Bureaucracies: Their Stupidity is Deadly

The bureaucrat is the ugliest of beings. His girth slumps over his belt, his hair is in disarray, his eyes are bloodshot, and he hardly moves due to sloth.

Bureaucracies are a menace, whether government or corporate, and this principle seems to be universal. Whether in the U.S., Europe, Russia, or Asia, bureaucracy pervades. One woman’s concept of hell was life waiting at the immigration bureau. Though bureaucracies seem innocuous, they are maddening.

Bureaucratic inertia – along with entropy, taxation, foreign competition, and lawsuits – destroyed the General Motors Company. The company couldn’t respond to skyrocketing oil prices. As gas prices approached $4.50/gallon, GM was still introducing vehicles that had mileage ratings of about 20 miles per gallon. Electric vehicle technology has been around for over 100 years, and GM has had plans for a modern electric vehicle since 1991, if not earlier, but they could not produce it in a commercially successful manner. Entropy further hastened the organization’s demise: Unionists were known to disobey instructions in order to gain negotiating leverage.

The Internal Revenue Service is the quintessential case of a bureaucratic dinosaur. It spends $100 to collect $80. Inane IRS tax forms outnumber the sand grains at the beach. Bureaucratic inefficiency and pressure on private sector organizations leads to further financial failures – a whirlpool of economic collapse.

People at times overcome bureaucracies, at least in war, love, and medical emergencies.

Artists have offered various visions of bureaucracy. Orwell envisioned a nightmare of totalitarian government bureaucracy. Will Rogers, with wit and optimism, stated it concisely: “We have people in government who should not be allowed to play with matches.”

The case of Billy Mitchell illustrates malevolent bureaucracy at work. Some twenty years ahead of his time, Mitchell recommended a separate Air Force to the U.S. military. For his outspoken conduct, he was brought before a court martial and convicted. The Air Force was established in 1947.

Bureaucratic mistake in the judiciary is perhaps the most disheartening of failures. People are wrongfully incarcerated or executed because of it. It is a glorious victory when government corrects itself and exonerates the innocent.