Try Common Sense: Replacing the Failed Ideologies of Right and Left

by Philip K. Howard

Award-winning author Philip K. Howard lays out the blueprint for a new American society. In this brief and powerful book, Philip K. Howard attacks the failed ideologies of both parties and proposes a radical simplification of government to re-empower Americans in their daily choices. Nothing will make sense until people are free to roll up their sleeves and make things work. The first steps are to abandon the philosophy of correctness and our devotion to mindless compliance. Americans are a practical people. They want government to be practical. Washington can’t do anything practically. Worse, its bureaucracy prevents Americans from doing what’s sensible. Conservative bluster won’t fix this problem. Liberal hand-wringing won’t work either. Frustrated voters reach for extremist leaders, but they too get bogged down in the bureaucracy that has accumulated over the past century. Howard shows how America can push the reset button and create simpler frameworks focused on public goals where officials―prepare for the shock―are actually accountable for getting the job done.

Genres: Politics, Political Science, Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

Published January 29, 2019

About the author

Philip K. Howard, a lawyer, advises leaders of both parties on legal and regulatory reform. He is chair of Common Good and a contributor to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Philip K. Howard is a well-known leader of government and legal reform in America. His new book, The Rule of Nobody (W. W. Norton & Company, April 2014), has been praised by Fareed Zakaria as “an utterly compelling and persuasive book that, if followed, could change the way America works.” His TED Talk has has been viewed by almost 500,000 people.

Philip is also the author of the best-seller The Death of Common Sense (Random House, 1995), The Collapse of the Common Good (Ballantine Books, 2002) and Life Without Lawyers (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009).

In 2002, Philip formed Common Good, a nonpartisan national coalition dedicated to restoring common sense to America. Philip writes periodically for The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and The New York Times, and has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, PBS NewsHour, Today, Good Morning America, Charlie Rose, and numerous other programs.

The son of a minister, Philip got his start working summers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner and has been active in public affairs his entire adult life. He is a prominent civic leader in New York City and has advised national political leaders on legal and regulatory reform for fifteen years, including Vice President Al Gore and numerous governors. He is a Partner at the law firm Covington & Burling, LLP. He is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Virginia Law School, and lives in Manhattan with his wife Alexandra. They have four children.

Reviews

[Auggie Heschmeyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is some great content in this book, but it's discussed in the abstract far too much. Not only that, but it seems to cycle through the same few example ad infinitum. It says something about the book that the author can sum the whole thing up in about five pages in the addendum.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

If only.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting concept - This brief treatise is on common sense politics, a oxymoron if I ever heard one.

Author Howard tells what is wrong with our government (both the left and the right) and makes "practical" recommendations on how to fix these. Some interesting tidbits I picked up:

Four Principles of Practical Government: Giving subjective authority to a responsible decision maker; Holding people accountable; Adapting law to new circumstances; Asserting moral values.

The chapters and topics that deal with accountability were fascinating. One interesting fact, "Public union leaders say that protecting public employees is "just a matter of due process." Public unions also exist to block accountability. As one union official admitted, "I'm here to defend even the worst people." As someone who does not belong to a union (it's not an option in the public environment that I work in), this whole conversation disgusted me. This is part of what's wrong with this country.

I cheered when the author talked about stimulating public service and with the examples he provided. I work in a medium-sized public library – we are not unionized, but we do believe in going the extra mile to help our users. It’s good to see that there are other great organizations, including the CDC, police and fire departments, as well.

The chapter called “Governing Institutions Must Govern” was intriguing, especially the comparison between getting sued vs getting indicted – what a marvelous way of looking at this!

At the end of this chapter, Howard provides a list of vital public choices that no one today is making. These include:

Most laws and regulations were written decades ago, and leave little room for human judgment. America is run not by current legislators but by the officials, most long dead, who wrote these detailed dictates.

Public budgets leak massive amounts of waste from programs that everyone knows are obsolete or broken, but people in charge of Congress don’t do anything about it.

Public agencies are populated by unaccountable civil servants who can’t imagine any other way of governing, and take pride in their expertise about obscure procedures and rules that are impenetrable to the citizens affected by them.

Getting permits requires citizens to spend months or years navigating the shoals of a dozen or more agencies. Enforcement is done by bureaucrats wearing blinders who are trained to insist on literal compliance, and not to use their best judgment.

Lawsuits are resolved in an ad hoc fashion, with no predictability. Unreliable justice allows justice to be gamed by people for selfish purposes, and fosters a culture of fear.

The concept of moving our federal government out of Washington made this reader sit up and take notice. WOW! The CDC is one of the few government agencies that is not in Washington (it’s in Atlanta) and runs exceptionally well, but perhaps it runs so well because it is not in the same city as the rest of the bureaucrats.

One of the arguments for moving our government is that modern communications have removed the need for the government to be all in one place. As our communications systems continue to evolve, this argument will only get stronger.

The chapter called, “Profile of a Practical Society” takes what we have today and turns it on its ear. The author provides interesting examples for things such as dealing with regulators, holding government (civil servants) accountable, allow public schools to have the same freedoms as charter schools – getting rid of the mandates, metrics, and union rigidities, and providing for a new framework that allows teachers to be teachers and be creative when it comes to engaging students in their instruction (picture me standing on a table and cheering for this!), doctors who focus on patient care (and not have to worry about the legal and bureaucratic red tape as they do today), the workplace that is not a legal minefield (we need to be held accountable in all we do, but we should not have to worry about the law, except with regards to systematic discrimination and sexual harassment), children be allowed to run around (safety is a worry, but many parents today take this to the extreme – kids need to have the freedom to run around and play outdoors), etc. Howard illustrates all of his points, very well.

At the end of the book, Howard states that there is another reason to walk away from the current system (Government): “Governing without human responsibility is immoral. It is wasteful of tax dollars, and worse, uses future resources to pay for wastefulness today …”

America really does need a new governing vision. As it stands now, the left AND the right are in constant gridlock – more interested in going after one side or the other, without ever doing something that will benefit the majority of the people in this country, AND if they do have an idea about developing something that will help the people, they first have to clear this concept with the people who elected them … the lobbyists.

[May Ling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Summary: This was not my deal. It’s really guilty of that criticism for academics who see things only from the top level and then wax philosophy without ever getting in there and making change. Painful.

I knew there was an issue when on Pg 23, he suggested that Bloomberg was wrong because he felt the problem with government was one of management. Then immediately after, he talks about accountability. WTF does he think management is? It was too obvious through the book, that this person was very young and had no clue the difference between supervision and management. That’s why he talks about principals on what should be done and nearly nothing on how it might get done.

He talks a lot about metrics, but very little about people and how you might get them to change or otherwise deal with those metrics (i.e management). This is the worst type of idealism. It uses a lot of words to convince at the surface of an issue without going deep enough. At the surface, there is a lot of criticism. Deeper the answer is just bureaucracy. Ok. Maybe. But I say suggesting it is bureaucracy is doing the exact same thing as those you are criticizing. Give a real practical actual solution and address why someone might feel differently.

The whole book reads this way to me, including his major resources/inspirations at the end that are all academic. So painful.

[Colette · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was somewhat interesting. I think it is probably good as a resource full of references to other works. I felt frustrated with both too much detail and too little detail. I’m still left with the question of what I can do to encourage practical thinking in the government. I am glad there are people offering their visions and opinions. Maybe if we get enough of them one will work out for us.

One thing I found thought-provoking is that Howard said accountability can only exist by people judging other people. That makes so much sense — and we have spent so long trying to rid ourselves of judgement. I think he’s right on this.

This was a quick read, but it felt a little like reading an infomercial. Many points were covered several times, there were very few specific examples, and probably a quarter of the references were other books and articles by Howard. This felt hurried.

As a side note, I was pretty surprised at the lack of reference to the Consitution (only mentioned in reference to the unconstitutionality of collective bargaining unions in civil service), especially since he kept saying we need a framework for codification. Seems like we have one.

[Geoff Walling · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good news is that he's spot on about the things we need to replace or change in order to improve the governance of the country. The bad news is that it's a lot of stuff. An awful lot of stuff, and I don't think we're going to be up to it.

[Alex Gruenenfelder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philip K. Howard is a staunch public advocate for common sense in governance, so I was intrigued to read his book arguing for just that. It takes place in the American governmental setting, "where practicality and morality are no longer relevant," and makes arguments of how to fix it. My problem with the book was that I felt it presented far more problems than solutions, and focuses on topics not accessible or relevant to many voters, but it is an interesting philosophical treatise on overbearing regulation, distrust in government, and reluctance as a problem amongst leadership.

The criticisms that the author makes are rooted in what Howard calls the governmental philosophy of "correctness". This inability to make a mistake stunts intuitive leadership, Howard believes, and that there are too many restrictions on this ability to step up. Equally pro-government and anti-government, Howard argues that there are too many restrictions on both everyday people's liberties and the ability of government officials to exercise power. "Compliance is easier than hard choices," he writes, and we must make people less defensive in making positive choices. This is applied to all sectors of society, with government as the prime mover discussed.

While I think that this book is well-intended, I don't know if it satisfies the radical goals of a manifesto nor the lengthy research-based deep dive required of a practical handbook. Some ideas are actually applicable, like dismantling the power of public unions and a plan to cut one trillion dollars in unnecessary spending, but this book largely contains a broad philosophy difficult to apply practically. This book would be interesting for political science fans, people working at the state and local level, and libertarians in particular, though none will probably find themselves fully content in the suggestions that it makes.

[Christine Jeffords · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I could, I'd rate this book at two and a half stars. Howard clearly explains what's wrong with our government and how it got that way. But the only suggestion he has for a remedy is the creation of a third political party. The problem with that is, third parties never win! (See Ross Perot, the Bull Moose, the Know-Nothings.) Thus, all he does is leave you resigned to the idea that the country will continue to go downhill.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It keeps referring to us as a democracy when we are a republic

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

So there are a few good points here and he does clearly point out the current faults in both parties and in the different branches. That being said, his ideas reflect no real awareness of the size and scope of our country or basic human nature. He also obsesses over teachers and lays most of his blame on government workers instead of congress, even though all of his cherrypicked anecdotes have their basis in law. My greatest fear is that, despite his lament of Trump, he is actually giving ammunition to Trump’s destruction of our government.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too earth shattering to point out that our political climate, especially at the national level, is stymied and doesn’t accomplish much. The remedies mentioned here hide behind platitudes such as people must take responsibility and have a moral backbone. That sounds good, but comes up short in laying out a blueprint for moving forward. Public sector unions take a heavy hit for being at fault but not so corporations more interested in prioritizing shareholder rewards and not the environment or employee welfare.

[Nate Worthington · Rating 1 out of 5]

So I was really excited to read this. And then I read it. It was as dull to read as the bureaucracy it argued against. The author’s main contention was bureaucracy is the biggest issue when it comes to government and at times, it read like a bitter old man telling the government to get off his lawn. He hints at bipartisan points but ultimately lands closer to libertarian, self-responsibility/accountability that doesn’t account for our default human depravity and selfishness.

Final Rating: between skip and borrow.

[Kent Seevers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally a book about government I can get excited about!

If you're looking for political groupthink, you'll hate it. He's pretty negative about political factions, from libertarians to democratic socialists, at least when presented as solutions to our current problems.

Instead, the author outlines the functional absurdity of the US government and how to make it feasible again, in specific and human terms.

[Nate Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent book that highlights many of the ways the Left and Right are failing America. Some good suggestions on how to fix our politics, however the author does seem to oversimplify a lot of things. Good tone overall.

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Punditry.

[Frank C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting take on what ills our great country and a blueprint for change.

[Scott Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall concept of ineffective governance on the federal and state level is solid, but this book could have been 70 pages shorter.

[cypher · Rating 5 out of 5]

i actually liked the fact that this was criticising both left and right american politics. some good ideas in it. good book.
...a lot about common sense thinking.

[Tim Ozinga · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read, he made a lot of sense!

[Jbussen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sigh. Alas, people only want someone to blame these days. Personal reflection and compromise are gone. Both parties accuse the other so they never have to actually do anything and the country never moves forward. What the author proposes makes sense but I doubt it could pass the ideologies of the current political or social climate.