Following up on my thoughts yesterday about the wasteful character of the U.S. political system, here’s a nice observation from a BBC piece on the subject:
In the middle of the 19th Century, Walter Bagehot [noted] the distinction between what he described as the “dignified” and the “efficient” elements of the British constitution.
The “dignified” part was, of course, the monarch (with some help from the royal family and the House of Lords). The “efficient” part was the prime minister (along with the cabinet and the House of Commons). No doubt Bagehot over-simplified, but it was an arresting formulation, it has (if anything) become more true since his own time, and it describes a way of doing things which has been widely replicated elsewhere in British life, whereas it is relatively rare in the US.