By Stephen B. Young
The Daily Record Newswire
An unspoken assumption about what government is and must be helps polarize our political thinking and makes resolving our fiscal difficulties more intractable.
On a cultural and partisan level, conservatives on the right are for “less” government while progressives on the left are for “big” government. Conservatives say “tax and spend less"; progressives reply “invest in people with public dollars.”
What many conservatives don’t like about government is its bossiness — its regulatory powers of telling us what to do. They object to the “nanny state” and vaunt the glories of individual freedom.
On the other hand, the left wants big government to step into our lives aggressively and provide for the common good. Progressives, therefore, need higher taxes and extensive government programs to provide a wide range of public goods.
Conservatives resent taxes as paying for government they don’t want and taking away the means for them to enjoy their own freedoms.
All this is commonplace American cultural warfare, right?
But what gives the different preferences such intensity is a largely unquestioned assumption about government.
We have grown to think about government as bureaucracy.
Conservatives resent the bureaucratic hierarchies that are so much a part of our government, while progressives assume they are needed vehicles that “deliver” government to the people.
Assuming that government had to be bureaucratic was not the case in the 18th century when our Constitution was written.
Efficient, modern government through professional civil servants implementing legal codes was largely a 19th century invention of Napoleon and then the Germans.
Bureaucracy is the most convenient form for a centralized, autocratic state where decisions are made at the top and sent down the line for implementation by those whose role is “but to do and die,” in the words of the poet Lord Alfred Tennyson.
It was not a big part of government in 18th century England and the English colonies in America. The Anglo-American tradition was decentralization and decision-making by committee in local communities.
France, on the other hand, especially under Louis XIV, had imposed on the French people a centralized hierarchy of officials and requirements to get permissions. Then Napoleon took Enlightenment philosophy as the justification for government and shaped centralized administrative structures by rigorous reason and logic.
Science and scientific thinking by experts were brought into action to best advance the common good. The mission of the legislative branch was to think up structures for the delivery of public goods.
By the early years of the 20th century the cult of professional government, highly trained civil servants and rational efficiency was in full bloom in the writings of the German sociologist Max Weber.
Public administration became an academic discipline.
Law, politics and administration became professionalized for those educated in the discipline and were taken more and more away from just ordinary folk. Administrators and bureaucrats — trained and tenured — took on more and more of the responsibilities of providing public goods.
The concept of public office as a public trust evaporated as the ideal of the selfless, tenured bureaucrat came to be venerated in common thinking.
Now, we almost always instinctively think of government as bureaucracy. But should we?
Permanent bureaucracies are very expensive. During economic downturns, their carrying costs do not fall along with private economic activity. When revenues contract and the costs of permanent bureaucracies do not, political battles erupt over cuts in services.
The square peg of bureaucracy does not fit well in the round hole of fiscal realities.
But what if government were less bureaucratic and had a more adaptable cost structure? What if government consisted of core employees and many independent contractors? The independent contractors would be hired in sufficient quantity to provide services in line with fiscal realities.
So, when times are good, more public goods can be purchased; when times are not so good, certain tasks can be temporarily suspended.
The role of a legislature would become more that of a purchasing agent that buys public goods to be delivered by a number of providers. The number of permanent bureaucracies set up and supervised by politicians would be reduced. The core costs of employees and pensions would be cut to something sustainable in good times and bad.
Education, for example, could be provided by a small core of administrators and high quality teachers supplemented by a large group of teachers hired on short-term contracts. Public safety could be provided by a core staff of professionals with ancillary tasks contracted for from private security firms and employment agencies.
Our military has been moving in this direction for several decades now. I think our governments in Washington, D.C., at the state level and locally should, too.
Steven B. Young is executive director of the Caux Round Table, an international network advocating ethical principles for business and government. He was the dean of Hamline Law School, and now teaches ethics at the Carlson School of Management. You can reach him at Steve@cauxroundtable.net.
