As a New Zealander we see the same general problems, unaccountable and sclerotic bureaucracy that politicians are finding that they have less and less actual executive control over due to all sorts of inserted regulatory and other mechanisms to restrict govt ability to control them, as well as internal cultures that venerate the in-group bureaucrats consensus on How Things Should Be™ and practice subtle and unsubtle methods of resistance against any outside agency that seeks to change that policy. What Cummings et al call ‘the blob’, the US call ‘deep state’.
NZ public sector has increased in size by 100% in last 25 years, with population growth of 50% and typical white collar productivity increases around 50% it would be reasonable to expect that same level of government function could be accomplished with around half the current numbers. Most private sector people I associate with would not say that governance has improved in last 25 years, in fact in many easily viewable metrics it has clearly deteriorated with worse performance in health and education, higher regulatory burdens etc. The cost and lost-productivity costs on NZ (and lost revenue that would arise from those workers paying tax in productive jobs rather than spending it as civil servants) amount to a few % of GDP, and would probably be the difference between the deficits we currently run and having no deficits—a big drain on our future prosperity.
It’s not a new problem, having been an issue ever since the city-state came into being, bureaucrats and people in positions of power will almost always care more about maintaining and growing their power than about providing any utility to others. UK “Yes Minister” comedy series lampooned it in the 1980′s, Parkinson wrote a best selling book on in the 1950′s: Parkinson’s Law And Other Studies in Administration and Parkinson’s Law: Or The Pursuit of Progress, and we even have the term ‘Byzantian’ to describe excessive bureaucracy from an empire dead for 1000 years.
I would concur that it is absolutely a function of lack of accountability and inability to effectively censure poor performance or subtle intransigence/sabotage of political masters in the public service, and has grown worse with the growth of a distinct self-reinforcing in-group civil service tribalistic identity, perhaps stoked by the homogeneity of elitist educational backgrounds of those that seek government jobs with beliefs that don’t mirror or even respect those of the general public they effectively rule over. And it is creating an extreme crisis in governance in democracies around the world, potentially to the point of violence in Europe as populations get incensed at their electorally signaled preferences being ignored by civil servants with growing social problems that seems to be rising as a result.
“You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing”—Thomas Sowell
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I struggle a lot with the arguments for suffering and ethical treatment of animals. I come from a farming region.
Wild animals almost all die horribly. Freezing to death, starving, succumbing to parasites or disease with long periods of suffering and for the most part all being ripped apart by predators. By contrast the lives of factory farmed animals are incredibly gentle and easy, with almost no suffering, and their deaths are about as low in suffering as is possible to arrange. Claims that those lives are somehow better than domesticated are arbitrary romantic human values applied in a way that I don’t think have much merit. Domesticated animals do not share human values.
We have been breeding domestic animals for millennia to thrive in captivity, their psychology has been dramatically changed because we have been culling off those that reacted badly to captivity for thousands of generations—aggressive or badly behaving animals would always be first for the pot. Happy and content animals that are not stressed are most productive, so that is what farming and domesticated animal psychology have been effectively selecting for—extreme unthinking docility and contentment. They are far removed from wild animals—just as dogs are not wolves.
So when we try and impose our notions of what domesticated animals want—outdoors etc, you will find in most cases you are wrong. They just want sheltered space with steady supplies of food, not caring about crowding that 1000′s of generations of their domesticated ancestors have lived with quite happily. and will often not use outdoor spaces (or use them only minimally) even if they are provided. Evolution strongly favors animals that don’t waste energy, so when fed sufficiently laziness is the default.
So I place very little stock in the claims of suffering for farmed animals, or that living wild is somehow better. Almost certainly the animals in question prefer the comfort of domesticated farming environments and lives.