Co-dependant bureaucracies

By Bruce Walker
web posted July 1, 2002

The proliferation of regulations, programs, court decisions, and
statutes are correctly perceived as creating more bureaucracy
and less clarity in the federal government. Like some helpless
victim in a Franz Kafka story, increasing numbers of people find
themselves guilty of behavior that is inherently innocent. Violating
the edicts of one federal agency may be required to fulfill the
demands of another federal agency.

Millions of quietly, desperately frustrated, people yearn for
change, but how does one end a federal agency? How does one
stop the flow of federal dollars to addicts hooked on this fiscal
opium? How can federal system be saved before it suddenly
implodes like the First Foundation in Isaac Asimov's famous
trilogy? How can the supernova be slowed without creating the
gravitational tug that yanks all matter into a singularity?

Without being too pessimistic, there may be no hope. But
understanding the true nature of the beast, the real roots of the
overgrowth, is essential to any solution. Knowledge of the
mechanics of compulsory inefficiency provides the only chance
to fix the mess which gets messier every day.

The federal bureaucracies connected with useless programs are
massive, but these are only the tips of the iceberg. The vast
majority of these programs have constituent state government
administering agencies, each of which has a separate
bureaucracy. Many of these state programs superintend the
implementation of federal mandates at the local government level.

The multiplier effect is not just in numbers of employees who
have become dependant upon irrational rules, but these
employees work at different levels of government creating
pressure not only in Congress, but in statehouses and in city halls
to keep the program alive.

Moreover, these bureaucracies are co-dependant on one
another. State agencies responsible for, say, literacy training have
no incentive in reporting to federal agencies in Washington that
the problem of illiteracy has been substantially solved, but they
also has no incentive for saying that the literacy training program
does not work. Social problems remain suspended in a
bureaucratic emulsion. Likewise, local programs have no reason
to say that in their community illiteracy has been wiped out.
Rather, they have a strong interest in finding reasons to compete
for funds from other parts of the state.

Bureaucrats, unlike businessmen, do not judge their personal
success by the bottom line or any other real measurement, but
rather by the number of employees they supervise.
Consequently, bureaucrats will constantly complain about being
"understaffed" because more employees below them in the
organizational chart means a grander title, more money, and a
nicer office.

This Theater of the Absurd which we call "government" should
be scrutinized by outsiders whose profession is showing that the
emperor has no clothes, but there are equally serious
bureaucracies in academia and the media. Studies by professors
and graduate students on a particular government program will
never say "problem solved" or "no work done" or
"counterproductive" because the niche within academia that these
bureaucrats inhabit requires an eternal problem to be examined.

Reporters specialize. In doing so, they stop thinking and start
absorbing the belief systems around them. Those noble guardians
in our Fourth Estate likewise have crass interests in the
perpetuation of the appearance of a constant war fought against
some dangerous and barely restrainable social problem.

What about those corporations which end up paying for so much
of this ornamentation? These behemoths also develop
bureaucracies designed specifically to respond to the
bureaucracies of government. Much like medieval mercenaries,
these corporate bureaucrats have an interest in almost bloodless
but almost constant battle.

The specialization of lawyers creates yet another horde of
freelance knights, fully conversant with the practical intricacies of
some narrow areas of law and deeply valuing the continued
existence of putative problems and prescribed palliatives. And to
this group of independent misery profiteers must be added
trainers and facilitators, technical writers and editors, and other
auxiliary forces.

The numbers of individuals dependant upon the continued
existence of problems, which must be constantly restrained but
which may never be conquered, are staggering. The bulk of our
productive time and energy is spent in this unproductive and
morally debilitating activities.

Moreover, the territories of these realms of lard create even
more waste. Much of the work in a literacy program, for
example, will be spent complying with civil rights mandates, drug
free workplace directives, OSHA job safety requirements, and
so forth. Perhaps the most bizarre requirement for state agencies
is to complete the Paperwork Reduction Act form.

Sometimes insanity reaches beyond mere absurdity. There are
government employees who do work needed work. Recent
graduation ceremonies had long lists of "thank you" and "we
appreciate" to teachers, counselors, administrators, secretaries,
etc. There was a conspicuous absence of any thanks or
appreciation for the janitors, bus drivers and cafeteria ladies.
These folks, however, actually did something of merit.

Likewise, although firefighting is among the most obvious and
fundamental roles of government, how many communities have
hundreds of people working full-time in senseless jobs, while the
community is protected by a volunteer fire department? Why not
volunteer bureaucrats and full-time firemen? As anyone who has
volunteered to do bureaucratic work for some voluntary
association (e.g. recording secretary, treasurer or newsletter
editor) these volunteers have a strong incentive to be as efficient
as possible.

So why not have government jobs that "do stuff" like keep roads
in good repair, maintain water and sewage lines, trim hedges and
grass in parks, shelf library books, patrol streets for crime,
provide emergency medical and fire services, and the like get
permanent funding (their work is real) and have the true
bureaucrats all retired volunteers who have worked in real jobs
before?

Many of these truly useful jobs are like the military: if their
services are not needed, we are much better off. In other words,
paying firemen to sit around and play cards is much better than
having these firemen battle a roaring city fire. When a police car
patrols a neighbor and finds no crime (perhaps because he is
patrolling the neighborhood) then that is also great news. It is
better to pay policemen and firemen and not to have fires and
crime, than to pay them and to have fires and crime.

This is the sort of commonsense which even liberals understand.
But within the Byzantine structure of co-dependant
bureaucracies there is another hidden problem: not only do all
the participants in "addressing" the problem have a vested
interest in this problem existing until the end of time, but these are
also the very people who have the information that proves that
they are wasting everyone's time.

Is there a real solution? Perhaps. Why not allow those
employees in federal, state and local governments to take a "very
early retirement" with a relatively modest pension, combined with
vocational training and six months of paid leave to discover a job
that the employee truly loves and can do well, for those
bureaucrats who say "I am not really doing any useful work"?

Who knows? Maybe some of these people would like to trim
hedges in parks, shelve books in libraries or cook food for
children in cafeterias? Maybe nothing can break the lock of
bureaucratic co-dependancy. But maybe something both simple
and ambitious could start the trend back to real work and real
leisure.

Bruce Walker is a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is
also a contributor to Citizens View, The Common Conservative,
Conservative Truth and Port of Call.

Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com