The Bureaucratic Mentality

When I went to high school during the 1950’s, my very liberal teachers encouraged students to go into government service.  They were aware of the failures of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and blamed this on the absence of talented administrators.  If these managers had been smarter and more creative, workable solutions would have been found.

I took these admonitions to heart.  As a good student, it was my duty to make socialism succeed.  This, of course, had to begin by making the government more responsive.  Unless this occurred, it might be unwise to place the entire economy in state hands.

For the next several decades I sought, and obtained, government employment.  I was not going to be one of those greedy capitalists who put self-interest before communal interests.  Only after many years of trying did I realize that a deeply ingrained bureaucratic mentality prevented accomplishing my dream.

To illustrate, when I went to work for a state vocational agency, the first thing a new colleague told me was CYA.  At the time, I was so naïve I did not know what this meant.  For the uninitiated, it stands for “cover you’re a—.”  That is, don’t make waves and you won’t get in trouble.

In other words, a great many government bureaucrats intend to follow the rules—and only the rules.  They are not looking to be creative.  They are not geared to taking risks.  As a bus driver uncle advised me, if you keep your head down, the pay is good and the security can’t be beat.

The degree to which this attitude discourages originality also became plain at the vocational bureau.  Having obtained a Ph.D. in sociology, I sought to apply it to helping my clients.  Over the course of several years, I therefore developed a program I described as  “Resocialization.”

So far as I could tell, it worked well.  Then the boss of my boss came to ask what I was doing.  To my surprise, after I explained my innovations, I was ordered to stop.  There was no follow up to determine if I was aiding people.  I was simply told to desist.

Naturally I asked why and was startled by the response.  The answer was that this superior did not understand what I was doing and therefore I must not continue.  There was no assertion that I was hurting clients; only that he could not comprehend my methods.

Sadly my Ph.D. was not respected.  If anything, it made my colleagues wary.  The fear was that I would use it against them.  As a result, no one asked how my expertise might assist them.  Their goal was to get along by going along.

Earlier in my bureaucratic adventures I discovered how detailed paperwork prevented disruptive novelties.  This time I was working for the New York City Department of Welfare.  More particularly, national social workers had recently succeeded in getting the federal government to sponsor social interventions for our clients.

The benefits of this change were to be twofold.  First the department would be allocated more money and second the caseworkers would be professionalized.  As a consequence, clients would we better served, while those assisting them received greater respect.

The surprise was in how these modifications were implemented.  All that happened was that caseworkers were required to fill out forms that documented the services they provided.  What they did, did not change.  Only the way they reported it.

For example, caseworkers had always been required to check that clients paid their rent.  This was intended to make sure they did not squander their resources.  Now caseworkers were to describe this activity as providing clients with financial advice.

Today I am a professor at Kennesaw State University, but I am still required to pretend to do what I don’t.  Thus, the state of Georgia recently decided it wants to encourage faculty members to be more involved with the community.  So how are we implementing this?  I bet you can guess.

We are filling out a form that documents community involvement.  We are not changing what we are doing.  We are merely changing how we report it.  No doubt this will look good in legislative hands.

Some things never change.  The bureaucratic mentality is always about professing to do more, while doing less.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University