What is the What?

No, I am not talking about the title of that fantastic book by Dave Eggers on the Lost Boys of Sudan.    I am asking the question that plagues both parties as they try and figure out how to create jobs, deliver services, define some role for government and deliver more for less.  The lack of solutions, and even worse, the quality of the debate, is one big reason that Americans are so angry with both parties right now.

So what is the what?  The answer comes from Eric Liu and Eric Hanauer in their great article, The “More What, Less How” Government," published in the Winter 2011 issue of Democracy Journal.  It’s less what, and more HOW.

Liu and Hanauer propose a new vision in a time when we face enormous public problems and growing disconnection from government. They suggest that what we need is “more government when it comes to setting great goals and investing to achieve them; less government when it comes to how we collectively meet those goals.”

There are a lot of names for what Liu and Hanauer have framed out so clearly, from performance-based government to bottom-up innovation to uh, nation-building. 

In Afghanistan, for example, we’re spending serious money right now in order to stand up 100 “district councils” to get farmers, the friendlier Taliban and other community members to come together to decide WHAT they want – hopefully more pomegranate, less poppy, less killing.  In other developed countries, robust industrial policies are guiding massive public investment in the clean energy jobs of the future.

Here at home, we’re still fighting about if there should be a role for government rather than over what we want and how best we can get the job done.

So kudos to Liu and Hanauer for defining the mountain we need to climb – together. 

Not:e: Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer will be joined by Michael Lind of the New America Foundation, Megan McArdle of The Atlantic, and moderator EJ Dionne of The Washington Post at NDN today.  Don’t miss out.