Politics without romance” is how the late Nobel prize-winning economist James Buchanan described the “public choice” theory he expounded in the early 1960s and helped disseminate far and wide over the next five decades. According to Buchanan's model, politicians and government bureaucrats alike must be understood in the context of the agencies and governing bodies they occupy, taking into account all parochial and personal interests they may have.
Instead of glorifying government workers as selfless “public servants,” public choice theory approaches them as rational actors seeking to maximize their interests and advance their careers, much as market players seek to maximize profit. Buchanan's analysis doesn't render government employees any less or more honest or principled than the rest of us—it neither exalts nor denigrates them.
In The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis's paean to the unsung heroes of the federal agencies he believes President Trump has alternatively neglected and hobbled, hitherto unknown government workers are singled out for praise as avatars of integrity who tirelessly promote an objectively beneficent public good that heartless (and clueless) Republicans ceaselessly seek to undermine. This GOP interference, Lewis warns, is putting the country at risk, from errant nuclear weapons, an Iranian bomb, cyberterrorism, North Korean attack, and all because of the undermining of administrative “project management”—the fifth risk of the title. But for someone as statistically rigorous and dispassionate in his analysis as Lewis generally is, his latest book ends up being an egregious hagiography that fails to explain the nature of high-level government work. Buchanan is surely rolling over in his grave.
A contributing editor to Vanity Fair, Lewis is probably best known for his books Moneyball (2003), The Blind Side (2006), and The Big Short (2010), each of which was adapted into a feature film. He has revolutionized non-fiction writing and brings a sensitive eye and a supple pen to each subject he studies, whether high-finance, baseball, organizational psychology, even parenting.
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