The concept of "producer capture" runs through every government office, particularly those which provide "essential services". The producers wittingly or unwittingly operate primarily to protect their job security, salaries, and benefits and to extend their control over the direction of their part of the bureaucracy. They may believe that they always act "in the public interest" or "the common good", but they also arrogate to themselves the right to define those terms.
For example, in every province, teachers must become members (or contributors) of a closed shop union, which, in turn, exercises tremendous power in shaping an essential public service one that is, essentially, a monopoly. Of course, independent schools exist, but, with exception of British Columbia, which provides independent schools with modest financial support (50% of the previous year's operating per pupil grant), there is limited support in the Prairies and Central Canada, and absolutely nothing in Atlantic Canada. The unions have opposed any public support of independent schools, opposed charter schools, and home-schooling, and, as I learned in a research project on which I worked, only grudgingly accepted the idea that public school students could earn graduation credits outside the public schools; even then, students may not earn more than one (1) credit through external study.
In addition, the level of group-think we see in our contemporary universities is mirrored in our bureaucracy. You may congratulate yourself in hiring new people who may not look like you, but there is little likelihood that you will recommend the hiring of anyone who doesn't think (or at least pretend to think) like you.
Yes, neither Mr Carney nor Mr Poilievre want to over-focus on reducing the size of the bureaucracy during an election campaign, given that they running in adjacent ridings in Ottawa, and it is true the Canadian bureaucracy will likely resist any attempt to limit is numbers or rein in its relative autonomy, but at least, I believe, Mr Poilievre recognizes the problem and will look for ways to address it. Unlike you, I don't see any likelihood that today's Liberal Party of Canada will do much to slay the dragon.
Thanks Robert. This is a great and informative note. My optimism is buoyed in part by Canada's greatest ever (so far) bureaucratic dragon slayer, Jean Chrétien, who did not mention this scope of effort in his campaign, but made it, in my view, the defining feature of this work.
A minor correction… 343 seats as of this election 😊.
I don’t think there is anything like a “bloc” of bureaucratic voters. I have worked in both the public and private sectors and there are pluses to both (and minuses too).
We are at a point in history where the biggest crisis we are facing… bigger than anything since WWII… is going to require mobilization at a national level to accomplish, and it will have to be organized by government (as it was in WWII).
The crisis I am talking about is our response to the evolving climate emergency. We have challenges from food security to hardening/replacing infrastructure to the threat of floods/sea level rise, fire mitigation, drought resistance/amelioration. We also have generational equity issues in housing affordability, as well as preparation for the coming wave of climate-displaced people who will see Canada as a lifeboat.
Arguably what is required is a reorganization of federal/provincial responsibilities that will reduce some of the inefficiencies in overlap.
Lots more to talk about here but I will leave it at that!
Yes, let's be careful what we include in the 'bureaucracy'. Doctors and nurses probably not, but what about the administrators who pay them and keep the facilities in shape? Persons in the armed services? Maybe not, but what about the persons who look after veterans and their services? Conservation officers? Wanna get rid of them? Building inspectors? School administrators? I have worked in all 3 levels of government, and in industry, and I do NOT subscribe to any sense that private for-profit companies do these services either cheaper OR better than a well-run civil service or public utility. If you simply want to say that ANY managerial sector is somewhat of a burden on top of the workers and society, just say that, and then talk about how to manage modern complexity without them!
So I know this will seem controversial and perhaps challenging but I have to disagree. Some things private for-profit companies do MUCH better. I too have worked in government, at a county level and I'd never work for a government again. I'm not suited to it but I also saw so much waste I found it disgusting.
There are 3 things I found inherent to government that turn me off of it being a good fit for many jobs.
1) Politics: It should probably surprise no one that politics are part and parcel of most government agencies, but I found that it goes beyond building consensus or trying to argue for different segments of the population. Bureaucracy inherently likes to build fiefdoms. Example: as a business IT guy you would do the research, find the programs that would work for most people and negotiate the licences for them en-masse. For instance, although I find MS Word to be bloated with a busy interface it's formats and ability to tackle a wide variety of documents while also not allowing a giant company to read every single missive ever written in it has made it a staple. At the county though I had to support 3 different writing programs, including one that only worked on a specific operating system that wasn't MS Windows (so then, also supporting the operating system). In business, by contrast, you can dictate one system which is both more efficient and cheaper (both for the license and to support), in government you have to bend to the will of whoever controls the fiefdom.
2) "Credentialism": Government has to "look" fair even if that's not the people who generally get things done. I've spent my entire life avoiding most credentials, even going through hoops not to get one. I'm actually pretty good at taking tests, but I don't think they're useful for people like me who enjoy being flexible, who like to learn from mistakes as well as examples (I gain a deeper understanding of the "why" as well as the "how" and a clearer picture of how it fits). People who like to colour outside the box, and, in fact, live there more easily. Credentialism is for middle of the roaders, not for explorers. Certainly not for edge cases or pioneering. Oddly, misanthropes can thrive here too though. Example: the building inspector. I did a similar job in the private sector for a real estate management company taking care of properties owned by the government. I was able to complete 4x the properties per day as the regular inspector and caught issues he didn't as well as talk to some of the live-in clients he couldn't or wouldn't or wouldn't speak with him. One of the properties was inhabited by a guy in a wheelchair and I managed to fix/create a ramp system that allowed him better access to the entire property in 2 months (including approvals, tendering, etc.), he'd been complaining about it for 2 years. All of this because I was willing to work the problem, not simply follow procedure/past precedent.
3) Paperwork. There are no serious problems that can't be hidden under enough paper or reams of data or Byzantine procedure. In fact, the word Byzantine comes from a time when Roman bureaucracy grew so intense that it finally became untenable to the Western mind. The Chinese beat us there by at least a thousand years but they seem to have shrugged and kept going anyway. Example: my Mom worked in the VA system as a nurse. There were (are?) 4 different intake forms. There's no earthly reason to have more than one that includes the questions on the other forms but that's the way it's (or at least it was) done (see fiefdoms above). It's also information that's collected but rarely (except the patient's name and address) used. The doctor is using mostly recent medical history (entirely different forms), old medical history is used but the useful stuff is usually tests (other documents) from long ago, not self-reported history, etc.
Before I sound like government can't do anything, it can. Sometimes it does it well, but like every other facet of human endeavour it's naturally limited to things it's good at and when it tries to do too much it ends up getting in the way. Back when kings had power it was about protection (military), stewardship (environmental and practical - roads, dams, bridges and such) and cultural (building and preserving the monumental). Now it should be about the above and I'd add medical to the stewardship part and basic scientific research and education to the culture part. Other than those
I don't think any of this is controversial at all and, for once at least, you are well within the mainstream of thought. But, as discussed, because SO many of our friends and families, neighbours and contacts work within the system it s a bit of a polite-ism to not talk about it openly.
Quoting from Bureaucracy again...
But you cannot revolt against the god State and against his
humble handy man, the bureaucrat.
Let us not question the sincerity of the well-intentioned
officeholder. He is fully imbued with the idea that it is his
sacred duty to fight for his idol against the selfishness of
the populace. He is, in his opinion, the champion of the
eternal divine law. He does not feel himself morally bound
by the human laws which the defenders of individualism
have written into the statutes. Men cannot alter the genuine
laws of god, the State.
And from Rickover...
"If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't." Hyman G. Rickover.
Thanks for the admonishment. I feel like in this and everything I write I pursue the theme that all lines are curves. I started this essay with the premise that we all want and need a great bureaucracy, BUT that there is no infinite good and even a purely good thing suffers from diminishing marginal returns.
The challenge is to know where we are so that we know which direct to go.
An interesting exploration of the balance between enough government to provide services we all pay for and not too much that it becomes a cancer on our economy.
The concept of "producer capture" runs through every government office, particularly those which provide "essential services". The producers wittingly or unwittingly operate primarily to protect their job security, salaries, and benefits and to extend their control over the direction of their part of the bureaucracy. They may believe that they always act "in the public interest" or "the common good", but they also arrogate to themselves the right to define those terms.
For example, in every province, teachers must become members (or contributors) of a closed shop union, which, in turn, exercises tremendous power in shaping an essential public service one that is, essentially, a monopoly. Of course, independent schools exist, but, with exception of British Columbia, which provides independent schools with modest financial support (50% of the previous year's operating per pupil grant), there is limited support in the Prairies and Central Canada, and absolutely nothing in Atlantic Canada. The unions have opposed any public support of independent schools, opposed charter schools, and home-schooling, and, as I learned in a research project on which I worked, only grudgingly accepted the idea that public school students could earn graduation credits outside the public schools; even then, students may not earn more than one (1) credit through external study.
In addition, the level of group-think we see in our contemporary universities is mirrored in our bureaucracy. You may congratulate yourself in hiring new people who may not look like you, but there is little likelihood that you will recommend the hiring of anyone who doesn't think (or at least pretend to think) like you.
Yes, neither Mr Carney nor Mr Poilievre want to over-focus on reducing the size of the bureaucracy during an election campaign, given that they running in adjacent ridings in Ottawa, and it is true the Canadian bureaucracy will likely resist any attempt to limit is numbers or rein in its relative autonomy, but at least, I believe, Mr Poilievre recognizes the problem and will look for ways to address it. Unlike you, I don't see any likelihood that today's Liberal Party of Canada will do much to slay the dragon.
Thanks Robert. This is a great and informative note. My optimism is buoyed in part by Canada's greatest ever (so far) bureaucratic dragon slayer, Jean Chrétien, who did not mention this scope of effort in his campaign, but made it, in my view, the defining feature of this work.
A minor correction… 343 seats as of this election 😊.
I don’t think there is anything like a “bloc” of bureaucratic voters. I have worked in both the public and private sectors and there are pluses to both (and minuses too).
We are at a point in history where the biggest crisis we are facing… bigger than anything since WWII… is going to require mobilization at a national level to accomplish, and it will have to be organized by government (as it was in WWII).
The crisis I am talking about is our response to the evolving climate emergency. We have challenges from food security to hardening/replacing infrastructure to the threat of floods/sea level rise, fire mitigation, drought resistance/amelioration. We also have generational equity issues in housing affordability, as well as preparation for the coming wave of climate-displaced people who will see Canada as a lifeboat.
Arguably what is required is a reorganization of federal/provincial responsibilities that will reduce some of the inefficiencies in overlap.
Lots more to talk about here but I will leave it at that!
Yes, let's be careful what we include in the 'bureaucracy'. Doctors and nurses probably not, but what about the administrators who pay them and keep the facilities in shape? Persons in the armed services? Maybe not, but what about the persons who look after veterans and their services? Conservation officers? Wanna get rid of them? Building inspectors? School administrators? I have worked in all 3 levels of government, and in industry, and I do NOT subscribe to any sense that private for-profit companies do these services either cheaper OR better than a well-run civil service or public utility. If you simply want to say that ANY managerial sector is somewhat of a burden on top of the workers and society, just say that, and then talk about how to manage modern complexity without them!
So I know this will seem controversial and perhaps challenging but I have to disagree. Some things private for-profit companies do MUCH better. I too have worked in government, at a county level and I'd never work for a government again. I'm not suited to it but I also saw so much waste I found it disgusting.
There are 3 things I found inherent to government that turn me off of it being a good fit for many jobs.
1) Politics: It should probably surprise no one that politics are part and parcel of most government agencies, but I found that it goes beyond building consensus or trying to argue for different segments of the population. Bureaucracy inherently likes to build fiefdoms. Example: as a business IT guy you would do the research, find the programs that would work for most people and negotiate the licences for them en-masse. For instance, although I find MS Word to be bloated with a busy interface it's formats and ability to tackle a wide variety of documents while also not allowing a giant company to read every single missive ever written in it has made it a staple. At the county though I had to support 3 different writing programs, including one that only worked on a specific operating system that wasn't MS Windows (so then, also supporting the operating system). In business, by contrast, you can dictate one system which is both more efficient and cheaper (both for the license and to support), in government you have to bend to the will of whoever controls the fiefdom.
2) "Credentialism": Government has to "look" fair even if that's not the people who generally get things done. I've spent my entire life avoiding most credentials, even going through hoops not to get one. I'm actually pretty good at taking tests, but I don't think they're useful for people like me who enjoy being flexible, who like to learn from mistakes as well as examples (I gain a deeper understanding of the "why" as well as the "how" and a clearer picture of how it fits). People who like to colour outside the box, and, in fact, live there more easily. Credentialism is for middle of the roaders, not for explorers. Certainly not for edge cases or pioneering. Oddly, misanthropes can thrive here too though. Example: the building inspector. I did a similar job in the private sector for a real estate management company taking care of properties owned by the government. I was able to complete 4x the properties per day as the regular inspector and caught issues he didn't as well as talk to some of the live-in clients he couldn't or wouldn't or wouldn't speak with him. One of the properties was inhabited by a guy in a wheelchair and I managed to fix/create a ramp system that allowed him better access to the entire property in 2 months (including approvals, tendering, etc.), he'd been complaining about it for 2 years. All of this because I was willing to work the problem, not simply follow procedure/past precedent.
3) Paperwork. There are no serious problems that can't be hidden under enough paper or reams of data or Byzantine procedure. In fact, the word Byzantine comes from a time when Roman bureaucracy grew so intense that it finally became untenable to the Western mind. The Chinese beat us there by at least a thousand years but they seem to have shrugged and kept going anyway. Example: my Mom worked in the VA system as a nurse. There were (are?) 4 different intake forms. There's no earthly reason to have more than one that includes the questions on the other forms but that's the way it's (or at least it was) done (see fiefdoms above). It's also information that's collected but rarely (except the patient's name and address) used. The doctor is using mostly recent medical history (entirely different forms), old medical history is used but the useful stuff is usually tests (other documents) from long ago, not self-reported history, etc.
Before I sound like government can't do anything, it can. Sometimes it does it well, but like every other facet of human endeavour it's naturally limited to things it's good at and when it tries to do too much it ends up getting in the way. Back when kings had power it was about protection (military), stewardship (environmental and practical - roads, dams, bridges and such) and cultural (building and preserving the monumental). Now it should be about the above and I'd add medical to the stewardship part and basic scientific research and education to the culture part. Other than those
I don't think any of this is controversial at all and, for once at least, you are well within the mainstream of thought. But, as discussed, because SO many of our friends and families, neighbours and contacts work within the system it s a bit of a polite-ism to not talk about it openly.
Quoting from Bureaucracy again...
But you cannot revolt against the god State and against his
humble handy man, the bureaucrat.
Let us not question the sincerity of the well-intentioned
officeholder. He is fully imbued with the idea that it is his
sacred duty to fight for his idol against the selfishness of
the populace. He is, in his opinion, the champion of the
eternal divine law. He does not feel himself morally bound
by the human laws which the defenders of individualism
have written into the statutes. Men cannot alter the genuine
laws of god, the State.
And from Rickover...
"If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't." Hyman G. Rickover.
Thanks for the admonishment. I feel like in this and everything I write I pursue the theme that all lines are curves. I started this essay with the premise that we all want and need a great bureaucracy, BUT that there is no infinite good and even a purely good thing suffers from diminishing marginal returns.
The challenge is to know where we are so that we know which direct to go.
An interesting exploration of the balance between enough government to provide services we all pay for and not too much that it becomes a cancer on our economy.
There's some right amount of everything. And some right direction to go in. It starts with knowing where we are.