More government - A bad idea?
Gary Loftis
November 21, 2007
(This essay is the second in a series prompted by watching Democrat presidential debates.)
All of the Democrat presidential candidates envision a role in which government levels the economic and social playing fields. From Hillary Clinton’s $5000 “investment” to Dennis Kucinich’s pledge to return ethics to businesses, each candidate has a platform that relies on government bureaucracies to solve every problem. Before anyone buys these plans, we should take a serious look at how government bureaucracies actually work.
In 1973, when I began studying toward my master’s degree, I was introduced to the theories of Max Weber, an early 20th Century sociologist and economist whose theories gave birth to the “science” of public administration. His descriptions of bureaucratic behavior provide the rationale for limiting, rather than enlarging the role of government in individual Americans’ lives.
Weber saw the state as having a monopoly on the exercise of physical force, and theorized that bureaucratic behavior on the part of government bureaucracies evolved from that power. Value oriented organization and action inevitably leads to “rationalization,” a legalistic relationship with clients that is governed by objective bureaucratic rules. This phenomenon results from the need to standardize “services” -- regardless of the skill of the civil servants providing them -- by formulating procedures. As such procedures become more detailed over time, they increasingly restrict employees’ options, thereby forcing clients to define their needs in terms of the services provided. The result can be an agency that loses sight of its intended mission.
Although I would not condemn all such agencies, in many states and localities the bureaucracies created to act in behalf of children’s welfare have become fixated on identifying rule violations that would allow them to remove children from their families, even when the family is clearly a better environment than a foster facility. Far from protecting such children by promoting healthy family relationships, the bureaucracies’ reliance on rules instead of judgment may actually endanger client children.
A second characteristic of bureaucracies is that, over time, they discourage creativity. As an organization grows and develops operating rules and procedures, it becomes increasingly difficult for employees to innovate, because change can be viewed as a threat, especially to middle managers. The inertia that results can prevent correct responses to changing circumstances, because problems become defined in terms of present solutions.
The Transportation Security Administration is a great example of organizational inertia. Although it is relatively new, the TSA was created from a plethora of other operations all of which were tasked with “securing” commercial travel. The preferred methodology for accomplishing this goal was by random searches and visual screening. In the wake of the 9/11/2001 attacks, it became clear that the existing program was inadequate, so the federal government created the TSA, but hired mostly personnel who were already doing an inadequate job in other organizations. Now, the TSA program is ... more random searches and visual screening. And the “new” program is not succeeding better than it did in its previous iterations as attested to by such articles as “Complaints against airport security surge” (Scott McCartney, The Wall Street Journal, 11/20/07) and “Cosmetics Trigger Security Scare At LAX” (CBS Newsline, 11/21/07).
The fact is that there may be a better, less intrusive way to secure commercial travel, but the TSA, with its procedures solidly grounded in its legacy, cannot be expected to find it.
Finally, existing bureaucracies tend to become permanent, with a constantly growing budget, and the US track record indicates that federal bureaucracies resist goal and achievement accountability measurements. Our nation has spent somewhere between $4.5 and $6 trillion in the “War on Poverty” since 1964; yet, the percentage of US workers considered in poverty has not changed appreciably in over 30 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty).
The Department of Education has been operating since 1980. It was a created not to improve US students’ education but to formulate “federal funding programs involving education and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education) Ostensibly, their benefit should be apparent in improved student test scores, yet our students consistently score below those in most other industrialized nations (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/c1/c1s1.htm).
Both the poverty programs and the Education Department have seen huge growth in personnel and funding since their inception, despite a dearth of evidence that they have any accountability for results. Any suggestion that they be dissolved or redefined meets with politicians’ cries that these and other programs are essential.
Strangulation by procedures and rules, creative inertia, and limited accountability are three observable characteristics of government bureaucracies. Yet the Democrat presidential candidates want us to accept even more government regulation.
Am I the only one who’s worried?
All of the Democrat presidential candidates envision a role in which government levels the economic and social playing fields. From Hillary Clinton’s $5000 “investment” to Dennis Kucinich’s pledge to return ethics to businesses, each candidate has a platform that relies on government bureaucracies to solve every problem. Before anyone buys these plans, we should take a serious look at how government bureaucracies actually work.
In 1973, when I began studying toward my master’s degree, I was introduced to the theories of Max Weber, an early 20th Century sociologist and economist whose theories gave birth to the “science” of public administration. His descriptions of bureaucratic behavior provide the rationale for limiting, rather than enlarging the role of government in individual Americans’ lives.
Weber saw the state as having a monopoly on the exercise of physical force, and theorized that bureaucratic behavior on the part of government bureaucracies evolved from that power. Value oriented organization and action inevitably leads to “rationalization,” a legalistic relationship with clients that is governed by objective bureaucratic rules. This phenomenon results from the need to standardize “services” -- regardless of the skill of the civil servants providing them -- by formulating procedures. As such procedures become more detailed over time, they increasingly restrict employees’ options, thereby forcing clients to define their needs in terms of the services provided. The result can be an agency that loses sight of its intended mission.
Although I would not condemn all such agencies, in many states and localities the bureaucracies created to act in behalf of children’s welfare have become fixated on identifying rule violations that would allow them to remove children from their families, even when the family is clearly a better environment than a foster facility. Far from protecting such children by promoting healthy family relationships, the bureaucracies’ reliance on rules instead of judgment may actually endanger client children.
A second characteristic of bureaucracies is that, over time, they discourage creativity. As an organization grows and develops operating rules and procedures, it becomes increasingly difficult for employees to innovate, because change can be viewed as a threat, especially to middle managers. The inertia that results can prevent correct responses to changing circumstances, because problems become defined in terms of present solutions.
The Transportation Security Administration is a great example of organizational inertia. Although it is relatively new, the TSA was created from a plethora of other operations all of which were tasked with “securing” commercial travel. The preferred methodology for accomplishing this goal was by random searches and visual screening. In the wake of the 9/11/2001 attacks, it became clear that the existing program was inadequate, so the federal government created the TSA, but hired mostly personnel who were already doing an inadequate job in other organizations. Now, the TSA program is ... more random searches and visual screening. And the “new” program is not succeeding better than it did in its previous iterations as attested to by such articles as “Complaints against airport security surge” (Scott McCartney, The Wall Street Journal, 11/20/07) and “Cosmetics Trigger Security Scare At LAX” (CBS Newsline, 11/21/07).
The fact is that there may be a better, less intrusive way to secure commercial travel, but the TSA, with its procedures solidly grounded in its legacy, cannot be expected to find it.
Finally, existing bureaucracies tend to become permanent, with a constantly growing budget, and the US track record indicates that federal bureaucracies resist goal and achievement accountability measurements. Our nation has spent somewhere between $4.5 and $6 trillion in the “War on Poverty” since 1964; yet, the percentage of US workers considered in poverty has not changed appreciably in over 30 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty).
The Department of Education has been operating since 1980. It was a created not to improve US students’ education but to formulate “federal funding programs involving education and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education) Ostensibly, their benefit should be apparent in improved student test scores, yet our students consistently score below those in most other industrialized nations (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/c1/c1s1.htm).
Both the poverty programs and the Education Department have seen huge growth in personnel and funding since their inception, despite a dearth of evidence that they have any accountability for results. Any suggestion that they be dissolved or redefined meets with politicians’ cries that these and other programs are essential.
Strangulation by procedures and rules, creative inertia, and limited accountability are three observable characteristics of government bureaucracies. Yet the Democrat presidential candidates want us to accept even more government regulation.
Am I the only one who’s worried?
Print
Email
