The People We Depend Upon Part 2 of 3
Where Did All These Bureaucrats Come From Anyway?
A Key Foundation for Democracy’s Success
While many may not be attuned to it, for democracy to receive its citizens’ support, it must function well daily. To accomplish that goal, democracy requires a strong, professional public service with dedicated, qualified public servants. For Americans to receive the kind of the government they want, they must understand and appreciate the need for a strong public service to exist
We have been examining the importance of public service to democracy. Here we will focus on how public service has evolved, developed, and been reformed in this country, as well as how and why our views of it have declined. Let’s jump into it.
Before Bureaucracy- How Was Our Government Run?
Do we even know where the term “bureaucrat” came from? Do we know what existed in the way of government administration before what we now “love to hate”, the bureaucracy, came to be?
Probably not.
Because if we did, we would perhaps be a little more hesitant before believing all the negative things that are constantly said and written about bureaucrats and bureaucracy.
“To the Victor Belongs the Spoils”
The spoils system was (and still is in the sense it does exist in pockets of the United States, most notably Chicago and Cook County, Illinois) and is often referred to as “patronage”. This is “…the political practice of playing favorites. Used throughout U.S. history, it commonly takes the form of filling appointive offices with loyal followers. Among the nation’s early presidents, Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) made particular use of the practice to place his allies in key civil service posts.”[1]
However, the spoils system is most often associated with President Andrew Jackson’s (1829-1837) presidency because by the time he took office in 1829, it had become an “integral part of the workings of U.S. government”. A key Jackson ally, Senator William Marcy of New York, is credited with naming the system when he said in 1832 that “to the victor belong the spoils”. The spoils system grew because of “bitter competition that characterized the two-party system during Jackson’s presidency”.[2]
But, Andrew Jackson was far from the only the only practitioner of the spoils system of government administration as the practice continued with other presidents that followed him, including Abraham Lincoln. In fact, the practice of the spoils system was widespread. By the time of Ulysses Grant’s presidency (1869-1877), the spoils system had “bred corruption and inefficiency of staggering proportions”, including graft in awarding government contracts.[3] The assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by a “frustrated office seeker” finally created the impetus to move away from the spoils system.
After the Civil War, the spoils system began to be viewed as an “obstruction of good government” because political allies were often placed in important public service positions with no determination as to whether the person was qualified for the job.
An Example of the Corrupt Spoils System
There are many examples of the rampant corruption of the spoils system as a means of administering our democracy. Perhaps one of the best examples is given by Historian Dr. Heather Cox Richardson about the U.S. government’s administration of services to Native Americans through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Bureau).
As Richardson describes it, Native Americans living on the reservation(s) were dependent on their assigned “agent” for everything- schools, doctors, food, clothing, etc. Congress appropriated money to pay the Native Americans, not for their land, but rather, for the food and other necessities they needed in order to live, since they could no longer roam freely to hunt as they had prior to being ordered on to reservations by the U.S. government. Some agents tried to do their job, but most did not, having been placed in office by patronage to advance their political party’s interests.
Native Americans would go once or twice a month to a town on their reservation for these supplies. What often happened is that, while Congress appropriated the money to sustain the reservation as agreed to with the Native American tribe in question, their agent had used the money for their own personal gain. He would give contracts to his cronies for the beef, flour, corn, clothing, blankets, and other items. These contracts were often fulfilled with rotten or moldy food, if they were actually fulfilled at all.
The agent would keep the money saved by either pocketing it or buying substandard products. Or worse, they would give some to their political party to ingratiate themselves politically and ensure their continued appointment as agent. The Native Americans, now starving, would exercise their only option, going to war.[4] This goes a long way to understanding the U.S. Army’s wars against Native Americans, does it not?
This is just one example (and there are many) of the United States government’s nineteenth century spoils system in operation. Still the question remains, why did we move away from the spoils system as a way to run our government and what system did we transition to?
Moving Away from the Corrupt Spoils System
We moved to a new system, one called “bureaucracy”.
Following the assassination of then President James Garfield’s by a frustrated patronage political office seeker, his successor President Chester Arthur (1881-1885) worked to dismantle the spoils system. This was done with Congress’ passage of the Pendleton Act of 1883 forming the Civil Service Commission. The Pendleton Act created a new category (or class) of government employee who now had to take a test to get a government position instead of obtaining employment through political influence, favor, and support. This system was small at first in terms of the numbers of government employees it covered, but has grown over time. It has been modified through the years with amendments like the Hatch Act which places certain restrictions on political campaigning by these now “civil service” employees.[5]
The “Birth” of Bureaucracy
The spoils system as a government administration system began fading away due to its corruption, unpopularity, and inefficiency. Besides fostering those negative outcomes, the spoils system failed to attract qualified individuals to complex governmental positions. Another system began to take hold in the late nineteenth century that we know today as “bureaucracy”.
The driving force behind this new system of bureaucracy, both in Europe and the United States, was the same- the Industrial Revolution. This economic transformation brought new and in-depth complexity and problems to western countries’ social, economic, and political systems. This complexity required not only more a more complex government structure, but one staffed by competent employees hired based on their qualifications, knowledge, and administrative ability in the areas being administered and regulated by the government.
No longer was it adequate to fill such government positions based solely on one’s station in life or their political contacts and influence. Interestingly, historian James W. Loewen traces bureaucracy’s origins back even further to Europe in the years before Columbus’ voyages where the use of new forms of social technology expanded, including double-entry bookkeeping, mechanical printing, and bureaucracy. Bureaucracy allowed “…rulers and merchants to manage far-flung enterprises efficiently.”[6]
Gradually in the late nineteenth century, due to the corruption and ineptness just described, in the United States (earlier in parts of western Europe), this new system called “bureaucracy” came into being. Based on the French word “bureau”, which means “small desk”, this term was a reference to the time in France when the king’s representatives traveled and set up in towns across the country with their small desks (bureaus). Literally, bureaucracy means “government with a small desk”.[7] However, bureaucracy was a vastly different system for the operation of government than had existed before. Functionally, bureaucracy is “…a specific form of organization defined by complexity, division of labour, permanence, professional management, hierarchical coordination and control, strict chain of command, and legal authority.”[8]
Bureaucracy Viewed as a “Good Thing”
This may be hard to believe in today’s context, but far from a negative thing, “bureaucracy” and being as “bureaucrat” was viewed at its inception as far superior to the spoils system. Bureaucracy can apply to both the public and private sectors, but is most associated (at least in the U.S.) with the government. Max Weber, a German sociologist (1864-1920) was one of the leading theorists of bureaucracy. To Weber,
“…the defining features of bureaucracy sharply distinguishes it from other types of organization on nonlegal forms of authority. Weber observed that the advantage of bureaucracy was that it was the most technically proficient form of organization, possessing specialized expertise, certainty, continuity, and unity. Bureaucracy’s emergence as a preferred form of organization occurred with the rise of a money-based economy (which ultimately resulted in the development of capitalism) and the attendant need to ensure impersonal, rational-legal transactions. Instrumental organizations (e.g., public-stock business firms) soon arose because their bureaucratic organization equipped them to handle the various demands of capitalist production more efficiently than small-scale producers.”[9] (emphasis mine)
To be called a “bureaucrat” was not seen as pejorative. The opposite was true. To be perceived as a bureaucrat was to be recognized as a professional, not some “hack” political appointee who only got their government job based on influence peddling and had no idea of what they were doing. A bureaucrat obtained their government position and subsequent promotions based on skill, technical knowledge, and merit, often in a civil service- based system that attempted to remove, to the extent practical, political interference from government employees’ hiring, firing, promotion, or discipline. Bureaucracy was seen as an improvement in how government functioned because bureaucracies were based on professionalism, stability, strict hierarchy, respect for chain of command, as well as consistency and continuity of practice and knowledge within one’s governmental department.[10]
The Use of Bureaucracy Grows
How short our memories are! Truth be told, none of us can remember what our government was like that was not bureaucratic in its structure. But, if we did, we likely would not have cared for it. The example above of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ corruption is just the “tip of the iceberg” of the corruption engendered with bureaucracy’s predecessor, the spoils system. Because of the inefficiency and corruption of the spoils system, today bureaucracy is the predominant government structure in almost all types of governments- democratic, authoritarian, or whatever it might be.
The irony of this is probably not lost on the reader. That is, bureaucracy, the very thing we Americans have come to “love to hate”, arose as an improvement to administer government to meet the challenges of an ever-increasingly complex world. For that reason, we should not be surprised that bureaucracy always seemingly constantly grows, because the complexity of our society constantly grows. Yet without question, bureaucracy can be improved, streamlined, and made to operate more efficiently.
Nonetheless, how many times have you heard a president, senator, or congressman propose a new department or office in the government to address a new problem? This is bureaucracy at work, and elected officials allow it to grow because it does work, and it works better than other systems of government administration. Yet, despite bureaucracy clearly outperforming the spoils system, something along the way happened to create today’s American negative (or at least somewhat negative view) of bureaucracy. What was it?
The Bureaucracy Paradox
First, for all its positives, bureaucracy does have some, at least perceived, negatives. It can be seen as rigid and overly rules based, making it over-standardized, unresponsive, uncreative, non-innovative, and lethargic. It can be change resistant and at times undemocratic. It can be too slow, if it is successful at all, in removing incompetent employees (especially in government civil service systems).[11] However, there is something else at work here, in addition to those negative views already expressed about bureaucracy. In many ways, it is a uniquely American view of bureaucracy.
Barry D. Karl, in his work, “The American Bureaucracy: A History of Sheep in Wolves Clothing”, found a unique slant to Americans’ thinking about their government’s bureaucracy. Karl describes it this way:
The historical origins of American hostility to public organizations are based on the belief that something is inherently anti-democratic in the growth of bureaucracy. These roots are found in the eighteenth century in the U.S. constitution as well as the early nineteenth century Jacksonian revolution. Woodrow Wilson’s generation was the first to find a “profound paradox”, i.e., if democratic government was to survive in a technological age, it would require the methods of bureaucracy.”[12] (emphasis mine)
Karl calls this a “paradox”. He sees it as a paradox between the professionalism, technical skills, and professionalism that the bureaucratic organizational structure of government entails, versus the values and practice of democracy. It is something Karl says has “haunted” the U.S. ever since bureaucracy came on the scene here. As Karl puts it:
“…The embedding of the conflict between mass democracy and elite professionalism in the American political structure is what really shapes the peculiar American meaning of bureaucracy…”[13]
“Good Enough for Government Work”
This negativity toward bureaucracy and bureaucrats that pervades American society today gets expressed in several ways. Have you ever heard the phrase, “good enough for government work”? Most believe the phrase came to be during World War II. In context, it meant a product that met the highest standards of quality. If it did not, the U.S. military would not accept it. In other words, it was a product that had to meet specific high quality, exacting standards, so in that sense, it was a compliment. If the product did not meet those high standards, it “was not good enough for the government”.[14]
Ironically, over time, society has changed the meaning of “good enough for government” to mean the opposite- something that does not meet the highest standards, but rather, something only barely good enough to “get the job done”, merely adequate, or close to subpar. Usually, one will hear this idiom in slightly modified form today as, “close enough for government work”. It has gone from a compliment to a phrase of derision.[15]
Piling On- The “Deep State” and “Drain the Swamp”
It has gotten even more derisive with the frequent use today of the term “the Deep State” being used to describe the federal bureaucracy by the former Trump Administration.[16] The term “deep state” is actually a translation of a Turkish phrase, derin devlet which arose as a way of “…describing “a kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial, or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implement state policy.” With Turkey, the “unacknowledged persons” were organized crime agents for criminal enterprises working within the government. The deep state in another example, Egypt, is used to describe the military’s role functioning as a “state within a state” with its banking and business operations comprising 25-40 per cent of Egypt’s economy. In Mexico, the deep state is the “interpenetration” of drug cartels via the presence of cartel collaborators in official government positions and in the police hierarchy.
For the former Trump Administration, when asked to explain if they believed if there actually was a thing as a “deep state” in the U.S. government, their answer was it was anyone that reflected the views of the previous Obama Administration. In other words, the deep state during the Trump presidency was simply anyone who did not agree with them or do their absolute bidding.[17] The fact the deep state did not exist in the United States government in the form the term was originally intended to mean, or the damage it did to the reputation in the eyes of Americans of our public servants working for the federal government, did not matter.
Trump piled on this derision of public service by his promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington, D.C. Whether or not you attribute the first use of this phrase to fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (some argue Mussolini was referring to draining the Pontine marshes on the outskirts of Rome for agricultural use, others say he was referring to the 35,000 government workers he fired), it is clearly a message of negativity and denigration toward those in public service in this country. ‘Drenare la palude’, that is, “drain the swamp”, just as Mussolini said, and somehow everything will be better with our government.[18] Yeah…right.
The Result? A Low View of Public Service
The result of this disparagement by elected officials and political candidates has been the slow reputational erosion of American bureaucracy, its bureaucrats, and our public service in general.
This is the argument of author Amy Lerman in her new book ironically titled “Good Enough for Government Work”, that the “…U.S. government faces a public reputation crisis...”[19] In the private sector, as Lerman explains, a crisis of reputation for a business happens when people begin to think negatively about a particular business or its product. The result is they become “less likely” to buy that business’s products or services.
Similarly, Lerman explains, the same thing can happen in the public sector. As citizens increasingly have negative views of their government, those that hold this negative stereotype develop some predictable biases towards government. In an interview by Nikita Lalwani in The Atlantic, Lerman explains that these biases influence how they “update” their view of what the government does and,
“…they are resistant to the idea that government can actually produce high-quality goods and they start to defect from government programs and services. When that happens, it becomes harder for government to deliver on its promise to provide high-quality goods and services…”[20]
Interestingly, Lerman notes that one of the ways that people “update their views of government” is when they have a positive experience with it.[21] It must be a positive experience, one that citizens can clearly see comes from government alone, such as Medicare or ACA. While the customer service emphasis of government deemphasizes citizen responsibilities, it can play an important role in citizens seeing the value of public service and public servants. Good customer service by public servants can go a long way in restoring citizen faith in public service.
Stay tuned! Next we will focus on, despite all the negativity, why people choose public service in this country as a career. We will also look at the danger of undoing bureaucracy, as well as what we can do to restore a high view of public service in this nation. Finally, we will see a real-life example of how public servants often are a last bastion for keeping our democracy safe when it is attacked.
We will continue exploring topics like this one that are not given near enough time and emphasis in our civic education efforts, if they are even taught at all.
Democracy is so important. But it’s hard to keep, and it’s easy to lose. It’s up to us, and only us, to protect it. Support democracy, become a Democratist!
[1] “Spoils System”, Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-Canaada/us-history/spoils-system
[2] Spoils System”, Encyclopedia.com, Ibid
[3] Spoils System”, Encyclopedia.com, Ibid
[4] Letters From an American, December 19, 2020, Ibid
[5] Spoils System”, Encyclopedia.com, Ibid
[6] Lies My Teacher Told Me, Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, by James W. Loewen, Copyright 2018, The New Press, 120 Wall Street, 31st Floor, New York, NY 10005
[7] “8. The Bureaucracy: The Real Government”, American Government, US History, https://www.ushistory.org
[8] Bureaucracy, Britannica, https.//Britannica.com/topic/bureaucracy/Bureaucracy-and-the-State
[9] Bureaucracy, Britannica, Ibid
[10] Bureaucracy, Britannica, Ibid
[11] Bureaucracy, Britannica, Ibid
[12] “The American Bureaucrat: A History of Sheep in Wolves Clothing”, by Barry D. Karl, Public Administration Review, vol. 47, No. 1, the American Constitution and the Administrative State, Jan-Feb 1987, pp 26-34, https://www.jstor.org/stable/975469?seq=1
[13] “The American Bureaucrat: A History of Sheep In Wolves Clothing”, by Barry D. Karl, Public Administration Review, Ibid
[14] “Close Enough for Government Work: the Economic Utility of Teaming Agreement & the Issue of Enforceability”, by Michael W. Mutek, Public Contract Law Journal, July 16, 2020, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_contract_law/publications/pubic_contract_law_jml/49-3/teaming/
[15] “Good Enough for Government Work and Close Enough for Government Work”, The Grammartist, https://grammartist.com/idiom/good-enough-for-government-work-and close-enough-for government-work/definition
[16] “What the American ‘Deep State’ Actually Is, and Why Trump gets it Wrong”, by Rebecca Gordon and Tom Dispatch, Business Insider, January 27, 2020, 10:25 AM, https://www.businessinsider.com/what-deep-state-is-and-why-trump-gets-it-wrong-2020-l
[17] “What the American ‘Deep State’ Actually Is, and Why Trump gets it Wrong”, by Rebecca Gordon and Tom Dispatch, Business Insider, January 27, 2020, 10:25 AM, Ibid
[18] “Madeleine Albright Compares Mussolini, Trump on Use of ‘Drain the Swamp’, by Louis Jacobson, May 9, 2018, Politico Fact Check, https://www/politicofact.com/factchecks/2018/may/09/madeleine-albright/madeleine-albright-right-about-mussolini-and drain/
[19] “When Americans Get Good Government Service, They Mistakenly Give the Credit to the Private Sector, U.S. Citizens’ Distrust of Government Isn’t Always Rational”, by Nikita Lalwani, The Washington Post, August 29, 2019, 5:00 a.m. CDT, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/29/when-americans-get-good-government-they-mistakenly-give-credit-to-the-private-sector/
[20] When Americans Get Good Government Service, They Mistakenly Give the Credit to the Private Sector, by Nikita Lalwani, The Washington Post, August 29, 2019, 5:00 a.m. CDT, Ibid
[21] When Americans Get Good Government Service, They Mistakenly Give the Credit to the Private Sector, by Nikita Lalwani, The Washington Post, August 29, 2019, 5:00 a.m. CDT, Ibid