Book Reviews

If not for the work of the University of Arizona Garbage Project, such misconcep tions would enjoy even wider currency. William Rathje and Cullen Murphy tell the fascinating story of the Garbage Project, which Professor Rathje has overseen for 20 years and through 28,000 pounds of garbage excavations. By bringingthe cold rationality of archeology to bear in the modem landfill, the Garbage Project has demolished many myths about garbage and unearthed impor tant ancient truths about human society. A major victim of the facts turns out to be the crisis mentality which has characterized public debate on the subject in recent years. Rathje and Murphy combine the Garbage Project's newly gleaned information with knowledge of pre-industrial societies to put the concern over waste disposal into a true historical context. The result is compelling evidence that civilization and garbage go hand in hand and that garbage problems are certainly nothing new.

Rathje and Murphy point out that the pre-Columbian Maya likely suffered through periodic methane explosions at their open waste pits. As some items became scarce, 197 they also learned to recycle various bits of ornamentation and building materials. Rathje and Murphy also believe that the history of the Maya and other ancient peo ples shows the same pattern of garbage generation: "Over time, grand civilizations seem to have moved from efficient scaveng ing to conspicuous consumption and then back again to the scavenger's efficiency. It is a common story, usually driven by eco nomic realities." The developed world in general, and America in particular, are seen by Rathje and Murphy as moving back into scavenger mode after a stint of conspicuous consumption. The authors also take a shot at those who believe modern society has developed an altogether new and environmentally devas tating "throw-away" mentality. They com pare today's fast-food styrene "clamshells"

with clay bowls from ancient Iraq which appear to have been produced with a single use lifetime in mind. They even speculate on the amount of waste generated if the 5,000 year-old bowls were used as hamburger containers and conclude that in this respect, at least, the new idea is the better one. But Rathje and Murphy are careful not to posit a technological solution to all garbage problems. They stick to the garbage facts and are not utopians. While noting the contribution at-home garbage disposals have made to the reduction of wet garbage, they do not foresee a new "magic bullet" which will reduce the remaining types of garbage. They do, however, note the po tential of new waste-to-energy plants like SEMASS, located in Rochester, Massachu setts. A consortium offive private firms runs the SEMASS facility which produces fewer emissions than conventional power plants. Employing such new technologies while making a careful cost-benefit analysis of their impact is about all we can hope-and need-to do.

Rathje and Murphy single out one impor tant and often overlooked benefit which comes from the effect packaging-be it paper, styrene, or plastic-has on food waste. By comparing garbage produced in Mexico City with that found in Tucson, 198 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1993 Milwaukee, and California's Marin County, the Garbage Project found that because of the much-maligned packaging "U.S. house holds, on average, produce a third less garbage than do households in Mexico City. " Then there are the cost savings produced by ever-lighter forms of plastic packaging-a development so overlooked that Rathje and Murphy dub plastic "the Great Satan of garbage" because of the fervent misconceptions about plastic's role in the waste stream. Rathje and Murphy correctly note that it has been "sheer prof it," not government edict which has spurred the adoption of these new materials. While the effect of plastic throw-aways is constantly overestimated, Rathje and Mur phy note that paper is rarely cited as the garbage problem that it is. Ninety-four per cent of the Roper Poll respondents who found disposable diapers such a threat failed to view paper as a garbage problem. This although paper products take up 40 percent of all U.S. landfillspace. The paper glut has also helped to fuel what Rathje and Murphy see as sometimes misguided recycling ef forts.

Thanks to apocalyptic tomes like the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth (1972), Rathje and Murphy note that "[r]ecycling has been embraced by some with an almost religious intensity. " This fervor results in collecting and hoarding materials which can never be recycled because there is no market demand for them. The City of Seattle's much praised recycling program, for example, ends up shipping tons of newspapers to Asia in response to market demand. In turn, state and local governments have tried to "stimulate" the U.S. market for recycled paper by passing laws mandating recycled paper's use by government agen cies. More directly, some groups are press ing Congress for mandatory recycled con tent legislation (in effect a virgin-paper ban) to force publishers to use recycled news print. Rathje and Murphy have little enthu siasm for such approaches, calling them mostly "symbolic." But while Rathje and Murphy see the futility of banning some products, their wholly pragmatic belief in using monetary incentives to change behavior invites more government meddling in the waste stream.

Although they may have in mind "simple tinkering with fees," recyclers and waste disposal firmsare already thinking of special investment tax credits and government backed loan guarantees for their endeavors. However, in fairness to Rathje and Mur phy, they did not set out to find ways to get government out of the garbage disposal business. Instead, they have done us the great service of proving that the garbage doomsayers have been talking trash for years. [] Jeff Taylor is National Political Reporter for syndicated columnists Evans and Novak in Washington, D.C. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector from Schoolhouse to Statehouse, City Hall to the Pentagon by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Reading, MA 01867, 1992 • 405 pages. $22.95 Reviewed by T. Franklin Harris, Jr. T he search for a "third way" somewhere between socialism and capitalism is to the modern era what the search for the philosopher's stone was to the Dark Ages.

Although the implosion of the Soviet Union has put a damper on calls for more bureau cracy, most people harbor various miscon ceptions and fallacies that make them equally distrustful of fully free markets. So, yet another pair of wouldbe alchemists has set out in search of that elusive goal-big government order without the big govern ment. In Reinventing Government, David Os borne and Ted Gaebler attempt to chart a course between big government and laissez faire. They want nothing to do with "ideol ogy." Rather, Osborne and Gaebler are technocrats in search of pragmatic answers. "Reinventing Government," they write, "addresses how governments work, not what governments do." Thus, from the standpoint of what governments do, the book is a proverbial grab bag of policy prescriptions-some good, some bad. In the course of the book's eleven chap ters, Osborne and Gaebler lay the founda tions for what they call "entrepreneurial government." That is, government that is active, but bereft of bureaucracy and its attendant red tape and inefficiency. In Os borne and Gaebler's paradigm, the prob lems that America presently faces are all a result of the reforms of the Progressive Era. The large bureaucracies set up to discourage corruption and abuses of power actually waste more resources through regulations and procedures than they save.

To stop a small number of crooks, bureau cracy must tie the hands of honest employ ees. Osborne and Gaebler outline a series of sweeping reforms, all aimed at changingthe entire focus of government. The old way of thinking envisions a government that iden tifies problems and then introduces an agency or program to solve the problem. The result has been a plethora of large bureaucracies and programs targeted at spe cificproblems but achievingno real success. Entrepreneurial government identifies broad social goals. Instead of being bur dened with hierarchies and rules, agencies are allowed great leeway within which to meet the goals. The civil service system is replaced with a system that rewards inno vation and holds employees responsible for failure to meet goals. Old methods of budgeting are scrapped. The line..item budget does not permit inno vation nor the flexibilityneeded to deal with the unforeseen. Furthermore, the practice of throwing more money into programs that do not work must end. Such a policy en courages failure. Instead, programs that succeed will be rewarded with the funds to expand. Programs that fail C1:ln be weeded out over time.

The purpose of government, Osborne and BOOKS 199 Gaebler contend, is not actually to deliver services, but to set policy. They call it steering rather than rowing. In order to deliver services, governments can contract out to private providers, utilize government providers in competition with private firms, or utilize different government firms in com petition with each other. Only in the case of so-called natural monopolies-such as util ities-should government be the sole pro vider. Osborne and Gaebler provide anecdotal evidence of the success of "entrepreneurial government." For example, in Phoenix, Arizona, the city-owned garbage collection firm competes on an equal footing with several private firms. The result has been a decrease of 4.5 percent a year in solid-waste costs. Another example is the East Harlem school system. East Harlem, thanks to a system of public school choice, has some of the most successful public schools in Amer ica. This is despite the dire economic con ditions that prevail in the district. Students can choose between different schools (some located within the same building) operating independently, with programs tailored to meet the tastes of different students. Os borne and Gaebler seek a decentralized government, with control of programs ex ercised at the lowest possible level. In the Kenilworth-Parkside development in Wash ington, D.C., the residents were given con trol over their own housing project. They wrote their own by-laws and took charge of making repairs. Eventually, the residents started their own adult education program and created a fund to help finance business ventures taken on by enterprising residents.

When it replaces the bureaucracies ofold, "entrepreneurial government" is indeed an improvement. Still, the effects must be tem porary. "Entrepreneurial government" can only delay the inevitable. Most "entrepre neurial government" schemes still leave a gap between those who consume a service and those who pay for it. The costs are spread over a broad tax base. Only specific groups, however, actually receive the ser vice. Thus, the "customers" are partially 200 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1993 subsidized by non-customers. The result is that the demand for the service is greater than it would be if the customers had to pay the full price. The public good is inevitably overproduced and resources misallocated. Of course, "entrepreneurial govern ment" is even worse when applied to areas already relatively free of government inter vention. "Entrepreneurial government' , seeks to "structure" the market. As Os borne and Gaebler note, structuring "is a way of using public leverage to shape pri vate decisions to achieve collective goals. It is a classic method of entrepreneurial gov ernance: active government without bu reaucratic government. "

The problem with Osborne and Gaebler's analysis is its short-sighted empirical frame work. In their preoccupation with finding whatever solution will "work," they ignore basic principles of how human beings be have and how markets operate. When policy planners structure the market, they change the incentive system. Resources flow into areas in which they otherwise would not. The planners only have two choices: They can send resources to where they think they are needed, or they can send resources to where already overestimated customer de mand is greatest. In either case, inefficiency will result. Even with the political reforms Osborne and Gaebler mention (campaign finance reform, term limits, etc.), decisions concerning resource allocation will still be politically motivated-not economically motivated. Economic intervention, whether per formed by a bureaucracy or an "entrepre neurial government" will always result in inefficiency.Osborne and Gaebler's attempt to make entrepreneurial government an end rather than a means is misguided. Bureau cracy is not the problem. Government in tervention is the problem. Laissez faire is the solution. 0 T. Franklin Harris, Jr., resides in Auburn, Ala bama, and is a contributing editor to Republican Liberty.

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