Is Bureaucracy a Necessary Evil?

I was in my car recently going from place to place getting some supplies for a project. My normal routine is to listen to the public radio stations while I’m in the car. NPR wasn’t holding my interest so I tuned in an AM talk radio station. Even as a so-called-lefty, I tune in to see what the hot topic discussion is and what is being spun. A familiar voice was on talking to a caller, which wasn’t anything of interest until the caller started going off in a rant about how the country was so “screwed up” because of big government bureaucracies. The talk show host was, as usual sympathetic to the rant about big government, and was encouraging the escalation of the caller’s rant. I finally had my fill of the diatribe and switched off the radio. In the quiet that followed, I began thinking about bureaucracies. About five years ago I was doing an article on social organization and I had researched bureaucracies and their functions. After listening to the radio rant I wondered how much thought people give to bureaucracy other than just too complain.

Everybody complains about bureaucracies but I don’t think many understand why bureaucracies exist. Mention the term bureaucracy and the first thing that pops into most peoples’ minds is government bureaucracies. Clear to all who have waited hours in their local Division of Motor Vehicles or waited in line at the Post Office; the bureaucratic structure is a pain in the backside. However, why do we have bureaucracies in the first place?

In my previous research I found that bureaucracies, in some form or another, have been with us since humans created large social organizations and settlements. Some of the earliest records indicate that the Sumerians utilized bureaucracies to manage the diversity of their civilization. Bureaucracies seem to go hand in hand with the whole concept of civilization; but, why?

Anthropologists and sociologists theorize that it is population density and diversity that led to the creation of bureaucracies. As civilization evolved, task specialization evolved and the need to control complex populations and projects needed a mechanism to manage the complexity. Thus, was born the bureaucracy. Over many millennia one civilization after another has created bureaucracies to accomplish the goals of the society and to expedite routine functions. The key is routine functions.

Bureaucracies are formed to provide high volume routine functions in support of an institutional agency; whether government, private or something in between. Bureaucracies are great when the function is “to put square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes”. If a bureaucratic agency is required to put a square peg in a round hole, then that is where a bureaucracy begins to break down. If the occurrence of square pegs in round holes becomes common, then the method to accommodate the square peg-round hole phenomena is to create a new bureaucracy dedicated to square pegs in round holes. As more exceptions are identified the more bureaucracies are formed creating bureaucracy layered on bureaucracy increasing complexity. The larger the institution the more likely it will have a multilayered bureaucracy. Bureaucracies become so large and so complex that often a customer service function has to be added to the organization to help lead the client through the bureaucratic maze and to represent the client within the bureaucracy. Alright, I have defined why bureaucracies were created and why they are so complex. So, what’s my point?

Bureaucracies have become the government, the corporation and the non-profit. For the most part it doesn’t matter who is elected or appointed into leadership positions; the institution is run by the bureaucracy. Another characteristic of bureaucracies is that they take on a life and identity of their own; committed to sustainment and survival. There are some differences between public and private bureaucracies.

The public bureaucracy and to some extent the non-profit bureaucracy are entirely focused on service performance and delivery. As long as they perform their function within their budgets, they remain a service only organization. However, that is not the case with private for profit bureaucracies.

Large corporations employ bureaucracies to conduct their business activities. Unlike the public and non-profits, corporate bureaucracies are integral to cost reduction and increasing revenues. A prime example is the insurance company bureaucracy. The goal is to increase revenues, reduce operating costs and reduce claims payments; thus, the maximization of the bottom line.  I think most who have had to deal with an insurance bureaucracy attempting to get a claim processed and paid can be frustrating, especially if the claim is denied.

Whenever, a for-profit contractor is hired to provide a service previously performed by a government entity; there runs a risk that the provided service will suffer in the pursuit of profit. An additional problem comes from susceptibility to overcharges. A recent example is what occurred with KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root) a division of Halliburton in providing logistics to U.S. Forces in Iraq. KBR is a massive bureaucracy and hundreds of millions of dollars were accumulated in overcharges and billed services for services that were never performed. Perhaps the biggest issue has to do with the span of control and transparency. The private for profit contractor is essentially adding another layer of bureaucracy to an already complex structure. The government entity may have significant issues with contract control especially in dealing with a multilayered private bureaucracy.

Not-for-profit organization bureaucracies have some of the same issues as the for-profit. Service delivery can suffer as well cause challenges in control and transparency for the government contractor. As with the for-profit, it is essentially adding an additional unneeded layer of bureaucracy.

Acknowledging that bureaucracies are a necessary evil to manage large and complex organizations; it doesn’t seem rational to replace a government bureaucracy with a private bureaucracy. Why run the risk of potential poor service delivery, loss of control and transparency, potential overcharges, and most of all an additional layer of frustrating bureaucracy?