Discussion Topic #1 - Bureaucracy's Primary Function

The primary function of any bureaucracy is self preservation. – Steve Solters*, circa 1998


After a brief discussion of this statement in class today, it seems that this was a statement suitable for further exploration.  Perhaps it shouldn’t seem so surprising given that the class consists of government employees might take offense at disparagement of the concept of general bureaucracy.
In the hopes that this will be a subject suitable for raising an initial discussion, I present it here for my classmates further development.  Particularly since the last arguments presented in class on the subject seemed to me entirely unpersuasive.

If I recall the final argument was that if some hypothetical state commission or agency announced to the legislature that it wanted to cut its mission and budget in half, the legislature would immediately dismiss the suggestion and perhaps the messenger too.  Specifically, because we assume the legislature finds the public service being provided by such agency to be of such vital importance that cutting it in half would jeopardize the health, safety, security, prosperity… of all state residents, economies, cultures, environments....

This argument almost makes my point in the following ways.

First, is anyone claiming that the any commission or agency as currently structured, is of such optimal size so as to eliminate all of the bad/evil/ill that it was created to thwart.  I find that difficult to fathom.
Second, given that some bad/evil/ill in the targeted area remains, it would seem that the people of the state (as represented by their duly elected representatives) have accepted a level of functionality based on a cost/benefit analysis factored against a law of diminishing returns.

So under what scenarios would we anticipate any agency advocating for a lower standard of service. This entails individuals with vested interests in a cause not wanting to advance that said cause. Especially if that decision were to imply that their job was un-necessary.

Linking this thought to other concepts discussed today almost develops a theme. The inability of “Smart” people to find their own weaknesses and to naturally act defensively when challenged. Or the inability to institute "True Change" without being acted upon by an external force in the quote by Demming? [sic] as Dr. Fraser alluded to.


And yet, given a finite amount of resources (my tax dollars), it would seem at least plausible that in many cases, the ideal cost/benefit ratio for most of the state residents would be at cost levels below those presently employed.

Not that many taxpayers or even elected representatives would be knowledgable to assess what that ideal ratio would be.
Of course, accepting a reduced level of service by a legislative body, has feedback loops of its own. The appearance of historically overfunding an agency would not be attractive. Or that any governing body would be willing to oppose whatever vocal minority would be impacted by any marginal reduction. Or that a governing body would want to be tied politically to whatever bad/evil/ill may potentially have been prevented by said agency without the reductions.


Hence, even in this argument, it would still seem that the primary function of any bureaucracy would be to justify its own existence and to preserve itself. Making other arguments to support the statement and extending them to beyond the applications to public governments would not likely be difficult, but is beyond the scope of this particular article.


Conclusion and Challenge

Is it then any wonder that we have a governmental system that tends towards growth and expansion? Are we then surprised that one of the few ways of cutting government size within our system has been indiscriminant cuts across wide swaths of government driven by rather extreme crisis?


So how would this relate to students in a Certified Public Management Course? One of my reflections on the excellent Supervision Essentials I course I took a few months ago, was that this subject was never even touched on.

I would propose, that as leaders in public service, seeking to manage resources entrusted to us by the public (or extracted from the citizenry in the form of a tax), we need to be always challenging ourselves to do the un-natural. We need to be asking ourselves “How can we do less?” or “Why is it so imperative that my agency undertake this function on behalf of every taxpayer?”



*Steve Solters was a friend and favorite project manager of mine when I was working in NY. I doubt the thought is original to him, but with the high esteem I hold him in, I appreciate the chance to mention his name and give him as much credit as possible.