Not surprisingly, two Ivy League administrative law scholars with technocratic expertise defend the discipline on the grounds that “technocratic expertise greatly matters.” A slightly-edited version of this essay originally appeared in The American Conservative (January/February 2021) as “Leviathan’s Apologists.” Thanks to Real Clear Policy and The Originalism Blog (here)! One of the tenets of the Progressive Movement—the progenitor of the New Deal—was that technical “experts” are better equipped to solve social problems and market failures than elected officials (or ordinary citizens, acting on their own). Hence, the advent over a century ago of regulatory agencies, charged with implementing vague laws that confer sweeping powers upon unelected bureaucrats exercising nearly-unbridled discretion. “Administration” by elites informed by science was heralded as an improvement over—even a substitute for–the outdated framework of representative self-government. The Interstate Commerce Commission (1887), the Food and Drug Administration (1906), and the Federal Trade Commission (1914) eventually begat the alphabet soup of federal agencies created during and after the New Deal that comprise the modern administrative state. Unaccountable government bureaucrats now wield extraordinary power, including the promulgation of a bewildering array of administrative regulations that dwarfs Congress’s lawmaking in volume and complexity.