Destroyed by bureaucracy

A core feature in the Brexit mess has been the visible power and extent of huge unaccountable bureaucracies. Deep State some have called it. Put crudely one could say that there are two broad types of bureaucracy.

Type 1 has some direct public exposure which tends to constrain its behaviour. The exposure delivers a level of accountability. An example is the NHS - a mediocre service but efforts to evade accountability are at least visible.

Type 2 has little direct public exposure which inevitably leads to a lack of accountability. Major examples are the EU and the UN. Interestingly, one might say that NHS management is a type 2 bureaucracy within a type 1.

The two are not completely separate of course and it is all a matter of degree. Even so we have a vast and growing problem with type 2 bureaucracies because our mainstream media and political class are not a substitute for public exposure.

My working life was almost entirely spent within official bureaucracies of one type or another. The bigger they are and the closer they are to type 2, the less interested they are in the public they supposedly serve. They are still intent on avoiding scandal but the internal needs of the bureaucracy come first. Life beyond the bureaucracy – that comes a distant second.

As the bureaucratic gaze turns inwards, the need to avoid scandal becomes a need to project a fashionably respectable ethos to the outside world. Creaking, wasteful, ineffective and even harmful bureaucratic processes are overlaid with the gloss of professional PR. The PR in turn creates even greater public isolation.

It is not that bureaucrats are bad people, but motives matter, outside pressures matter, success and failure matter. In other words feedback matters and feedback merely bounces off the PR. It is a serious problem which seems to be getting worse. For those who listen - Brexit and Trump have been telling us this for some time.

Sooner or later we may be destroyed by our own bureaucracies.