The Tide ls Turning
295
will reflect special interests rather than the general interest. The
New England town meeting is the image that comes to mind. The
people governed know and can control the people governing;
each person can express his views; the agenda is sufficiently
small that everyone can be reasonably well informed about minor
items as well as major ones.
As the scope and role of government expands—whether by
covering a larger area and population or by performing a wider
variety of functions—the connection
between the people gov-
erned and the people governing becomes attenuated. It becomes
impossible for any large fraction of the citizens to be reasonably
well informed about all items on the vastly enlarged government
agenda, and, beyond a point, even about all major items. The
bureaucracy that is needed to administer government grows and
increasingly interposes itself between the citizenry and the repre-
sentatives they choose. It becomes both a vehicle whereby special
interests can achieve their objectives and an important special in-
terest in its own right—a major part
of the new class referred
to in Chapter
5.
Currently in the United States, anything like effective detailed
control of government by the public is limited to villages, towns,
smaller cities, and suburban areas—and even there only to those
matters not mandated by the state or federal government. In
large cities, states, Washington, we have government of the peo-
ple not by the people but by a largely faceless group of bureau-
crats.
No federal legislator could conceivably even read, let alone
analyze
and study, all the laws on which he must vote. He must
depend on his numerous aides and assistants, or outside lobbyists,
or fellow legislators, or some other source for most of his deci-
sions on how to vote. The unelected congressional bureaucracy
almost surely has far more influence today in shaping the detailed
laws that are passed than do our elected representatives.
The situation is even more extreme in the administration of
government programs. The vast
federal bureaucracy spread
through the many government departments and independent
agencies is literally out of control of the elected representatives
of the public. Elected Presidents and senators and representa-
296
FREE TO CHOOSE: A Personal Statement
tives come and go but the civil service remains. Higher-level
bureaucrats are past masters at the art of using red tape to delay
and defeat proposals they do not favor; of issuing rules and regula-
tions as "interpretations"
of laws that in fact subtly, or sometimes
crudely, alter their thrust; of dragging their feet in administering
those parts of laws of which they disapprove, while pressing on
with those they favor.
More recently, the federal courts, faced with increasingly
complex
and far-reaching legislation, have departed from their
traditional role as impersonal interpreters of the law and have
become active participants in both legislation and administration.
In doing so, they have become part of the bureaucracy rather
than an independent part of the government mediating between
the other branches.
Bureaucrats have not usurped power. They have not deliberately
engaged in any kind of conspiracy to subvert the democratic
process. Power has been thrust on them. It is simply impossible
to conduct complex government activities in any other way than
by delegating responsibility. When that
leads to conflicts between
bureaucrats delegated different functions—as, recently, between
bureaucrats instructed to preserve and improve the environment
and bureaucrats instructed to foster the conservation and produc-
tion of energy—the only solution that is available is to give power
to another set of bureaucrats to resolve the conflict—to cut red
tape, it is said, when the real problem is not red tape but a con-
flict between desirable objectives.
The high-level bureaucrats who have
been assigned these func-
tions cannot imagine that the reports they write or receive, the
meetings they attend, the lengthy discussions they hold with other
important people, the rules and regulations they issue—that all
these are the problem rather than the solution. They inevitably
become persuaded that they are indispensable, that they know
more about what should be done than uninformed voters or self-
interested businessmen.
The growth of the bureaucracy in size and power affects every
detail of the relation between a citizen and his government. If
you have a grievance or can see a
way of gaining an advantage
from a government measure, your first recourse these days is
