Unmasking The Administrative State

The election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency shocked the political establishment, triggering a wave of hysteria among the bicoastal elite that may never subside. The biggest shockwaves of all, however, were felt not in the progressive parishes of Manhattan or San Francisco, but in the halls of the political elite’s cherished and oft-overlooked center of power—Washington, DC’s sprawling “administrative state”—for President Trump represented an existential threat to its denizens, who came to be known as “swamp creatures.” How did it come to pass that the “draining of the swamp” would become a core aim of the Trump administration, impacting everything from judicial appointments to the federal budget and regulatory policy? Marini’s unmasking of the administrative state goes beyond bureaucracy or legalism to its core in an intellectual elite whose consensus transcends whatever disagreements flare up. The universities, the media, and think-tanks that denounce Trump are its heart. The answer to this question and many more lies in the underappreciated but revolutionary scholarship of Professor John Marini, collected in his new book, Unmasking the Administrative State, which tells the critical missed story of the last century of political history: The ascendance of the theory behind and resultant growth of an administrative state that has supplanted limited constitutional government with the tyranny of unbounded anticonstitutional bureaucracy. Marini illustrates the existential threat of the administrative state to our republic, exposes the regressive philosophy from which it springs, and argues for the reassertion of the founding principles to restore self-government. The Trump administration may be the best chance to apply the lessons of Marini’s life’s work and seize this remarkable opportunity to restore power to its rightful owners: the American people.

The modern age with its emphasis on technical rationality has enabled a new and dangerous form of evil--administrative evil. Unmasking Administrative Evil discusses the overlooked relationship between evil and public affairs, as well as other fields and professions in public life. The authors argue that the tendency toward administrative evil, as manifested in acts of dehumanization and genocide, is deeply woven into the identity of public affairs. The common characteristic of administrative evil is that ordinary people within their normal professional and administrative roles can engage in acts of evil without being aware that they are doing anything wrong. Under conditions of moral inversion, people may even view their evil activity as good. In the face of what is now a clear and present danger in the United States, this book seeks to lay the groundwork for a more ethical and democratic public life; one that recognizes its potential for evil, and thereby creates greater possibilities for avoiding the hidden pathways that lead to state-sponsored dehumanization and destruction. What's new in the Fourth Edition of Unmasking Administrative Evil: UAE is updated and revised with new scholarship on administrative ethics, evil, and contemporary politics. The authors include new cases on the dangers of market-based governance, contracting out, and deregulation. There is an enhanced focus on the potential for administrative evil in the private sector. The authors have written a new Afterword on administrative approaches to the aftermath of evil, with the potential for expiation, healing, and reparations.

Although social scientists generally do not discuss "evil" in an academic setting, there is no denying that it has existed in public administration throughout human history. Hundreds of millions of human beings have died as a direct or indirect consequence of state-sponsored violence. The authors argue that administrative evil, or destructiveness, is part of the identity of all modern public administration (as it is part of psychoanalytic study at the individual level). It goes beyond a superficial critique of public administration and lays the groundwork for a more effective and humane profession.

This book discusses a battle of ideologies that has lasted over a century and continues today, pitting those who defend the American Experiment and the constitutional structure against those who seek to replace that structure with one that empowers them to implement their ideas with little or no popular input. Progressives want governance by experts - bureaucrats with administrative power to make political judgments on how people must live, thereby narrowing the realm of their liberty. They expand the administrative state and create an identity of interest with Big Business. Both groups want an ever-expanding government: one motivated by power, the other by money. For its part, Big Business has set up camp on Capitol Hill, lavishly funding establishment politicians, of both parties, who rationalize the need for campaign money to the detriment of waging the good fight. Together, politicians and their cronies elbow the citizen off the policy-making stage. However, this state of affairs is kindling the passions of the constitutional structure's greatest "check" on government excess - the American people. This is a fight that can be won. Deconstructing the Administrative State offers the blueprint for victory. Emmett McGroarty is a senior fellow at the American Principles Project Foundation (APPF). He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Fordham School of Law. Jane Robbins is a senior fellow at APPF. She is a graduate of Clemson University (the 2016 national football champions) and Harvard Law School. Erin Tuttle is a policy analyst at APPF and a graduate of Indiana University.

First Published in 1992. The federal budget has attained unparalleled significance at the heart of American politics in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The modern budget system has become the mechanism by which a distinctively American administrative state was put in place and made operative. The growth of the administrative state has transformed politics in America, but many Americans are unaware of its existence. This study looks at budget control within the realms of Congress, the Presidency and the development of the Administrative State.

From two legal luminaries, a highly original framework for restoring confidence in a government bureaucracy increasingly derided as “the deep state.” Is the modern administrative state illegitimate? Unconstitutional? Unaccountable? Dangerous? Intolerable? American public law has long been riven by a persistent, serious conflict, a kind of low-grade cold war, over these questions. Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that the administrative state can be redeemed, as long as public officials are constrained by what they call the morality of administrative law. Law and Leviathan elaborates a number of principles that underlie this moral regime. Officials who respect that morality never fail to make rules in the first place. They ensure transparency, so that people are made aware of the rules with which they must comply. They never abuse retroactivity, so that people can rely on current rules, which are not under constant threat of change. They make rules that are understandable and avoid issuing rules that contradict each other. These principles may seem simple, but they have a great deal of power. Already, without explicit enunciation, they limit the activities of administrative agencies every day. But we can aspire for better. In more robust form, these principles could address many of the concerns that have critics of the administrative state mourning what they see as the demise of the rule of law. The bureaucratic Leviathan may be an inescapable reality of complex modern democracies, but Sunstein and Vermeule show how we can at last make peace between those who accept its necessity and those who yearn for its downfall.

America is embroiled in ideological conflict, with the opposing partisan bulwarks of the Left and the Right widening a chasm that threatens the unity of our Republic. The tumult in Washington has radiated into our universities, homes, and relationships — from constitutional threats; to the imposition on free speech; to a sprawling, unelected administrative state, America is at a tipping point. Fortunately, Encounter’s Broadside and Intelligence series offer indispensable ammunition for intelligent debate on these critical issues of our time. With a staunch allegiance to the truth, these timely essays resurrect 18th-century pamphleteering to take on everything from the failures of the redistribution of wealth, to the twisting of Title IX, to the dangers of the increasingly unchecked media bias. Saving the Republic, a collection of Encounter interventions, is a necessary resource of critical thought and commonsense on how to safeguard the promise of America. Saving the Republic is edited by Roger Kimball with contributions from Jay Cost, Philip Hamburger, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, David B. Kopel, Greg Lukianoff, Andrew C. McCarthy, Jared Meyer, James Piereson, Claudia Rosett, Avik Roy, Robert L. Shibley, Michael Walsh, and Kevin D. Williamson. Together these authors make the definitive case for liberty and democratic capitalism at a time when they are under siege from the resurgence of collectivist sentiment.

Modern administrative law has been the subject of intense and protracted intellectual debate, from legal theorists to such high-profile judicial confirmations as those conducted for Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. On one side, defenders of limited government argue that the growth of the administrative state threatens traditional ideas of private property, freedom of contract, and limited government. On the other, modern progressives champion a large administrative state that delegates to key agencies in the executive branch, rather than to Congress, broad discretion to implement major social and institutional reforms. In this book, Richard A. Epstein, one of America’s most prominent legal scholars, provides a withering critique of how theadministrative state has gone astray since the New Deal. First examining how federal administrative powers worked well in an earlier age of limited government, dealing with such issues as land grants, patents, tariffs and government employment contracts, Epstein then explains how modern broad mandates for delegated authority are inconsistent with the rule of law and lead to systematic abuse in a wide range of subject matter areas: environmental law; labor law; food and drug law; communications laws, securities law and more. He offers detailed critiques of major administrative laws that are now under reconsideration in the Supreme Court and provides recommendations as to how the Supreme Court can roll back the administrative state in a coherent way.

Praise for the Fifth Edition of The Responsible Administrator "Cooper's fifth edition is the definitive text for students and practitioners who want to have a successful administrative career. Moral reasoning, as Cooper so adeptly points out, is essential in today's rapidly changing and complex global environment."—Donald C. Menzel, president, American Society for Public Administration, and professor emeritus, public administration, Northern Illinois University "The Responsible Administrator is at once the most sophisticated and the most practical book available on public sector ethics. It is conceptually clear and jargon-free, which is extraordinary among books on administrative ethics."—H. George Frederickson, Stone Distinguished Professor of Public Administration, University of Kansas "Remarkably effective in linking the science of what should be done with a prescriptive for how to actually do it, the fifth edition of Cooper's book keeps pace with the dynamic changes in the field, both for those who study it and those who practice it. The information presented in these pages can be found nowhere else, and it is information we cannot ethically afford to ignore."—Carole L. Jurkiewicz, John W. Dupuy Endowed Professor, and Woman's Hospital Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Management, Louisiana State University, E. J. Ourso College of Business Administration, Public Administration Institute

Two presidents in recent history, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, were elected with a mandate to reduce the scale of government, but met resistance from an increasingly dominant Congress and its allied agencies. In "The Imperial Congress" (The Heritage Foundation/The Claremont Institute), Washington experts take a revealing look at the constitutional crisis posed by Congress as it is today, explain why this has happened, and offer workable solutions to prevent it in the future. In three parts the authors: * Explore the origins and growth of the bureaucratic state in this century * Explain how Congress works today, and how long incumbencies, huge staffs, and connections to special interest groups enable individual members to augment and maintain their power * Discuss the effects of such power in domestic and foreign policies * Focus on strategies for restoring the vital separation of powers, the cornerstone of our constitution. For Washington insiders, students of government, and all concerned citizens," The Imperial Congress "provides insightful and provocative reading. The contributors to "The Imperial Congress" include: Charles R. Kesler, Adjunct Fellow of The Claremont Institute; Douglas A. Jeffrey, Director of Scholarship at The Claremont Institute; John Adams Wettergreen, Professor of Political Science at San Jose University; Michael E. Hammond, General Counsel to the Senate Steering Committee; Peter M. Weyrich, Writer and analyst at the Free Congress Center for Child and Family Policy; Margaret Davis, Legislative Assistant for Senator Phil Gramm; W. Mark Crain, Professor of Economics at George Mason University; L. GordonCrovitz, Assistant Editor of the Editorial Page of "The Wall Street Journal "and Thomas G. West, Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas.