Andrew (another one star reviewer of this book) has already covered the very same reason why I have rated this book one star. For clarity I'll just share the paragraph that made me finally put the book down (at 160 out of 180 pages), which Andrew's succinct review referred to:

"The problem of undue special-interest influence over policy-makers has long been the subject of political reform efforts, but the conventional approach has been to try to disarm the lobbyists by restricting their use of money to influence elections. An alternative approach is to focus on the other side of the equation, namely making policymakers resistant to lobbyists' self-serving claims. The best way to do that is to make policymakers less dependent on lobbyists for policy-relevant expertise and information."

I would have thrown this book across the room if it didn't belong to my local library.

I have many more complaints about the writing and the content, but the one that sticks out the most besides the laughably out-of-touch suggestion above, is the authors' oft-repeated claim that the presence of women in the workforce is at least partly to blame for myriad economic problems. Almost any time they listed circumstances to blame for an issue, women in the workforce was on the list. They never expanded upon this claim, at any length. I realize it was not the subject of their research and to expand upon it at all might have required going much further beyond the scope. But still, it seemed a bit "sus."

(4.5 Stars)

I’m super late to the party reading Brink Lindsey’s books, but I’m a major fan and have been getting caught up. This book is so damned good, and everyone should read it. We’re made to believe that capitalism means a free market, but this market is anything but free. Teles and Lindsey explain what economists call “rent-seeking” and how the ultra-rich stay in power while not giving opportunities to the lower classes. This book opened my eyes to so many things I was unaware of like the truth behind licensing for different careers as well as intellectual property and patent trolls.

What does it say about my consumption habits that little of this was new to me? I think this book does a pretty good job laying out the arguments that regulatory capture is a fundamental problem. The evidence they marshal, on licensing requirements, on zoning, on patent protection, on banking, is pretty compelling. The raw honestly they have that traditional small government libertarianism is not an option is refreshing. Overall, its clear that poorly written laws are a problem and that rent seeking driven by regulatory capture is self-perpetuating in a democracy.

I'm torn by the end of the book. First, theres a naive approach to the implications of the Trump presidency. Obviously in 2016/17 they couldn't have seen what would happen. The political science they mention about how polarization on certain aspects can open up legislatures to new methods of compromise has been shown to be misguided (IIRC either Not Another Politics Podcast or Capitalisnt [both of which are hosted by academics who are mentioned in this book] covered this point).

The ideas around stronger incentives and better structures for congressional staffers make sense in the abstract, but I think one major learning of the Obama presidency was that you need pork to make congress run. Technocratic law writing, especially as they suggest if it is driven by the Executive, cannot work in a Presidential system where there can be split government.

Overall worth a read especially if you're not already exposed to the mix of Cass Sunstein, Matt Yglesias, Strong Towns/New Urbanism, the two podcasts I mentioned above, among others. Oh and Elizabeth Warren fits VERY nicely into this camp.

Came to this from a Planet Money episode; would have been better off sticking with Planet Money episodes. Much of the information presented here is stuff I've heard at at least surface level from that or other similar podcasts, and the detail beyond surface level is at once too detailed and not detailed enough - many numbers and results from other studies are quoted to support their claims, enough to glaze your eyes over, but little detail is given about the methodology of the studies to judge the validity of the conclusions. To be fair, they are footnoted, so if I were committed enough I could go look up the studies myself. But, there are a LOT of citations -- credit for a lot of data! -- so to do so would balloon this 180-page book into a substantial undertaking to fully absorb.

Perhaps I'm just not the target audience. It seems that the book would be a much more worthwhile read for serious students or professionals of public policy and economics, who could actually act on the proposals for improvement at the end of the book, or whose jobs would benefit from keeping the risks of regulatory capture front-of-mind.

Short book. Long on logical arguments, not extensive data. Good pronouncement for future good government. Not necessarily a good plan to get there. Lack of acknowledgement that too many voters are too partisan, too proud of their team.

Makes a powerful case for liberaltarianism.