Khanna hammers away at a few simple points in this short book. Democracy is not the finality of all political progress. It is only a means, not an end in itself. The American system has a lot to learn from best practices in governance abroad. It needs to rely less on democracy and more on technocracy. Technocracy needs to be founded on a system of meritocracy. I do not agree with all of his diagnoses of the problems with American governance, not to mention his solutions, but Khanna has written a thoughtful book whose primary attributes are his boldness and fearlessness in solutions. No one can accuse him of not thinking outside the box. Still, the best parts of the book are where he dissects the best practices of other countries, rather than drawing up systems for America ex novo.
Khanna's two main models are Switzerland and Singapore. They both combine what he finds most appealing in direct democracy and technocratic management. Since 1848 Switzerland has held over half of all the world’s plebiscites. “With only 100,000 signatures, Swiss citizens can…. instigate national initiatives to propose new laws and even constitutional amendments, or referenda to challenge them.” Singapore has “scenario planners embedded in every ministry covering both domestic and international issues. These “foresight officers” organize and impartially frame scenarios for leaders to consider on an ongoing basis…. Scenarios are neither predictions nor straight-line projections, but are composites of emergent patterns that could combine into an integrated picture…. [Government] sets reasonable key performance indicators (“KPIs”) that are tracked at regular intervals to assess progress.” Khanna approves of the fact that the executive duties in Switzerland, Singapore, and China are shared, to some degree, by a committee rather than a single president. This divides oversight, responsibilities, and spreads out the leadership agenda. He also praises the Singaporean system where “all cabinet ministers are matched to permanent secretaries from the civil service who know the beat inside out. Singapore’s civil service is a spiral staircase: With each rung you learn to manage a different portfolio, building a broad knowledge base and first-hand experience…. Along the way, generalists become specialists and vice-versa, and cross-pollination leads to innovative problem-solving.” Singapore’s civil servants are also compensated well, among the best paid and most revered of its citizens.
Khanna favors changing America to a parliamentary system with no fixed election cycle and an executive chosen from among these MPs. This would be an executive committee of seven people. He also favors abolishing the Senate for dual-governorships, rotating between the state capital and Washington. This is all pie in the sky stuff, but Khanna exhibits a continual emphasis on administration, accountability, big data, empirics, trial and error, all mixed with plebiscites. He views the city-state as the unit of governance of the future. “The virtue of devolution is not only that distributing authority is as powerful a check on tyranny as democracy, but that it allows for local experiments and rapid citizen feedback, resulting in models that the federal government can further study and scale to other states.” His vision of America is an urban one, where cities connect with other cities, be they American or foreign, and in many ways bypass the gridlock of Washington. Meanwhile the federal government combines an administrative executive with a permanent technocratic bureaucracy, all checked by public referenda. That his America of the future will never actually become a reality doesn’t mean the Khanna doesn’t have some fresh ideas to debate.
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