Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
"The Cult of Efficiency investigates our most fundamental concerns in an era where waste is a sin but the public trust remains sacred. Janice Gross Stein reveals how the discussion of efficiency in the delivery of public goods, such as education and health care, has risen to prominence in post-industrial society. She shows that when it becomes an end rather than a means, a value often more important than other values, and when we no longer ask the questions, "efficient at what?" or "for whom?" efficiency becomes a cult." Stein demonstrates that efficiency is often a cloak for political agendas. In public schools, community clinics, and hospitals, she witnesses citizens engaging directly with the arguments of our times, redrawing the face of the state as it explores new ways of delivering public goods. They are calling not only for efficiency but for accountability and choice as they confront the dilemmas of democratic processes in a global age. By delivering this powerful message, The Cult of Efficiency does nothing less than set a new public agenda for citizens and their leaders alike.Synopsis
We live in an age dominated by the cult of efficiency. Efficiency in the raging debate about public goods is often used as a code word to advance political agendas. When it is used correctly, efficiency is important—it must always be part of the conversation when resources are scarce and citizens and governments have important choices to make among competing priorities. Even when the language of efficiency is used carefully, that language alone is not enough. Unilingualism will not do. We need to go beyond the cult of efficiency to talk about accountability. Much of the democratic debate of the next decade will turn on how accountability becomes part of our public conversation and whether it is imposed or negotiated. Janice Gross Stein draws on public education and universal health care, locally and globally, as flashpoints in the debate about their efficiency. She argues that what will define the quality of education from Ontario to India and the quality of health care from China to Alberta is whether citizens and governments can negotiate new standards of accountability. The cult of efficiency will not take us far enough.