By Robert Reich
The White House has announced that Trump will name his
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to run a new Office of American Innovation –
described as a SWAT team of strategic consultants staffed by former business
executives, designed to infuse fresh thinking into Washington and help make
government work more like a business.
It’s good to have fresh thinking about how government might
function more efficiently. But it’s important to remember that government is
not a business. The purpose of government is not to show a profit. It is to
achieve the common good.
Precisely because there are many different views about the
common good, government leaders must be capable of listening and responding to
many different opinions and perspectives.
They must also be public educators – telling the public the truth, explaining the consequences of different options, and conducting public deliberation about what is best for society.
Above all, presidents should enrich and strengthen democracy –
building trust in democratic institutions, avoiding conflicts of interests, and
promoting tolerance and social cohesion.
So far, Donald Trump has done the opposite. He doesn’t need more
business advice. He needs more advice about how to lead a democracy.
ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center
for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books,
including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of
Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent,
"Saving Capitalism." He is also a founding editor of the American
Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary,
INEQUALITY FOR ALL.
