Quote of the Day: The Myth of the Beneficial Bureaucracy

From Professor Michael Rozeff (bold emphasis mine)

As a rule, the regulatory agencies all produce abominable regulations, and it doesn't matter who is heading them. They are all bureaucratic. They all create an impossible administrative law apparatus that lacks justice. They all are out of control of their creators, the Congress. There is no such thing as a beneficial regulatory agency. They are a fourth branch of government that combines legislative, executive, and judicial functions, and that's worse than even the ordinary government, if such a thing is possible.

There is no one to "take a good look" at regulators and their regulations on an ongoing basis. Congressmen certainly can't do it and don't do it unless there is such a big squawk that they have to.

It's a near certainty that a close look at any agency will uncover all sorts of cozy and corrupt relations with those whom they regulate. It will uncover cushy and protected jobs. There is probably a library of books written by ex-bureaucrats that provide gory details of the agency blunders and poor organizations.

It is pointless to "look into" these bureaucracies. They need to be completely eliminated but if that is too radical, then I always have the other radical suggestion, which is that all those Americans who want to be regulated by these agencies volunteer to be so controlled; and those of us who do not want to be run by these agencies gain our freedom to live our lives free from their regulations.

To add to this stirring quote, the above reminds me of the frequent investigations conducted by the local congress/senate mostly on corruption charges or on controversial issues that draws much of the public’s attention.

Yet these public sessions are held hardly because of the pronounced intent of “in aid of legislation" to cleanse or reform an innately and incorrigibly corrupt system but for the opportunity to grandstand to the public, generate votes to prolong their tenures and their hold on political privileges, and most importantly, to expand their stranglehold over society with even more arbitrary rules which comes with more diversion of resources from the economy to fund the relentless expansions of regulatory agencies or the bureaucracy to enforce these feckless and corruption enhancing laws. This is another example of political insanity—doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results—except that these web of controls expand to cover different facets of our social life.

The public’s attention are always being diverted or framed to where the political establishment wants them to look at. To analogize, in a sports game, we cheer at the game itself but hardly examine the process from which the game came about.

It’s a wonder how these supposed investigators with all their unchecked hold over humongous amounts of pork barrels will be able to exorcise corruption. This would seem like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

The unfortunate nature of politics is that credit is usually gained from the degree of sensationalism extracted from the blaming of personalities than from the system.

And it is why the framework of the incumbent political institutions represents “an impossible administrative law apparatus that lacks justice” as Professor Rozeff writes. Corrupt laws which empowers corrupt political enforcement agencies will never deliver justice.

All the rest is public relations travesty.