When Thomas Jefferson
inaugurated the State Department, it employed under a dozen souls. Today Foggy Bottom employs thousands upon
thousands. Like government in general,
it has become bloated beyond the imagination of those who founded our nation.
Everywhere we look,
bureaucracies are taking over, but no more so than in the federal
government. Today its rolls number in
the millions, with little hope in sight of bringing them under control—never
mind reducing them.
Amazingly, bureaucracy of
the sort we know is a relatively recent invention. The Roman Empire possessed a small slave
bureaucracy, while the Roman Catholic Church maintained a loose knit one. It wasn’t until modern armies began to grow
that this mode of organization took off.
But what really made
bureaucracy commonplace was the advent of big business. With the rise of industrial conglomerates, it
became impossible for owner-mangers to control these entities on their
own. They required something more
predictable, and more reliable, than their personal efforts.
As Max Weber tells us, this
is the forte of bureaucracy. It permits
a few people at the top to control a great many at the bottom by creating a
defined hierarchy of authority that oversees the implementation of numerous
rules and procedures. It also utilizes a
myriad of files and records to impose its will.
Weber believed that
bureaucracy was the only practical way to bring rationality to bear on large
organizations, but he also feared that it locked those at their base in an
“iron cage.” So effective was it in
controlling their behavior that they lost much of their freedom.
Many people, especially
liberals, agree that larger and larger bureaucracies are the wave of the
future. So efficient do they consider
these, that they wish to concentrate more and more power in the hands of fewer
and fewer “experts.” Confident that they
are the “best and the brightest,” they aim to grow the federal bureaucracy so
large that it can impose their vision of justice on everyone.
I propose, therefore, that
the Democratic Party be relabeled the Bureaucratic Party. It has already been accused of being the
party of “big government,” but this is too clunky a designation. So-called “low information” voters, in
particular, require an evocative term to drive home the essence of liberalism
and progressivism.
One of Parkinson’s Laws
informs us that bureaucracies have a tendency to grow. However big they are, those who control them
wish to see them get larger. This is
because the people who run bureaucracies love power. They are empire builders who perceive their
success as lying in the management of more and more people.
Liberals are fond of
portraying businesspersons as power hungry and therefore dangerous, but they
ought look in the mirror if they wish to view genuinely ravenous wolves. These bureaucracy-lovers have never met a
government program they did not like or a government regulation they did not
believe necessary to solve problems of their own invention.
Hence it is by these means
that the Bureaucratic Party keeps encroaching on the freedoms of
Americans. Small business owners have
known this for a long time. Ordinary
citizens are learning it via ObamaCare.
As newly federalized health bureaucracies continue to impose rules on
them, they are beginning to feel the pain.
As per usual, adherents of
the Bureaucratic party tell us this is for our own good. They assure us that they must protect us from
our personal limitations. Nevertheless,
the real reason they keep piling rules and procedures on rules and procedures
is because they want to be in charge of everything.
Almost no one—except those
who run them—likes bureaucracies. It is
time for those who value their freedom to take advantage of this
antipathy. Call the Democrats what they
are, namely bureaucracy-lovers. Paint
them in the colors (e.g., red tape)they have so richly earned, and they may be
less attractive to potential voters.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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