It’s been over a year since DOGE came to Washington, D.C. Since that time, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has become one of the most talked-about experiments in the history of American governance.
Launched by Elon Musk and sanctioned under the second Trump administration, DOGE’s stated objective was to slash regulations, reduce expenditures, and restructure federal agencies to maximize efficiency and productivity. Within 100 days, DOGE dismantled federal agencies, eliminated thousands of contracts, and implemented mass layoffs and firings.
The impulse to make government work better isn’t unfounded. Public institutions often feel slow and overly bureaucratic. Many people feel alienated from the public systems that are supposed to serve them. The problem isn’t wanting reform. It is what kind of reform we reach for and what we assume government is meant to do in the first place.
Elon Musk has described DOGE’s mission in similar terms to how he approaches his own companies: start from first principles, eliminate inefficiencies, and optimize the system. But as a political project, DOGE signals a new way of thinking about the state itself.
If we take Musk’s worldview seriously about DOGE, which I think we should, given its enormous impact and a growing, bipartisan hunger for reform, we also need to ask: what are the first principles of governance? Behind the headlines is a broader set of questions: What is a state for? And can we really treat democratic government in the same way that we treat technology, or for that matter, a private company?
This piece, part of a series on democracy, institutions, and public life, explores those questions by using DOGE not just as a political development, but as a window into the deeper logic driving our expectations of the state.
The Engineering Mindset Meets the State
At the heart of DOGE lies a mindset: If government could simply be made more efficient, less bureaucratic and more optimized, it would work better. Musk has spoken often about reshaping government, borrowing language from coding to suggest a wholesale reorganization based on logic and optimization.
This approach has roots in Silicon Valley’s culture: if something is inefficient, break it down, remove redundancy, and rebuild it better. This logic is powerful in driving innovation in electric cars, reusable rockets, and AI. But applying it to the government assumes that institutions can be treated like technology or private corporations. In this frame, the legitimacy of a system comes from its performance. And the key metric that matters is whether the system “works.”
Musk often champions first principles thinking: reducing a problem to its most fundamental principles and building upward from there. But when applied to governance, the DOGE mindset risks making two category errors: Technology ≠ Institutions. Private ≠ Public.
Technology ≠ Institutions: One of DOGE’s underlying premises is the idea that technology and institutions are interchangeable. But they serve different purposes. Technology excels at solving well-defined problems. It automates, predicts, and optimizes. But governance is different. Public institutions are not just service providers. They govern relationships and are arenas of negotiation, contestation, and compromise. A legislature is not just a bottleneck; it’s where disagreement is processed into law.
Private ≠ Public: DOGE often treats public institutions as if they were underperforming startups. But private companies exist to maximize value for owners or shareholders. Public institutions, by contrast, serve all citizens, not just the most efficient or profitable. We can think of the interstate highway system or rural electrification: these are projects that no private firm would pursue alone, because they require massive investment with little direct profit, but which serve the public good.
There are many areas where the government can and should be more innovative: digital services, open data, and emergency response. Technologies like these can streamline and enhance public service delivery.
But governance is not only a matter of logistics. It is a matter of values. States must navigate conflicting interests, irreconcilable values, and historical injustices. When the state is treated as merely a technology platform or a private corporation, those complexities get erased.
Technology is not the same as institutions, and public institutions are not the same as private corporations. Each of these human inventions – public institutions, technology, and private companies – arises to serve different purposes and follows different first principles.
What about Bureaucracy?
Let’s talk about bureaucracy. For many, it conjures images of inefficiency, paperwork, and delay. But in a democratic state, bureaucracy is more than red tape: it is a system of governance based not on charisma or personal loyalty, but on rules, expertise, and accountability. This structure is designed to ensure that laws are applied fairly, and decisions are made according to rules, not by whims.
In this view, bureaucracy isn’t the opposite of progress; it’s the opposite of arbitrariness. It’s what allows a citizen to apply for a driver’s license through a transparent, albeit often slow, process rather than having to plead their case to a powerful official or pay a bribe.
When DOGE dismantles bureaucratic structures, it doesn’t just cut red tape; it reduces the capacity of the state to act on behalf of its citizens. In some cases, entire agencies were eliminated without public input or congressional debate. And when parts of the state vanish without accountability, what we lose isn’t just policy, we lose legitimacy.
First Principles of the State
So, what are the first principles of a state? At its core, the state is not just a tool. It’s a shared agreement. A compact. It consists of institutions we consent to shape and be shaped by, and that provide public goods like defense, national highways, and the court system. These serve all citizens, not just a subset, and address problems we cannot solve individually. It guarantees rights, enforces law, protects the vulnerable, and reflects the moral commitments of its people. It does this through imperfect, contested, evolving institutions that derive legitimacy from law and consent.
A state’s first principle isn’t defined primarily by its speed, though that is certainly desirable, but in the nature of its legitimacy. This is because a state that “works” only in terms of speed or cost savings isn’t necessarily one that people trust. Or that gives people a voice. In a democratically run state, legitimacy doesn’t come from outputs alone; it comes from the process: open debate, accountable procedures, and whether people feel seen, heard, and respected.
Democratic governance is slow because consensus is hard. That’s not a bug. If we lose sight of these foundations, we risk chasing speed and efficiency at the expense of trust and democratic legitimacy.
Looking Ahead
We should absolutely debate the future of the state. We should be ambitious about reform. But let us do so from first principles.
From this perspective, we are citizens, not customers. Government isn’t a product, nor is it a startup. It is a shared inheritance for all its citizens, and a fragile promise.
If you could redesign one part of government, what would it be, and would you want a DOGE-like approach?
© 2026 Allison Berland