From his standpoint as a businessman and citizen, it seemed
that at every level our government through its regulatory bodies and agencies
was slowly expanding and grabbing control of virtually every facet of society.
These bureaucracies are self-perpetuating and expansionist.
Anyone who has worked in government or interacted with it
much won’t have too hard of a time grasping this fact.
I learned many lessons in the military and one (which I’ve
shared before) had to do with the nature of the bureaucracy. When I arrived my
unit in Italy contained all of 43 people. We were a detachment from a base in
Germany. So technically we were part of their command and logistics structure.
However we apparently had our own budget. When I first arrived the base was in
the process of building up but was still somewhat of a backwater. The Cold War
had just ended and US strategy was shifting to Southern Europe and the Middle
East. The massive conglomerations of bases in Germany were no longer necessary.
In terms of strategy they served as the ‘tripwire’ deterrent vis-à-vis the
Soviet Army and in particular the threat of Soviet tanks. The Soviet threat
real or perceived had evaporated.
In the 1990’s the new emphasis was going to be the Balkans,
North Africa and the Middle East. Now under Obama we’re ‘pivoting’ again and
the new strategic thrust will be toward the Asia/Pacific region. This of course
means a lot of contracts, new bases, construction etc… The Military-Industrial
Complex may naturally lean toward the militaristic wing of the Republican Party,
but they’re happy enough with a Clinton or Obama who does their bidding. There
will be some losers as bases close and the spending shifts to new locations.
But the Defense Contractors…they always do quite well.
Anyway, my unit at first struggled in terms of funding. Our
equipment was subpar, and at times we struggled in terms of manpower. Then the
shift happened which I think was underway but was certainly accelerated by the
Bosnia intervention in 1995. The Srebrenica massacre had just happened and as
some of you might recall the American pilot (Scott O’Grady) was shot down over
Bosnia.[i]
After these events our base was tagged as a key buildup
point. They started throwing money at us and I remember at the near conclusion
of the fiscal year we had a big meeting. Apparently there was about $70 to $80,000
left over from our budget that needed to be spent. The number one rule of every
bureaucracy is that you never leave surplus funds and you never request the
same budget for the subsequent year. You always spend every penny and you
always ask for more. You might get cut, but you are guaranteed to be cut if you
don’t spend it all and ask for more.
This way the bureaucracies never really shrink. Unless
restrained they will continue to grow. Seeking justification they will always
seek to expand their role and powers. Some bureaucracies completely take on a
life of their own and will actually lobby for laws that will aid their growth.
If you spend any amount of time in those circles you will
also find various levels of the bureaucracy spending a great deal of time and
manpower working on funding grants or in other cases working on data
collections and reports…to do what they’re tasked to do? No, they’ll put in
long hours appealing to the next tier in the bureaucratic hierarchy in order to
justify their existence or the extension of more funding.
Headquarters had increased our manpower, given us new
equipment and we improved and expanded our facilities and we still had money
left over. So what to do? In the end they decided to purchase gym equipment. Of
course we had no place to put it. It was all crammed into an unused break room
and was packed in so tight you almost couldn’t use it anyway. And basically no
one did. The base already had a pretty fancy gym with much better equipment,
more of it, and far more room. Ours just sat and literally collected dust. The
treadmill did get some use. When bored some of the airmen would go in and take
turns jumping onto it at full speed, projecting objects into the wall etc…
It wasn't really about getting a place to exercise. In
bureaucratic-budgetary terms it was a justified use of funds and vindicated our
bottom line.
I had always heard about bureaucratic waste but that was the
first time I saw it firsthand. And then it occurred to me…this was one tiny
insignificant unit at a backwater base. Multiply this instance by ten thousand
and maybe you would begin to get an idea of how the government functions and
how things are wasted.
Many people would point to instances just like this and say
this is an inherent problem with government. Actually that would be incorrect.
It’s a cultural problem within the government bureaucracy. The bureaucracy
itself generates a certain type of culture. It can be reformed or changed. I’m
not saying it would be easy to do that, or that it’s going to happen, but it’s
not impossible.
It’s always easier to spend other people’s money. The
private sector is not that different if you have your eyes open. I see it every
day in the construction sector. And anyone who works in consulting or doing
contract work can tell you endless stories of client’s money being wasted. I
deal with inspection companies and architectural firms and all of them (if you
look) have little rackets going wherein the customer is being taken advantage
of. Just recently the property owner I’m working for brought was having a
meltdown. He brought in invoices from the architect, wanting me to look at them
and help make sense of their billing. I had to admit based off what I was
seeing and what I had experienced in working with the architect…it was pretty
sketchy. They charge high rates and often you're paying a lot of money for some
pretty silly stuff. But it's not just architects and attorneys. It's happening
everywhere.
The government is more brazen because they can be. Most of
the time they can act with impunity. It’s the nature of power. I see it when I
deal with the local building departments, and other city bureaucracies.
Sometimes dealing with small town versions of this can be helpful. You get to
know people and at times that can help cut through red tape and formalities. At
others times it can be nothing less than maddening. There’s nothing worse than
a small town bureaucrat who thinks they’re somebody.
Why do we have this maddening bureaucratic system? Did it
birth itself? While my father’s observations were on one level correct. In
another sense this identification of American power…the Dictatorship of the
Bureaucracy fails to identify the real nature of the problem. It’s but a
symptom.
One could certainly attack this from many angles and come up
with a multitude of reasons and problems but I would focus on four.
1.
The democratic principle that seeks to
decentralize power.
2.
Regional government (as opposed to local and Federal)
3.
Tort litigation
4.
And, commitment to private enterprise
I would argue these commitments while not all necessarily
bad in and of themselves, have together unintentionally generated a systemic
flaw, a poison or cancer which can exist within society for a long time but
eventually renders it dysfunctional and self-destructive.
What I’ve presented here could quickly turn into a large
book and it would be one that I would be happy to write, but I’m afraid I have
neither the time nor the resources to do this, so a summary will have to
suffice at present.
These four issues I’ve raised are so broad, in fact the
overall issue concerning the corrupting nature of bureaucracy is so broad that
any attempt to address this question is almost by necessity a reductionistic
enterprise. In no way can I even begin to touch on every angle or
consideration. But I do think these four factors (broadly speaking) have worked
together to society’s detriment.
Social Parasites
Money's Ethos and Essence
The Economics of Empire
The Cancer of Militarism
Shining a Little Light on Some Common Tax Deceptions
Profits and Social Stability
[i] ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ was
loosely based on that event. O’Grady later graduated from Dallas Theological
Seminary and has been pretty involved in Republican politics. They do love
their Christian military heroes.