The markets vs. government dillema is more often than not deeply misleading. Whenever it’s possible to find or set up a market solution to a given problem (i.e., in which private incentives and the public well-being are aligned), I’m all for that. But there is no such solution for many of our problems. It’s pointless to bitch about “big government” when government is the only solution that exists.

The problem is that the US sucks at setting up efficient bureaucracies. I don’t know why this is so, but it’s a fact. And AFAIK there is not well developed “science of institutions” that gives us a formula to create slim and efficient bureaucracies. We’re more or less reduced to trial and error.