“Run some projects the same sort of way as Apollo was run” is not, to my mind, a very worthy goal. What (perhaps) made it valuable to run the Apollo project that way was that the result was to get humans safely to the surface of the moon, developing technology along the way. The process (even if an excellent process) was valuable only for the sake of the actual outcome.
Deploying similar techniques to achieve the building of a big wall between the USA and Mexico is comparably valuable only if having a big wall between the USA and Mexico is as valuable a goal as getting people to the moon and back. Opinions on that could vary, of course.
“Run some projects the same sort of way as Apollo was run” is not, to my mind, a very worthy goal.
When talking about policy issues like this it’s useful to be able to talk about how to organize projects and not only talk about whether one likes certain goals.
Part of the problem of why the system is the inefficient bureaucracy that it is, is because you have big debates about what should be done but little interest in how to organize projects.
Actually, maybe that’s not quite right. If Trump is determined to build a wall between the US and Mexico regardless of cost, and if Apollo-style organization can make it much cheaper, then good for Apollo-style organization. But that doesn’t suffice to make “used Apollo-style organization to build a huge wall” a better outcome than just “didn’t bother building a huge wall”.
“Run some projects the same sort of way as Apollo was run” is not, to my mind, a very worthy goal. What (perhaps) made it valuable to run the Apollo project that way was that the result was to get humans safely to the surface of the moon, developing technology along the way. The process (even if an excellent process) was valuable only for the sake of the actual outcome.
Deploying similar techniques to achieve the building of a big wall between the USA and Mexico is comparably valuable only if having a big wall between the USA and Mexico is as valuable a goal as getting people to the moon and back. Opinions on that could vary, of course.
When talking about policy issues like this it’s useful to be able to talk about how to organize projects and not only talk about whether one likes certain goals.
Part of the problem of why the system is the inefficient bureaucracy that it is, is because you have big debates about what should be done but little interest in how to organize projects.
Actually, maybe that’s not quite right. If Trump is determined to build a wall between the US and Mexico regardless of cost, and if Apollo-style organization can make it much cheaper, then good for Apollo-style organization. But that doesn’t suffice to make “used Apollo-style organization to build a huge wall” a better outcome than just “didn’t bother building a huge wall”.