Government would be the “conductor” who tries to think through what each instrument is best designed to do.
We do not face a “withering away of the state,” as Karl Marx promised. On the contrary, we need a vigorous, a strong, and a very active government. But we do face a choice between big and impotent government and a government that is strong because it confines itself to decision and direction and leaves the “doing” to others. We do not face a “return of laissez-faire” in which the enconomy is left alone. In all major areas we have a new choice in this pluralist society of organizations: an organic diversity in which institutions are used to do what they are best equipped to do.
Government would figure out how to structure a given political objective so as to make it attractive to one of the autonomous institutions. And just as we praise a composer for his ability to write “playable” music, which best uses the specific performance characteristic of French horn, violin, or flute, we may come to praise the lawmaker who best structures a particular task so as to make it most congenial for this or that of the autonomous, self-governing, private institutions of pluralist society.
ACTION POINT: Write a letter to an editor praising a lawmaker who structures government programs to be managed by nongovernmental institutions and to have the ability to solve social problems where government programs are deficient.
The Age of Discontinuity
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker