Clueless

Most people don't pay much attention to the news--which makes you wonder about those polls.

Virginia Postrel from the March 1996 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Yet technocratic politics teaches the public that governing is a matter not of fundamental disagreements but of technical details. It says politicians are "doing their jobs" when they pass laws, not when they debate philosophies, and it suggests that solutions are easy to find.

It is the politics of Ross Perot, of people who believe that government is an engine that simply requires a competent, pure-of-heart mechanic to get under the hood and fix things. If government isn't working, it's because the people in it are corrupt, incompetent, or both. (Interestingly, an earlier Times Mirror report described Perot voters as "not particularly knowledgeable about politics.")

The alternative approach is to limit the scope of government so that good citizenship no longer requires knowledge of a vast array of issues. This solution isn't perfect, and some institutions of expertise, such as the courts, will always be needed. But it recognizes the fundamental fact of human existence: that our time is limited. We cannot know everything. And we cannot devote our lives to politics if we are going to do other things.

The only way to square broad-based democracy with the limits of human life is to keep most decisions out of the realm of politics. That's not the only argument for limiting the scope of government. But it is a good one.