or Agency that serves as a model of reform or which could be held up as delivering its well defined services in an efficient and effective fashion. I think a large swath, and almost certainly a majority, of Americans support a pretty robust government portfolio of services. However, what they get now are services they don't want mixed in with services they do want but which are delivered expensively and ineffectively.

It is not that we are a nation of radical libertarians and Friedmanites demanding to be released from the clutches of an oppressive government. Citizen rancor and rebellion arises because we do believe there is an important role to be played by Government and we do want Government services, just more selectively, more effectively, and more efficiently. And the establishment interests grow placid and comfortable while failing to deliver that.

If the tragedy of Covid-19 could serve as the catalyst to finally reforming the efficiency and effectiveness of government services, that would be a silver lining.