Gridlock and Democracy and Accountability

Pundits in the media often compare government and business and complain that government should be run more like business.  A key difference between the two is that decision making in business is authoritarian whereas decision making in a democracy requires massive consensus building.  Democratic decisionmaking is less efficient (and slow) because of gridlock and the time required for consensusbuilding.  Dictatorships are hierarchical organizations that are run like businesses for the benefit of a leader or relatively small oligarchy of interests that can make decisions much more quickly than a democracy.  Even in the case of a corporation, most shareholders do not even vote and the real decisionmaking power rests with a relatively small oligarchy of wealthy managers, directors, and large shareholders who belong to the same class and have much more in common than the varied competing interest groups of a democracy.  Corporate oligarchies can much more quickly reach consensus when required because of their homogeneity.  Conservatives often criticize government for not being managed more like a business, but it was a conservative libertarian motive that initially led to the desire for institutions that would produce gridlock.  Too much democracy was feared to threaten the wealthy.  The majority might vote to make the wealthy minority pay progressive taxes.  
Perhaps a way to encourage reformation of our government would be to argue that a parliamentary government would be more businesslike.  It would appeal to conservative rhetoric and to the authoritarian impulses of conservatives, but smart elite libertarian conservatives would realize that it would actually mean more democratic accountability which would result in popular measures that would somewhat expand government at the expense of wealthy elites.   But their fears are exaggerated.  The US is already on track to expand government due to health trends and the difference between the US and parliamentary systems in the extent of government is much less than one would think.  Even the difference between democracies and dictatorships in government expenditures is so small that it is unclear if one system leads to greater taxation.  

Yglesias:

If major legislative change requires agreement between the leadership of both major political parties, then elections have very little efficacy in terms of determining policy outcomes. To my way of looking at it, that’s a bad thing because it undermines democratic accountability. ...democratic accountability is very important. People who win elections should govern, and if the results of their governance are bad they should lose power. That’s an incentive-compatible mode of governance. Something like “procedure nobody understands determines outcomes, and the party that doesn’t hold the White House benefits from bad results no matter who was responsible for them” is not.

Accountability is blame/credit. Who is accountable for the government shutdown? Who is accountable for TARP? Who is accountable for the fact that Abortion is not illegal? On all of these issues, both sides point fingers at the other side. In a parliamentary system, if your side wins and they do dumb things, then you throw them out. In our system, it is harder to know who is doing the dumb things unless one party has a majority of the house, 60% of the Senate, the presidency, and a majority of Supreme Court justices.