BUREAUCRATS
This class is the gears that make possible the execution of government decisions. Without them, governments and politicians would be irrelevant. They are the carrot and the stick. They are the forces of darkness and oppression incarnated. They are the soulless army that will never, ever cease to persecute you, however farther away you go.
Bureaucrats are indoctrinated, not born
Very few people actively prepare themselves to become government bureaucrats. You don’t usually see technical careers specializing in “government administration” or “government public relations” or “government careers” or a College degree in “government management”.
There are always exceptions, of course; but in general terms, people drift into a bureaucratic job. And why not? There is an immense job security. Salaries are quite good. The government cannot go broke and it is quite easy to extract massive privileges through blackmail by massive unions. What is not to like?
People entering government service from the private sector are in for a shock. All bureaucracies have their own unwritten rules, but government bureaucracies have taken those rules to extremes. It is an upside-down world. As such, new drones must be indoctrinated in this way of life. This, of course, does not happen overnight. It takes time. However, human beings are adaptable by nature, and so they adapt.
The only problem is, it is like a lobster trap: once in never out. This is the real danger of government bureaucratic indoctrination.
And so the ranks of those tireless drones swell… to our dismay.
Bureaucrats’ job description clearly states: need to be indoctrinated.
This is a powerful reason why we despise bureaucrats. Not only they allow to be brainwashed, but they welcome it and embrace it, refusing to see reality because it is in their selfish self-interest. Logic and disbelief are suspended while they enjoy the fruits of our labor, taken at gunpoint. They are the first beneficiaries of our victimization. They may not be “Ali Baba” but they most certainly belong to the “forty thieves” class.
Bureaucrats don’t invest
There is a myth going around, spawned by tireless politicians, that governments actually “invest” money. We mentioned this before and it is clearly false. Governments consume, governments do not produce. Governments waste, governments are not frugal. Governments subtract, governments never add.
This investment myth goes further, much further. Politicians must support bureaucracy because it has the power to de-throne them through planned incompetence and raw union power. Therefore, they are forced to create a suitable justification, or at least they used to (in many countries they don’t bother any longer). This justification is quite simple: governments invest through bureaucrats. Without this “blessed” bureaucracy, no so-called “government investment” would be possible.
This is, of course, disinformation at best and a blatant lie at worst. All bureaucrats actually handling money exhibit only two outcomes:
- Either they are unsuccessful, in which case they not only destroy our tax money but also our future through the destruction of market capital or
- They are successful, in which case they destroy our future through the syphoning out of capital from markets
Whatever they do it is in our worst interest. Adding insult to injury, they are paid exorbitant salaries and bonuses for doing so.
Bureaucrats’ job description clearly states: need to keep the appearance of investment.
This is yet another powerful reason why we despise bureaucrats. They knowingly deplete useful capital from the markets plunging us deeper and deeper into economic slowdowns. Their only motivation is to keep their jobs and their only justification is that they are only following orders. The accused in the Nuremberg Trials after WWII tried the same tactic to no avail, most of them were hanged. We wander, what kind of justification will bureaucrats have for their sons and daughters and if they would ever be believed. Something tells us they won’t.
Bureaucrats are not producers
Production is what gives us choices, and choices are what elevate our standards of living. Manufacturing (creating stuff) and providing necessary services is what makes our lives better.
Governments do not make stuff and do not provide necessary services. Of course, this sentence is misleading. Some governments actually own factories and some other governments do provide some essential services such as health care.
It is up to us to clarify what do we mean by “do not make stuff and do not provide necessary services”.
When a government decides to manufacturing something, they do so without the imperative of a profit. Without a profit there is no incentive and without incentive there is no competition and without competition there is no increase in our standards of living. Competition (along with free markets) is essentially what increases of our standards of living by constantly decreasing costs.
In a profit-less system there are only three possible outcomes, all being detrimental to our standards of living:
- The system manufactures goods but at an above-market price. At such a price nobody can afford them and therefore they are subsidized. But subsidies come from either our taxes or inflation. Either way, we end up paying far higher prices than the free market would offer.
- The system cannot manufacture goods and our money is wasted; or worse. The government keeps throwing money at a doomed project. Sounds familiar?
- The system manufactures goods at a competitive market price, but because of lack of incentives, vision and investment, eventually they fall technologically behind requiring constant subsidies. Again, we the people, end up paying above market prices.
We can also extract a moral from points 1 and 3. In both cases as selling prices end up being pushed artificially below market prices, no private industry can develop and compete. Result? Stagnation, which translates in lower standards of living.
We have purposely left outside the possibility that a government may develop a manufacturing facility, which produces goods that are required by us at a competitive market price and, this process is self-sustained and innovated upon. Why did we leave this out? Simple. No such manufacturing facility exits. If there is one, we would like to know. Really. It would be the equivalent of finding a Yeti in the middle of the Atacama desert (that would be in Peru).
Now to the second point. When a government decides to provide a “necessary” service, how is this service not competitive? For the very same reasons explained above. There is no profit. No profit means no tracking and without tracking improvements are impossible. Without improvements there is no decrease in costs. Services are ruled by the same rules. Consider this as an example. In US since the introduction of massive health care regulations, health care costs have risen through the roof; even when many health care providers are private. Yes, government and bureaucracies are that destructive.
In the end, all goods and services manufactured or provided by government bureaucracy are far more expensive that they actually need to be. Sometimes orders of magnitude more expensive. What’s the point of having goods or services if nobody can afford them? This necessitates for us to be constantly robbed through taxation and inflation.
Governments do not make stuff and do not provide necessary services simply because what they provide is not market-competitive. It subtracts from the market. In a real free market none of these goods or services would exist. They are a figment of politicians’ imagination only made possible through the magic of the central banking and their bag of tricks. In a real free market, they would have gone instantly broke.
Imagine this. Somebody privately sells you a brand new car for 100.000 Yens. A week later you find out that the same car from a dealer is worth 80.000 Yens. The seller just took 20.000 Yens from your pocket. How do you feel? Bad right? Now imagine that the original seller did so at gun point. Do you feel you have been robbed? Of course! Now imagine that the seller did so through a convoluted series of banking transactions, dummy corporations and fronts. Furthermore, you only find out the real price of the car after two years. Do you still feel robbed? Of course! Well.. the latter is exactly how governments operate. Just because they hide the real manufacturing and service costs it does not mean you were not robbed! It is a negative sum game. No matter what you do, you lose money.
Bureaucrats’ job description clearly states: need to keep the appearance of production.
This is yet another powerful reason why we despise bureaucrats. They know full well that they do not produce neither gods nor services (as we explained above), yet they not only keep appearances but they actively promote this falsehood.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
Continue to Politicians and Bureaucrats: Job Security Through Misery - Part 6
