The Public Interest

When government works

Robert Wood

Winter 1970

By popular consensus and professional diagnosis, the Achilles heel of American government today is government itself. Conflicts in parties, interest groups, philosophies; apathetic or alienated popular attitudes, limits on available resources—all these don’t prevent us from feeding the hungry, reforming the welfare system, discouraging the overthrow of democratic governments abroad. Bureaucracies do. Organized public efforts do.

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