富比世雜誌譽為「這世代最具指標性的新聞工作者」。
《橡皮擦計畫》、《魔球》、《大賣空》作者麥可‧路易士Michael Lewis,2018再創話題之作!
當政府被交到外行人手中,維繫民主運作的大轉輪,自此出現裂痕…
在川普勝選的隔日,在美國能源部─一個處理許多關乎人類存亡事務的單位─人們等待著部門交接小組的到來,但是─沒有任何人出現。在美國政府的各個單位,都遇上同樣的狀況:什麼都沒有發生。
維繫一個龐大國家的正常運行─無論是學校是否有充足的營養午餐預算,如何管理及預防危險的核能使用,又或是預測是否將發生極端的氣象災難─需要有專業素養、克盡職守的公務人員。因為有他們願意投身於那些私人企業往往不願涉足、研發、評估與承擔長遠風險的領域,讓國家、社會得以運行如常,以至於我們並不常留意到他們的必要性,直到事情亂了調…
麥可‧路易士帶讀者前往國家的引擎室,並找到這組織中的靈魂人物們,發揮他最擅長的角色敘事,透過這些小而關鍵的人物視角,為我們呈現出一個正遭逢前所未有危機的政府─而它的最大威脅,正來自它自己的領導、管理者們。本書除了是對美國政局內幕的第一手報導,也是對這些人物的致敬,反映如今日趨頻繁的素人政治現象,對政府運作帶來的潛藏危機。(文/博客來編譯)
"The election happened," remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. "And then there was radio silence." Across all departments, similar stories were playing out: Trump appointees were few and far between; those that did show up were shockingly uninformed about the functions of their new workplace. Some even threw away the briefing books that had been prepared for them.
Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders. In Agriculture the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches is being slashed. The Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly. Over at Energy, where international nuclear risk is managed, it’s not clear there will be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do.
Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is upside to ignorance, and downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.
If there are dangerous fools in this book, there are also heroes, unsung, of course. They are the linchpins of the system--those public servants whose knowledge, dedication, and proactivity keep the machinery running. Michael Lewis finds them, and he asks them what keeps them up at night.