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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

While an interesting idea, you're now:

1.) Going to throw people into an unfamiliar role for, say, a couple years. So they're going to heavily lean of whatever permanent staff/civil service there is because their knowledge of the job is extremely limited

2.) You'd basically be asking/telling people to take two years off their job--for probably quite limited pay. (Sort of federal grand jury duty on steroids.) Which I can't believe would be very popular.

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For 2 just have it be you’re paid the max of the roles minimum or your old salary for those two years, maybe with a good bonus to make it even more palatable.

The government has the benefit of being able to eschew normal market pricing for things including job pay.

By case:

(1.A) Yes. As I said in another comment, though, it turns out that in the limited research that's been done, the average person is somewhat better at doing the job than the average career politician. The argument is that the sort of person who wants to be a career-politician is uniquely unsuited to actually running a government.

(1.B) The civil servants should be randomly rotated.

(2) There's normally a mechanism to preselect a pool of applicants. Universal sortition is interesting, but has drawbacks. I am drawn to a nomination mechanism: you have to get enough (unique) nominations before you're allowed in the sortition pool.

Could start by rotating the members of Congressional committees. Effectively making Congress the pool.

This is a major reform, as the politicians who are captured by various interests have STRONG incentives to join that Committee. For example, look at the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee -- there's only two Senators from states east of the Mississippi River, and one is West Virginia (a major energy provider as well). An elected official requesting a spot on the committee from an energy consuming state will have a very hard time.

https://www.energy.senate.gov/members

The Republican party is somewhat better than the Democrats on this-- Committee reform was a major plank of the 1994 Contract With America and the GOP still has term limits for Committee Chairmen.

https://about.bgov.com/news/frustrated-democrats-mount-push-...

It probably somewhat depends on the level. I don't really expect random state reps or other local elected officials have any particular qualifications. They certainly aren't paid as if they did. In some states, such are basically part-time jobs. I do think it's a job a fair number of people would hate.

Low pay at the state/local level basically guarantees some level of corruption as the pool of applicants gets very tight when you combine small districts with minimum wealth requirements. How much that’s a feature or a bug is debatable.

> (1.B) The civil servants should be randomly rotated.

Institutional knowledge in civil service is the only reason our government functions even as well as it does. I'm not sure that's a great idea.

Also, it's a job like any other, and the more unpleasant you make it, the more workers with options will leave. And the workers with options will tend to be your best ones.

Isn't this sort of how ministries work in the UK, you have a dedicated civil service that does most of the work and then a politician that may or may not know whats going on setting direction?

Source: have watched "The Think of It"

> Isn't this sort of how ministries work in the UK

yes

> you have a dedicated civil service that does most of the work and then a politician that may or may not know whats going on setting direction?

this is the ministers and their private secretary.

> have watched "The Think of It"

you should also watch "Yes Minister" i find it a bit more charming if a little dated, but also quite real.

>you should also watch "Yes Minister" i find it a bit more charming if a little dated, but also quite real.

It has aged well and is arguably more relevant than it was when they released it.

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