Even the most conscientious bureaucrat, and there are many, cannot achieve efficient results. How does he know what is best for individual members of society? FULL ARTICLE by Fred Buzzeo
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=13650b5b-7f6f-4efc-bcdf-ce7a9bc7cc06)
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/11016/a-free-market-operative-in-the-bowels-of-bureaucracy/
A Free-Market Operative in the Bowels of Bureaucracy
Previous post: Hoppe on East vs. West Germany and the Fall of the Wall
Next post: Mozart Was a Red
{ 9 comments }
“Second, if he [the bureaucrat] overspends, more taxpayer money is simply allocated to achieve the desired result.”
And if he underspends, he’ll get allocated even less money next time around! By being inefficient most of the time, he has some fat he can trim if he’s running short on funds.
Libertarians who think that bureaucrats take office because they are conscientous or they know what’s best are naive.
Bureaucrats want power and power can’t bother itself with consciousness or effectiveness because if it were it would no longer be power, it would be execution of the commands of efficiency and conscience.
People expressly want power to evade logic and evade constraints.
Bureaucrats want power in order to capriciously decide what they want, not decide what’s best.
Power is free and sovereign, it obeys no rule, no law and no morality.
To give bureaucrats conscientious intentions or efficiency concerns is beyond naive.
One always wants power to impose his rule, not to follow the rules.
The weak follow the rules, the strong MAKE the rules.
Great insight into the bureaucratic mind! It shouldn’t be a surprise that CS Lewis modeled the organization of hell in “Screwtape Letters” as a state bureacracy.
I would really like to know if Mr. Buzzeo took part in any economic development efforts while in the bowels of bureacracy. I had the privilege for several years and it’s hilarious and depressing at the same time to watch bureacrats try to lure businesses, which they hate, to their community because the people need jobs. Then they turn around and beat up on the businesses they have with high taxes and regulation.
“bureaucratic action is merely the will of political pressure groups. Various groups pressure politicians to enact legislation that benefits them. Those that are successful are able to impose regulations that hinder their competition. The bureaucracy is the principal administrator and enforcer of the regulations subsequently imposed.”
Eventually the bureaucracy itself becomes the only pressure group that counts, and drives all others before them. In my municipality there is not a single issue that comes before council and is passed into law unless it is at the behest of the bureaucrats or else has been vetted and approved by the bureaucrats. The union leaders are literally calling the shots.
The organization of any large “outside” pressure group (outside of city government) does not happen unless bureaucrats and the union get behind it. The bureaucracy is behind all the other protest movements such as welfare activists, student groups pleading for cheaper tuition and bus passes, cultural groups, and organized advocacy groups of all kinds.
There is also a conspiracy – in plain sight – between bureaucrats and unions at the municipal, provincial/state and federal level (and UN bureaucrats too). They support each other by tag-teaming the taxpayers and voters with interlocking laws and front-door and back-door funding which promotes their purposes.
The results is an unbelievably fat, complacent bureaucracy constantly designing more and more cadillac programs with more and more white collar and management jobs while the physical infrastructure of roads and sewers crumbles.
Buzzeo should know that the term “czar” in the US government is shorthand for agency leaders with long job titles, and not a job title itself. It is not meant literally. (besides, “czars” have been appointed for decades)
The rest of the article is pretty good, although my guess is that many businesses function like bureaucracies too sometimes, which is why so many fail in their early years. In large, old companies, pathological bureaucracies can re-emerge as employees attempt to take advantage of an emergent social hierarchy to mask their incompetence. Fortunately, the markets often purge such companies, whereas government agencies very rarely undergo that process of creative destruction.
Ironically, though, the very anti-bureaucratic sentiment that we adore creates bureaucratic nightmares when it is shared by politicians who act on this sentiment. The result is a plethora of agencies that have been effectively sabotaged by policy designed to destroy the effectiveness of the organization in an attempt to prevent interference with the free market. When agency officials get the message, their only purpose becomes to preserve their jobs.
The focus, however, on failed government bureaucracies ignores the bureaucracies that actually work. I’m referring of course to the business practices in many established companies. The health insurance industry is a great example of a completely bureaucratic industry that is highly profitable. Too often, I think, the word bureaucracy is used to mean “an inefficient/failed decision-making system”, which can’t be successful. Ergo, if a decision-making system is successful, it can’t be a bureaucracy. Hence, we often ignore exactly what it is that makes such a system fail (lack of purpose, support, competence, etc), taking failure to be evidence that a bureaucracy exists, which is actually a trivial discovery. I’m glad Buzzeo addresses a few of these issues, but the argument can be made more general.
Regardless, Ribald the Bureaucracy he exposes have coercion at their disposal, thus governmental or political. Lording power over one’s capital & property.
Sure there are many bloated bureaucracies that are part of organizations, some more, some less depending on their organizational structure, but thats not the point here. And I would like to add as a point being is that how much extra departments are borne out of direct meddling from governmental bureaucracies? Meaning liasons, such as social, feel good dept’s, in large corporations that really don’t contribute towards there original goal. Granted now most smaller businesses don’t have the resources to enact this garbage, but even so they go with the political winds at their Local Chamber of Commerces.
“It became obvious to me at the onset that certain individuals remain in government for an extended period of time, forming their own pressure groups to secure their survival.”
Substitute “Toyota” for “government.
Wages and benefits are set by some guy 8000 miles away and 6 levels up the food chain. Whom does the individual worker ask for a raise? Is the median worker better off under a union contract or playing politics in a scab shop?
A good satirical look at the mechanical workings of bureaucracy can also be gained thru a look at the classic old sitcom Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister.
From “Yes Minister – A Real Partnership”
“In government, many people have the power to stop things happening but almost nobody has the power to make things happen. The system has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce.”
~~~~
Minister of Administrative Affairs Jim Hacker and his Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby argue the relative merits of the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the European Union. Originally aired March 23, 1981 in the Yes Minister episode “The Devil You Know.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Xvy1r4Pm8&feature=player_embedded
Here is another example of the government themselves becoming the primary force behind “pressure groups” which demand bigger government:
White House Using NEA to Push Partisan Agenda
As more and more government fiascos become known, presumably the number of legitimate grass-roots advocacy groups who actually trust the government and want help from the government become smaller and smaller. Therefore if government is to continue expanding it must create lobby groups itself. Call it a false flag political attack.
Comments on this entry are closed.