David Samuels: “The people who populate the institutions that exercise direct power over nearly all aspects of American life from birth to death are bureaucrats—university bureaucrats, corporate bureaucrats, local, state and federal bureaucrats, law enforcement bureaucrats, health bureaucrats, knowledge bureaucrats, spy agency bureaucrats. At each layer of specific institutional authority, bureaucrats coordinate their understandings and practices with bureaucrats in parallel institutions through lawyers, in language that is designed to be impenetrable, or nearly so, by outsiders. Their authority is pervasive, undemocratic, and increasingly not susceptible in practice to legal checks and balances. All those people together comprise a class.” (Via Arnold Kling.) True in India also.
A good idea from Shankkar Aiyar: “Opposition must compete, present ‘shadow’ budget..A shadow budget could enable parties to answer many questions and outline the approach to sectoral challenges… The political economy of the world’s largest democracy hosting over a billion aspirations deserves choice, a plurality of competing ideas on issues of lives and livelihoods.”
Jim Collins: “Do you have a “to do” list? Do you also have a “stop doing” list?”
