Civil Service: a Victim or a Villain? - by Martin Sustrik
Dominic Cummings and Jennifer Pahlka are both unhappy about the civil service. However, they have different understandings of what the problem is and how it should be solved.
Dominic is a politician. The problem, as he sees it, is that the civil service is disconnected from the electoral political system. Bureaucrats are appointed rather that elected, often in complex and opaque ways, and cannot even be fired by the elected politicians. This creates an self-standing, unaccountable ruling class, the bureaucracy, which does not have skin in the game and is thus focused on self-preservation rather than on solving real problems.
Jennifer is a former civil servant. The problem, as she sees it, is that the civil service is micromanaged by politicians to the point that it becomes incapable of solving real problems. Aware that bureaucrats are not politically accountable, politicians attempt to impose accountability by requiring them to fill out ever more reports, undergo ever checks and obey a labyrinthine and ever expanding set of regulations.
Despite their differences, their diagnoses ultimately converge on the same core issue: the government gives commands, but the civil service fails to deliver.
