And it is characteristic of our culture that we tend to assume that performance and transparency rise and fall together. But that is a fallacy, or at least a misleading generalization. For just as there are limits to the efficacy of measured performance, there are limits to the efficacy of transparency. In some cases, how well our institutions perform depends on not making them transparent. At issue here is not the question of metrics, but of performance in the broadest sense: success in what we’re supposed to be doing. To appreciate the dark side of transparency, let us begin not with
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