3 ms·

I see the point you're getting at, but I think you're missing the civil service in your picture. They are the career professionals who should be taking the actu

I see the point you're getting at, but I think you're missing the civil service in your picture. They are the career professionals who should be taking the actual decisions - our elected representatives should stick to overseeing and representing their constituents. Just like you have an elected board, who represent shareholders, overseeing the unelected executives at the top of any corporate structure. The problem is that this setup is regularly decried by populists as being "technocratic" (as if that were a bad thing)

someguydave 8y ago
That would be a nice picture, except the federal civil service is nearly completely exempt from firing by any of those elected officials. I agree with you that rule by bureaucrat is better than mob rule. But since you are in favor of limiting government power to a select few - I would choose to limit it to responsible taxpayers rather than unelected bureaucrats.
repolfx 8y ago
I wonder how often you've dealt with actual civil servants. Two problems: 1. Many civil services have unionised to the point where civil servants effectively cannot be fired. Guess how competent the resulting staff are. 2. Even if they could be easily fired, their hiring processes are also frequently a joke. To give an example, the average age of officials at the British Treasury department is 27. This is not widely known, because officials love to hide behind anonymity, especially when publishing reports that sound superficially clever and authoritative but are later proven to be dead wrong about everything. There's no accountability anywhere. Just look at how much difficulty civil servants have in even just managing contracts with third party providers. Now imagine how much harder they find it to actually do the work themselves.

3 ms·

I see the point you're getting at, but I think you're missing the civil service in your picture. They are the career professionals who should be taking the actu

by namdnay 8y ago

someguydave 8y ago
That would be a nice picture, except the federal civil service is nearly completely exempt from firing by any of those elected officials. I agree with you that rule by bureaucrat is better than mob rule. But since you are in favor of limiting government power to a select few - I would choose to limit it to responsible taxpayers rather than unelected bureaucrats.
repolfx 8y ago
I wonder how often you've dealt with actual civil servants. Two problems: 1. Many civil services have unionised to the point where civil servants effectively cannot be fired. Guess how competent the resulting staff are. 2. Even if they could be easily fired, their hiring processes are also frequently a joke. To give an example, the average age of officials at the British Treasury department is 27. This is not widely known, because officials love to hide behind anonymity, especially when publishing reports that sound superficially clever and authoritative but are later proven to be dead wrong about everything. There's no accountability anywhere. Just look at how much difficulty civil servants have in even just managing contracts with third party providers. Now imagine how much harder they find it to actually do the work themselves.