The big issue I feel like he underrates is the massive incentive to take control of the agency that's supposed to be doing objective assessments. These are now effectively the most powerful people in the country. Even if they start off as saints the political incentive is going to be to find ways to influence it. And once that agency is captured then you have a dictatorship in all but name.
I feel like this reflects a common problem in political theorising, of coming up with an ideal institutional structure without thinking about the incentives around it and how it need to be sustained.
Historical analogues would be how originally non partisan district drawing processes are politicised, the politicisation of science and medicine, or soviet or Chinese gdp figures. The simplest solution is always to just rig the game.
The big issue I feel like he underrates is the massive incentive to take control of the agency that's supposed to be doing objective assessments. These are now effectively the most powerful people in the country. Even if they start off as saints the political incentive is going to be to find ways to influence it. And once that agency is captured then you have a dictatorship in all but name.
I feel like this reflects a common problem in political theorising, of coming up with an ideal institutional structure without thinking about the incentives around it and how it need to be sustained.
Historical analogues would be how originally non partisan district drawing processes are politicised, the politicisation of science and medicine, or soviet or Chinese gdp figures. The simplest solution is always to just rig the game.