The Bureaucracy

Public servants, who exist to protect the people from violation of their rights, should not themselves behave like thugs. Instead they should treat the general public the way they would want their own family to be treated. Thus, government officers should not: Kick in...

Public servants should not belong to or actively support a political party. This is the opposite of the situation in a communist or fascist country where all positions of power are reserved for members of the ruling political party. This principle is given force in...

It should be remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only at first while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes. —Thomas Jefferson. Letter...

The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation...

How invariably officialism becomes corrupt every one knows. Exposed to no such antiseptic as free competition—not dependent for existence, as private unendowed organizations are, on the maintenance of a vigorous vitality; all law-made agencies fall into an inert,...

The unadaptiveness of officialism is another of its vices. Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies; unlike the shopkeeper who promptly finds the wherewithal to satisfy a sudden demand; unlike the railway-company which doubles...

A further characteristic of officialism is its extravagance. In its chief departments … it employs far more officers than are needed, and pays some of the useless ones exorbitantly … These public agencies are subject to no such influence as that which obliges private...

Officialism is stupid. Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the...

Daily are new trades and new companies established, if they serve some existing public want, they take root and grow. If they do not, they die of inanition. It needs no agitation, no act of Parliament, to put them down. As with all natural organizations, if there is...

Officialism is habitually slow. When non-governmental agencies are dilatory, the public has its remedy: it ceases to employ them and soon finds quicker ones. Under this discipline all private bodies are taught promptness … For delays in State-departments there is no...

If the power of government be very extensive, and the subjects of it have, consequently, little power over their own actions, that government is tyrannical, and oppressive; whether, with respect to its form, it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or even a republic....