The Difference between Corporate and Governmental Bureaucracy
Because liberals/progressives/socialists believe that corporations create most of the evil in the world and that government is the source of salvation for humankind, one can expect that with the growth of government involvement in the economy, the government bureaucracy will generally be in growth mode.
In a private sector economy, every firm and every consumer household will have its own economic plan. In socialism, the objective is to remove planning from the private sector and turn it over to a single, gigantic government plan designed and implemented by oversized agencies. In a true socialist economy, this is by definition what will be in process as long as socialists retain power.
Unfortunately, a study of bureaucracy must reveal to the objective mind and to human experience that overgrown human organizations unavoidably take on dangerous preferences, proclivities and powers. Such organizations work against the positive incentives of market systems, against the creativity of the private sector, against the productivity of the society’s workers, against the implementation of technical improvements, against the social harmony of diverse groups in the country, against the freedom and honesty of the press, and against human freedoms in general.
When confronted with complaints about the performance of bureaucratic agencies, socialists tend to assert that a little inefficiency is normal in the functioning of government agencies. They also inevitably aver that large business firms also have their own bureaucracies, so one should not fret about a little governmental red tape. But there is a world of difference between governmental and corporate bureaucracies. The latter are paid to perform tasks related to profit making. Inefficiencies of the corporate bureaucracy impinge on profits, which is the driving force of firms that must compete in the market place. The governmental bureaucracy is not interested in profits or efficiency, but merely in achieving the tasks suggested by organizational goals. They are interested in creating new ideas and methods to control the environment which they are involved in managing.
