I don’t think there’s a conflict between the two views. They can both be true simultaneously. Since both sides can produce compelling examples, they both probably are true simultaneously.
Neither is there an obvious conflict between Cummings’ and Pahlka’s solutions. It’s easy to imagine a civil service that is both more accountable to politicians, and also has a better feedback loop to those politicians. In fact, the solutions seem synergistic, because if the civil servants may be fired for under-delivering, they should be more motivated to get problems fixed via the feedback loop.
(Of course there is still a question as to which is the “bigger problem”.)
I don’t think there’s a conflict between the two views. They can both be true simultaneously. Since both sides can produce compelling examples, they both probably are true simultaneously.
Neither is there an obvious conflict between Cummings’ and Pahlka’s solutions. It’s easy to imagine a civil service that is both more accountable to politicians, and also has a better feedback loop to those politicians. In fact, the solutions seem synergistic, because if the civil servants may be fired for under-delivering, they should be more motivated to get problems fixed via the feedback loop.
(Of course there is still a question as to which is the “bigger problem”.)