Cancerous Growth of Bureaucracy
It is the nature of the beast
From about 1999-2003 I was in first Europe, the former East Germany, and then in Cheltenham, England, UK, as Managing Direct (Euro-speak for General Manager) of two fuel injection equipment businesses.
The Soviet Union had dissolved in 1991, and the aftermath of communism was still in evidence at the Aken, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, facility. When I arrived in the role, and after several months of study, it was clear that we had “too much administration;” everyone knew it, especially the administrators, but nothing had been done about it. The plant headcount was 150 when I arrived, and we cut back to 115. Hard but necessary, and a one-time cut.
The original population of the plant, under Soviet rule, was about 1,500 people. I was invited to some shindig at the U.S. Consulate in Leipzig, and there I was sharing with some of the other business leaders; I was told that what I was seeing was called the “5-10% rule,” whatever the headcount was in the former time (the Germans call it the frühere Zeit), it actually takes about 5-10% of that number to get the work done. Of course under communism, everything is government.
This morning I was reading from Mises Institute the article Why the Bureaucracy Keeps Getting Bigger, and this example was noteworthy:
From 1914 to 1928, the number of ships in the <British Royal> Navy fell by 68 percent; the number of officers and men fell by 32 percent. And yet, during the same period, the number of dockyard officials and clerks in the Navy increased by 40 percent, while, even more outrageously, the number of Admiralty officials increased by over 78 percent. The annual rate of increase in the number of Admiralty officials, with little variation, was 5.6 percent.
Maybe you’re thinking that is unique to the UK.
Historical Changes in General and Flag Officer Levels (GFOs)
A review of GFO levels indicates an 11% increase in the number of four-star officers (36 on September 30, 1965 vs. 40 on September 30, 2018) and a 24% increase in the number of three-star officers (119 vs. 147). At the same time, the number of one-star and two-star officers has decreased by about 35% (1,129 vs. 734).
However, during this time period, the size of the total force was cut roughly in half, dropping from 2.66 million on September 30, 1965, to 1.32 million on September 30, 2018.
So, here in the good ole’ US of A, the size of our military drops by half, and the number of three- and four-star officers goes up. As a percentage of the total force, GFOs have gone from 12.76% in 1965, to 18.22% in 2023; roughly a 50% increase.
I’m sorry to say that the same is true of the administrative state in general, and not simply at the federal level, but at state and lower levels of government as well. Supposedly governments are exclusively delivering products and services (like the military) not offered by the private sector, but regardless, the point is that the size and efficiency (or lack thereof) are not governed, i.e. restricted, by market forces. The Mises Institute article relates more to the “why” of the inexorable growth, and I recommend reading it.
In short, I’d estimate we could cut the federal bureaucracy by 75% before even a slight risk of nicking the muscle meat, much less bone or vital organs. The cancer has metastasized throughout the whole body of the government; radiation (shedding light on) and surgery (excising the cancerous mass(es)), are the only effective treatments for the disease. And we don’t needed a scalpel, when it’s this bad the axe is the proper tool for the job.