Now that bureaucracy is truly a dirty word…

These are challenging times for public administration, nowhere more so than in the United States, where Messrs Musk and Trump (but mostly Musk) are cutting a swathe through government department after government department. And, because Musk has very little experience of government, as opposed to selling ideas - his track record in selling actual things doesn’t seem to be that good if Tesla and X are any indicator - he does seem to be operating on a ‘break things in haste, repair at leisure (if at all)’.

Now, because I live in the United Kingdom, rather than the United States, I don’t have an intimate knowledge of how efficient, or otherwise, the various governmental organisations are across the Atlantic. But there are some truisms that are generally applicable. Politicians often get in the way of good administration - by under resourcing it, or changing the priorities frequently, or by interfering with operational activities. And, in a political system where politicians are rewarded for bringing the bacon home to their state or district, and where horse trading is rampant, the scope for disruption is all the greater.

Like the business community, administrators prefer consistency and evolutionary change. This allows you to make the necessary resourcing adjustments in a planned way, minimising damaging disruption and wasted investment.

And, if your administrative cadre are paid less than the equivalent rate in the private sector, that reliability is a factor which allows government to recruit and retain the sort of quality people who you really want - committed to public service and expert in their field.

Musk doesn’t appear to get that, and why should anyone expect otherwise? If something fails, he is rich enough to write off his investment and move on to the next thing. Previous customers may be less inclined to purchase his products going forward, but there are plenty of potential customers out there. Government is different.

If government screws up, people starve, or go bust, or get hurt, or die. If you reduce, or remove entirely, employees who fulfil important functions, you may suddenly discover that something you want to happen can’t. If you cut tax collection staff, you might find that you raise less money and need to cut things that voters like, or want (of course, this may be the aim of the exercise).

Here’s the key difference though - voters can fire you if you upset them enough - and no investment or PR exercise will change that immediately. I’m fairly confident that Elon Musk doesn’t feel the need to factor that into his operations.

My experience, at least in the United Kingdom anyway, is that the sort of people who complain about too much governance are, simultaneously, the very same people who are demanding that “there should be a law against it”. I don’t get the sense that Republicans see the world quite the same way - they take pride in the idea of self-reliance and self-government. But even they demand laws against “woke”, and limits on things that they don’t like. And who’s going to enforce those laws?

It is a nervous time to be an American bureaucrat, and I’m really not sure how I would respond if the same situation arose in Britain. But, for the rest of us, the experiment in tearing down an entire bureaucracy whilst expecting key business to continue as normal is going to one that some politicians in developed and developing countries will watch with interest, seeking a template for similar policies at home.

But don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone…