The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government

“All of life works on responsibility,” says Philip K. Howard. ”Everybody
listening to this…has achieved what they’ve achieved in life
because they took responsibility to make it happen. Government is
no different than that.”

In 1995, Howard wrote The Death of Common Sense: How Law is
Suffocating America, kicking off a national conversation
about bureaucratic overreach and stupid regulations. In his new
book,
The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken
Government, he extends and elaborates his analysis. It
isn’t bureaucratic gridlock or partisan polarization that’s keeping
Washington in perpetual mismanagement, argues Howard, but a fog of
rules and regulations that has made it nearly impossible to figure
out who is responsible.

Until civil servants can use common sense and practical
judgement, he says, the government won’t gain the flexibility
needed for solving today’s problems.

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