View source for In Praise of the DMV

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[[Category:Paul Krugman]]
[[Category:Government Cannot Do Anything Well]]
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{{DES | des = "The point is that the vision of hopeless government isn’t grounded in personal experience, let alone data. At this point it’s a cultural cliche, or a projection by people who read Atlas Shrugged in their teens and never grew up." | show=}}
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OK, not exactly. But I see that some of the commenters on my libertarian piece invoke the old “horrors of the DMV” line to claim that government never works.

What’s remarkable about this line is that it reflects a fantasy — in this case, a negative fantasy — more than the reality. I’m sure that there are terrible DMV offices where people have miserable experiences, but that’s by no means universal or even normal. These days you can usually make appointments online; and even when you don’t, how bad is the experience? I’ve visited the Baker’s Basin DMV on Route 1 many times, and while I’ve sometimes had to wait a while, the people have been generally helpful and the lines have moved fast.

And if you compare the DMV with some private-sector bureaucracies — [cough] ExpressScripts [cough] — it’s a model of customer service.

The point is that the vision of hopeless government isn’t grounded in personal experience, let alone data. At this point it’s a cultural cliche, or a projection by people who read Atlas Shrugged in their teens and never grew up.
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