The unplanned outcomes that emerge from obsessive tinkering, competitive one-upsmanship, incremental improvement, and unarticulated longings have no place in a rigidly planned world. For as we're now discovering, the future, in fact, is made of surprise. Even the science-fiction writers nowadays recognize the inevitability of surprise. Small, scattered details aren't just writing techniques. They're also fuel for social and economic propulsion.
Important things happen out of sight, often tapping occluded desires.
So, less fleetingly, did the World Wide Web. Yet that's where Wal-Mart Stores Inc. emerged. Linux keeps getting better because thousands of Linux hackers think it's cool to look for bugs. Linux welcomes ideas and improvements from people anywhere. Mr. Wildavsky, who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, could have been writing about Linux.