David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, in Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, offer an invigorating and hopeful look at examples of fresh governmental ideas and practices to replace old and ineffective ideas and practices. The authors present an accurate portrait of the failures of the old governments, and clearly describe new approaches which have proved effective in dealing with a number of problems both on the local and global levels. They should be praised for such efforts.
At the same time, their book should be read with a highly critical eye, particularly with regard to the simplistic nature of their analysis of the world, their overly optimistic conclusions, and their failure to adequately address the profound problems of the most disadvantaged who will be left out in the cold in the new world of the future as they always have been in the old world.
Although the authors claim to have drawn together the best ideas and practices of governments with entrepreneurial spirits operating in the world today, in the final analysis their "new" world is still based on the same abiding faith in the capitalist system that has greatly benefitted the few rich and generally ignored the most disadvantaged and needy. Although they do superficially address the problems of the poorest and most socioeconomically abandoned, they show an inclination to see easy solutions when it is all too clear that their reinvented government will fail miserably in this regard.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the authors' critique of the failures of traditional government and its quagmire of bureaucratic disasters is an accurate and compelling one. They write, for example, that
Our governments are in deep trouble today. . . . Our public schools are the worst in the developed world. Our health care system is out of control. Our courts and prisons are so overcrowded that convicted felons walk free. And ...