The case for coproduction – made in March 1788

Karl Wilding – a brilliant and ridiculously nice man – recently tweeted:

It seems a bit of an indictment of where we've got to with designing services when 'human centred' is claimed as a new/novel characteristic

— Karl Wilding (@karlwilding) January 27, 2013

Karl’s is such a straightforward observation that belies how odd thinking about public services and the quest for innovation or newness is.

This reflection was further proven by this brief part of the Federalist Paper 73, where Publius (actually Alexander Hamilton) wrote the following in his discussion of the Executive branch’s powers over the Legislature:

The oftener the measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those missteps which proceed from the contagion of some common passion or interest.

It is far less probable, that culpable views of any kind should infect all the parts of the government at the same moment and in relation to the same object[.]

I’ve read many justifications and reasons for coproduction in public services. Hamilton’s two sentences above serve as one of the best there is, and was written in March 1788.

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