Sheila has a good post on bureaucracy in which she responds to a David Brooks column. Brooks asserts that “growing bureaucracies cost a lot of money; they also enervate American society. They redistribute power from workers to rule makers, and in so doing sap initiative, discretion, creativity and drive.” That can be true. But I’d also argue that they tend to bring order out of chaos, fight entropy, channel resources more effectively, and have other salutary aspects. Remember that meme about how much some of us think of the Romans? Here’s another one for you — for centuries, the Roman bureaucracy was way more effective than the individualism of their neighbors. Entropy bats last, so even that system fell apart eventually. Bureaucracy can obviously go too far, but it’s easy to make that observation and then turn around and assert some level of inconvenience to you personally represents “too far.”
For my part, I think a lot of bureaucracy is akin to public health measures and drainage infrastructure. You only notice the inconvenience. The horrors they protect you from are forgotten and go unnoticed.
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