Why haven't we come up with a political model where in times of major crisis, the most brilliant people of a country (who are not active in politics) are temporarily assigned to solve the crisis and to take the right measures to pull the country out of crisis?

Let me address the "temporary" aspect of your proposal. Even for the fastest learners, it takes time - sometimes months or years - to get up to even moderate competency levels on some subjects. That is why most of the government in the world, and many senior leaders and executives, ALREADY have networks, committees, study groups, think tanks, etc.  operating and providing assessments, policy options, and advice. For the United States, some of these are well know. RAND for strategic thinking on defense and social problems Brookings on economics For Foreign Policy - Council of Foreign Relations -  board talking shop, publishes a magazine National Security Council   - small group, advises the President, evaluates and makes policy at direction of the President There are internal think tanks, such as the Office of Net Assessment, run by Andy Marshall. http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/11/meet-andrew-marshall-the-unknown-but-immensely-influential-figure-behind-american-national-security-strategy/ There are specialized groups, for example, the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Advisory_Board There are science groups, like the JASONS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_(advisory_group) >>  This is not unique to the USA, almost every nation has their own equivalent organizations and groups. << So what you are recommending is already being done. Here is a wikipedia article with incomplete list of think tanks and policy organizations in various countries.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_think_tanks Another list ... http://www.nira.or.jp/past/ice/nwdtt/2005/IDX2/index5.html Here is a think tank in the Hague - http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/BottomMenu/ThinkTankEurope/TTEPartnerprofilepages/tabid/959/UserID/728/language/nl-NL/Default.aspx And here is a report by a European think tank about think tanks in Europe and how governments work with them....a pretty good overview. http://www.notre-europe.eu/media/etud35-en.pdf?pdf=ok Note that nailed a answer with his three points, which why leaders need advisers in place and on board before a crisis hits, so they can refine options, reduce the effects of outside agendas, and resolve or decide among options.

The other answers have covered the technical problems of having the so-called "best and brightest" appointed to solve society's problems.  But more fundamentally, even if you pull it off, even if people accept it, and the solutions are good, it still grates on human nature.  Nobody likes someone who's declared himself as superior to others, even they are doing it at the request of the society and did it for a necessary and good purpose.  On the contrary, politicians and their half measures and their risk-averseness and fear of rocking the boat is the solution found by human kind after many eons of experience. I'm reminded of 2 historical examples of societies and wise men who did what you are asking about: Athens and Solon, and Sparta and Lycurges.  I was always struck by the fact that they both had to pay huge personal penalties after the stint as successful "problem-solver". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon Solon was drafted by his society (Athens), on account of his wisdom, to solve their debt problems and reform their society.  By historical/mystical accounts, he did a good job of it.  But in order to make it stick, he voluntarily exiled himself for 10 years, so that his society couldn't make him reverse his reforms.  To me that's always been the most interesting part of his story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus_of_Sparta Lyurcurgus is another semi mythical character who supposedly reformed his society for the better.  "According to the legend found in Plutarch's Lives and other sources, when Lycurgus became confident in his reforms, he announced that he would go to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_at_Delphi to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo. However before leaving for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi he called an assembly of the people of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta and made everyone, including the kings and Gerousia, take an oath  binding them to observe his laws until he returned. He made the journey  to Delphi and consulted the oracle, which told him that his laws were  excellent and would make his people famous. He then disappeared from  history. One explanation was that being satisfied by this he starved  himself to death instead of returning home, forcing the citizens of  Sparta by oath to keep his laws indefinitely.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus_of_Sparta#cite_note-9 If you believe that, he tricked his countrymen and had to kill himself in order to make his reforms stick.  I don't think this pattern of a bad personal ending for these wise "problem solving" men is coincidence.  If you want to solve social problems by means of reason, and have it stick, and you don't want to luck into by lurching through half measures with politicians or imposing it through military force or religion, then this pattern is par for the course. After elevating yourself and laying down new rules of reform, you really can't be a normal part of your society anymore.  If you voluntarily relinquish your power, then by definition, everything you decided is also subject to be reversed since you're no longer in power to enforce it.  After all the underlying divisions are still there.  On the other hand, if you don't relinquish your power, then it's no longer just temporary, and you've become a dictator.  And you have to stick around for the rest of your life to defend your decisions and likely have to resort to more and more draconian measures to see your reforms through.

It's a lovely idea but reminds me of some of Karl Popper's arguments on democracy. The question of government and democracy shouldn't be: 'who should rule?', as Plato asked, which will only lead to theories on allowing the best to rule instead of the people (which throughout history have never work practically. Who are the best?!). Indeed, Plato suggested this, but even if they only ruled temporarily, how would we remove them if they refused to go? Popper instead suggests the question to be: 'what system will allow for the safe, bloodless removal of bad governments?' Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it is the current one- allowing for, as the previous commenter has said, a 'tyranny for a year' is dangerous territory when we think of the Article 48 clause in the Weimar Republic which allowed Hitler to take 'emergency measures' and increase his power in a supposed time of crisis, to the extent where he no longer needed to follow legislation once he had enough power. One more thing is that we trusted a number of different economists over the years, and many differing solutions are proposed with each boom/bust. It is an incredibly politicised area of academia, and so whilst in theory consulting/employing experts to help us on issues of, say, education, transport, economics, would allow for improvement in those areas, in practice this would become equally open to poitical debate in the way it is today.

Are you asking what happened to the Simpson- Bowles commision?  Or all the other commissions that are set up and ignored? Or do you have in mind that they would be given the power to make the changes.  A sort of mini tyranny? Or Tyranny for a year or whatever? Remember that the houses of congress and the budget process was originally set up to have people make the difficult decisions and go back to their electorate having had a 'mission accomplished" or explain a failure. There are people in government today who feel they no longer have to engage in the process.  They do not want to "dirty their hands" as it were.  They hold themselves up as having the answers but unable to sway those "other  politicians" to their wisdom. It is a historic failure of governing.  We should stop paying them.

What we need is a new improved http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps. With an organization like this, anything is possible. High Speed relief with men and women who are trained and determined to make a difference because it is their job - plain and simple. With the experiences of all of history funneled into an organization designed to fix, maintain, and improve our way of life, namely keeping this country moving forward we could become a very fluid and flexible country indeed. You don't need brilliant people (it helps), you need determined people with a mission. Politicians are a strain on thought and energy flow.  The current political environment is a self serving ice cream parlor.  Bring back the CCC!!!

The old experts myth. Experts are very biased - they often see all issues in terms of how it applies to their subject of expertise. Experts are very poor at forecasting what their policies would achieve - they do not consider all the hundreds of competing issues that do not come into their knowledge sphere. The wisdom of crowds has consistenlty found that informed diversity is far better at solving any problem than a team of experts. Experts have no knowledge of ever putting a major policy into place. The best way is to consult many inputs from think tanks, universities, other countries, practitioners etc and let the politicians come to a concensus on that advice, or reject it if balloney. With simplistic ideology-politics that has now become very difficult, so major issues just drift on unsolved.

In Greece this role was called "tyrant" and in Rome "dictator". It often worked but somehow the terms have gotten bad connotations.

Because brilliant people are by definition not stupid enough to take sole possession of responsibility for the vagaries of fortune.  Anyone who took the job would be self-destructive, therefore dangerous.  Because major crises are not solved by brilliance, they are caused by brilliance. Because when in the course of human events a crisis coalesces, evolution resolves it.  Not necessarily right away, but in due course.  Of human events.  That's what life is.  Give a try at enjoying the show.  And keep up your survival skills.