> just need to delegate authority and let them act mostly autonomously
Not to be glib, and I expect to be excoriated for such a comment, but I literally cannot think of a way to not be snarky: I believe what you're describing is called ownership.
Particularly in discussions of SF, I find this amazingly long road back to where we started: "If only there was some system where people with the most interest in a particular building could make their own choices!" - "If only people who owned land could build buildings on it!". That system exists - it's called private property.
Bureaucracy exists because no individuals have any ownership over any of this. The pipes and the surface of the sidewalk belong to different authorities - and dozens of oversight committees (the dreaded planning commission) have vague authority layered on top. If no one can own it, and we don't want authoritarian political power, then we have to accept that bureaucracy is simply the only way forward. There are no choices that are not somewhere on the line between "one person owns", "everyone owns" or "the king owns". We must make a choice - and if the choice is "libertarianism is stupid but ALSO authoritarianism is stupid" then hey, achingly slow bureaucracy is on the menu folks. We can't have our cake and eat it too.
Fascism is the idea that the nation (and the race) of a people is more important than any individual member of the people. A fascist would say bureaucracy only implies a lack of power. Private property is the opposite of the textbook definition of fascism - private ownership is literally the idea that EVERY SINGLE individual is more important than the nation.
The fascist answer is to consolidate more power in a single political body. This would, indeed, make toilets cheaper to build. I would suggest that the polar opposite of that would also make toilets cheaper to build. The real question should be: how cheap should toilets be to build, and what is it about "fairness" that makes things so expensive?
Would you please stop posting ideological flamewar and other unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and it's not what this site is for. We've already had to ask you this once. We eventually have to ban accounts that won't stop, so please stop.
Not to be glib, and I expect to be excoriated for such a comment, but I literally cannot think of a way to not be snarky: I believe what you're describing is called ownership.
Particularly in discussions of SF, I find this amazingly long road back to where we started: "If only there was some system where people with the most interest in a particular building could make their own choices!" - "If only people who owned land could build buildings on it!". That system exists - it's called private property.
Bureaucracy exists because no individuals have any ownership over any of this. The pipes and the surface of the sidewalk belong to different authorities - and dozens of oversight committees (the dreaded planning commission) have vague authority layered on top. If no one can own it, and we don't want authoritarian political power, then we have to accept that bureaucracy is simply the only way forward. There are no choices that are not somewhere on the line between "one person owns", "everyone owns" or "the king owns". We must make a choice - and if the choice is "libertarianism is stupid but ALSO authoritarianism is stupid" then hey, achingly slow bureaucracy is on the menu folks. We can't have our cake and eat it too.