2014, maybe its about time. You just have to define your problem set correctly, and work with reality rather than an idealised version of it(goes especially for historical precedences). we are lazy, selfish - egocentric, opportunistic animals .. with some natural variations into - what could be considered extremes (altruism / full blown "sociapathism" as an example). Designing public institutions means designing systems those institutions will run on - means getting rid of the non-existent ideals we like to assign to our selves as a species and start working with the sorry-state reality of homo-sapiens-sapiens - hence, engineering challenge ( like designing machinery for a self-managed pig-farm - and yes I chose pigs as an example on purpose )
