Running Government like a Business - Then and Now
![handle is hein.journals/hlr128 and id is 1172 raw text is: BOOK REVIEW
RUNNING GOVERNMENT LIKE A
BUSINESS ... THEN AND NOW
AGAINST THE PROFIT MOTIVE: THE SALARY REVOLUTION IN
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, 1780-1940. By Nicholas R. Parrillo. New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 2013. Pp. xi, 584. $55.00.
Reviewed by Jon D. Michaels*
INTRODUCTION
The American administrative state is on the ropes. It is being chal-
lenged as inefficient, expensive, bloated, moribund, out of control, and
even morally bankrupt. Modest calls during the 1990s and early 20005
to reinvent government1 have given way to more insistent cries to
run government like a business - to harness the principles, practices,
and infrastructure of the market economy to save money, increase effi-
ciency, overhaul the bureaucracy, and reduce so-called red tape.2
During the past few decades, ostensible defenders of the admin-
istrative state have been more Chamberlain than Churchill. First,
they declared the era of big government over.3 Then they smashed
ashtrays on national TV in a symbolic protest over bureaucratic waste-
fulness.4 And now they're stumbling over each other to privatize,5
* Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law. For helpful conversations and comments, the au-
thor wishes to thank Bruce Ackerman, Eric Berger, Frederic Bloom, Josh Chafetz, Conor Clarke,
Stephen Lee, Brian Lipshutz, and Toni Michaels. For superb editorial assistance, thanks are
owed to the editors of the Harvard Law Review.
1 AL GORE, FROM RED TAPE TO RESULTS: CREATING A GOVERNMENT THAT WORKS
BETTER & COSTS LESS 6 (1993); DAVID OSBORNE & TED GAEBLER, REINVENTING GOV-
ERNMENT 19 (1992) (internal quotation marks omitted).
2 See Richard C. Box, Running Government Like a Business: Implications for Public Admin-
istration Theory and Practice, 29 AM. REV. PUB. ADMIN. 19, 21 (1999); Thomas Frank, The
Populists' Are Right About Wall Street, WALL ST. J., Mar. 25, 2oo9, at A11; see also Carmen Cox,
Run the Government Like a Business, Most Say, ABC NEWS RADIO (July 23, 2014, 5:17 AM), http://
abcnewsradioonline.com/politics-news/run-the-government-like-a-business-most-say.html [http://
perma.cc/N8VP-32JV] (citing recent Gallup poll in which more than eighty percent of Americans
prefer business-like government).
3 See William J. Clinton, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the
Union, I PUB. PAPERS 79, 79 (Jan. 23, 1996).
4 James Taranto, The Ashtray of History, WALL ST. J. (Dec. 6, 2011), http://online.wsj.com
/news/articles/SB10001424052970204903804577082550219655404 [http://perma.cc/7CYE-M6A7] (de-
scribing Vice President Al Gore's appearance on David Letterman's late-night show).
s See, e.g., GOVERNMENT BY CONTRACT (Jody Freeman & Martha Minow eds., 2009);
PAUL R. VERKUIL, OUTSOURCING SOVEREIGNTY (2007).
1152](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hlr128&div=50&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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