Thomas Sowell Bureaucracy Quotes

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

Even many of those with academic credentials, but no economically meaningful skills, who are in fact employed are often employed in government bureaucracies, since they are unlikely to be much in demand in competitive markets, where employers are spending their own money, rather than spending the taxpayers’ money. Sometimes jobs in government bureaucracies may be created in order to absorb large numbers of young people who could otherwise be frustrated and embittered enough to be politically troublesome for government officials, or even dangers to the society at large. In poor countries especially, swollen bureaucracies and the red tape they generate are often an impediment to economic activity by other people who in fact do have the human capital to advance the economy and create much needed rises in living standards for the society at large.

You will never understand bureaucracies unti you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.