Well, I have zero illusions about top dogs that got their positions by political means/connections. My whole point was about low ranking civil servants that do

Well, I have zero illusions about top dogs that got their positions by political means/connections. My whole point was about low ranking civil servants that do the bulk of the nitty-gritty administration work and that all must pass through a highly selective competitive exams (1 in 29 applicants [1] cf. Harvard's 1 in 14 [2]). And for these people, from my limited anecdotal evidence I got impression that they are indeed efficient, at least for bureaucracy standards. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSO [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard#Admissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard#Admissions