Government as 'pilot light'

Over on Podnosh, Nick Booth notes how 'we habitually structure most government on an assumption of permanence' and wants us to work out how, when we need less government, we 'scale it back and put the excess capacity to useful work elsewhere'.

Does it make sense, he asks, to create 'some stronger culture of treating government as something that gets deployed where and when it is needed'?

It strikes me as something that is fully consistent with the network society, where the old hierarchies continue to shrivel. It will depend on more widespread experience of participating in governance than we can boast at present, so it fits with the momentum of empowerment.

And it will require and/or give rise to a revised understanding of the idea of a 'job'. I see all these things, including Nick's basic principle, as desirable.