Scan barcode
A review by wmapayne
The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
4.0
What do you think about bureaucracy? Do you get all warm and fuzzy inside when daydreaming about the Department of Agriculture? Does the Department of Energy set your heart aflutter? Michael Lewis, author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” feels that way, and thinks you should too.
“The Fifth Risk” is a book about bureaucrats. Not even the politically appointed ones that sometimes get in the news for some scandal or other—this book is about the career civil servants who make the whole government work, and who no one ever hears a word about. Lewis finds that these people’s jobs are so mundane precisely because they are so fundamental to making everything else in society tick. Who collects all the nation’s weather data, and distributes it, for free, to anyone? Who keeps a thousand tons of Manhattan Project nuclear waste from leaking into the Columbia River on any given day? Who developed the software that every coast guard in the world uses to predict where a swimmer lost at sea might have drifted? Who buys fireworks to keep geese away from airport runways? You guessed it; bureaucrats.
The thing that very few people realize about the bureaucracy—most especially those who claim the “deep state” is laden with political plotting—is that it is chock-full of technocratic nerds who love their country, and generally enjoy their jobs. A huge percentage of them are first-generation immigrants. Most have a pathological dislike of personal recognition, even for remarkable achievements. Many forewent better-paying positions in the corporate world to work on serious problems that very few people care about. They manage an enormous portfolio of unusual, deadly, chance-in-a-million dangers, so that no one else has to.
This is the “fifth risk”—that the political administration, failing to recognize what the bureaucracy does, could fail to properly utilize these remarkable people. “The Fifth Risk” is a call to recognize the quiet labor of all the people who make America a slightly more livable place—and a warning that mismanaging these people will undermine their work, and expose everyone to unwanted risks. “The Fifth Risk’s” cast of unusual characters, humanized and panegyrized by Lewis’s capable narrative pen, are collectively a window into the function of liberal institutions. They deserve higher praise.
“The Fifth Risk” is a book about bureaucrats. Not even the politically appointed ones that sometimes get in the news for some scandal or other—this book is about the career civil servants who make the whole government work, and who no one ever hears a word about. Lewis finds that these people’s jobs are so mundane precisely because they are so fundamental to making everything else in society tick. Who collects all the nation’s weather data, and distributes it, for free, to anyone? Who keeps a thousand tons of Manhattan Project nuclear waste from leaking into the Columbia River on any given day? Who developed the software that every coast guard in the world uses to predict where a swimmer lost at sea might have drifted? Who buys fireworks to keep geese away from airport runways? You guessed it; bureaucrats.
The thing that very few people realize about the bureaucracy—most especially those who claim the “deep state” is laden with political plotting—is that it is chock-full of technocratic nerds who love their country, and generally enjoy their jobs. A huge percentage of them are first-generation immigrants. Most have a pathological dislike of personal recognition, even for remarkable achievements. Many forewent better-paying positions in the corporate world to work on serious problems that very few people care about. They manage an enormous portfolio of unusual, deadly, chance-in-a-million dangers, so that no one else has to.
This is the “fifth risk”—that the political administration, failing to recognize what the bureaucracy does, could fail to properly utilize these remarkable people. “The Fifth Risk” is a call to recognize the quiet labor of all the people who make America a slightly more livable place—and a warning that mismanaging these people will undermine their work, and expose everyone to unwanted risks. “The Fifth Risk’s” cast of unusual characters, humanized and panegyrized by Lewis’s capable narrative pen, are collectively a window into the function of liberal institutions. They deserve higher praise.