By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal
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Selling Fast (Boston Review)
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal reviews three books, using the first, a history of the shift from commission-based public service to salaries, as background for the later two, on recent changes to policing and teaching. Konczal draws connections between the corrupt systems of the past and modern reforms.
For decades the state, professionalized bureaucracy, democratic control of public finance, and the public itself have been vilified, while incentive pay and volunteerism—exemplified by homeschooling, armed self-defense, the anti-vaccination movement, and other forms of civic abandonment—have been ascendant. But as history shows, these rearguard actions make a fragile line of defense against the state’s imperfections, and the ills of corruption and illegitimacy they breed can be far worse than any problems such anti-public measures may hope to solve.
Follow below the fold for more.
Obama's Net Neutrality Statement Will Start a War on K Street (TNR)
John B. Judis quotes Roosevelt Institute Fellow Susan Crawford, who said the administration had avoided net neutrality for fear of "World War III," but apparently those fears are no more.
More Transparency, More Pay for C.E.O.s (NYT)
Andrew Ross Sorkin reports on a new study proving that compensation consultants, hired by companies to "benchmark" CEO pay to that of their peers, are used to justify higher pay.
- Roosevelt Take: William Lazonick noted compensation consultants' role in skyrocketing executive pay in his recent white paper.
Voter Suppression Laws are Already Deciding Elections (WaPo)
Catherine Rampell looks at a few close races where the margin of victory lines up with the margin of disenfranchisement. Even if that changed outcomes, there's no real recourse available.
New on Next New Deal
News Flash: Progressives Have a Winning Economic Narrative -- and Democrats Who Used It Won
Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Richard Kirsch says Democrats need to focus on a message of an economy that will work for "all of us" in order to win elections.
Expand Registration Efforts on Campus to Increase Youth Turnout
Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network Senior Fellow for Education Megan Ernst looks at how a little-known provision requiring colleges to provide voter registration forms could improve youth turnout.