There is a credible theory Public Choice Analysis of bureaucracy has found that the administrative state is economically inefficient and politically dangerous, meaning that it risks feeding and propagating Leviathan. (For an overview, see Gordon Tullock, OfficialsLiberty Fund, Inc., 2004) and Dennis C. Mueller, Public Choice Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1997). At the other end of the democratic power spectrum is the political state or statesman’s state, where elected officials can subvert the state bureaucracy at will.
Many critics of the administrative state, even when they point out its positive aspects, often ignore its shortcomings (e.g.,Philip Hamburger on the threat of the administrative stateIf we can equate the administrative state with the “administrative despotism” that Alexis de Tocqueville described in The Future of Liberty, American Democracy (Volume 4, Chapter 6)The statesman’s state is not dissimilar to the mercurial aspects that the French political scientist described in ancient dictatorships. I have not always thought so, but the mercurial tyranny of the statesman’s state is just as bad for freedom and prosperity as the tyranny of the administrative state. This is illustrated by the facts that emerged in the indictment and trial of Senator Bob Menendez, who was found guilty on July 16 by a New York federal jury on multiple charges of bribery and corruption (“Senator Bob Menendez convicted on corruption charges“, The Wall Street Journal(July 16, 2024) The Wall Street Journal As previously reported (Menendez declared he was “resurrected” and fell in love.On July 10, 2024, New Jersey businessman Wael Hana was convicted at the same time of paying bribes to Menendez and his wife, but he said:
Hana was trying to secure a lucrative export contract from Egypt despite having no experience in the halal business, and Menendez called officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who expressed concern that the contract would create a monopoly.
“Stop messing with the people in my district,” Ted McKinney, an official with the Department of Agriculture, recalled Menendez saying in the phone call.
The vast bureaucracy of the USDA, of course, represents the administrative state and enforces the laws passed by elected officials in Congress. It also indirectly influences legislation through regulation, if not through its influence on the political agenda. It is unclear why USDA intervened in Hana’s exports to Egypt, since the monopoly on the import of halal beef kidneys into Egypt was granted by the Egyptian government. of The Washington Post Suggest The reason is that Hana’s monopoly would exclude other American companies exporting this product from the Egyptian market, which happens whenever a foreign government decides, for whatever reason.Witnesses in Menendez bribery trial detail Egypt’s halal beef monopoly plan“, Court News Service(July 3, 2024) Given the politics and bureaucracy involved, it is not surprising that Hana needed some kind of permission or informal approval to export cow kidneys to Egypt. But my point is, despite the rule of law, elected officials, corrupt or not, can impose their own whims on civil servants. How is that better than an administrative state?
The fact that McKinney’s position at the time, Under Secretary of Agriculture, was a political appointee does not change the essential conflict between the administrative state and the whims of the state. It merely shows that the administrative state of the United States is less autonomous and more susceptible to the whims of the state than many, if not all, Western nations.
There are probably many other, even more powerful examples. Good discussion This suggests that central banks are more harmful than free banks and private currencies. But given that the government has a partial monopoly on issuing domestic currency, who would argue that this power is less dangerous in the hands of the President or Congress, rather than an independent bureaucracy like the Federal Reserve? Tariff policy is another example: Congress set tariffs in the 19th century, but the political maneuvering was not always successful (see Doug Irwin’s “Tariff Decision”). Commercial conflict), and recent presidents have fared even worse.
What is the bottom line? When a state has the power to bestow great privileges (money and other kinds of advantages) on some citizens at the expense of others, one must expect that vested interests will expend resources, including informal or (as in the Menendez case) official bribery, to get their hands on that treasure chest. There is no way that an ambitious, active, and inquisitive government can exist without a large administrative apparatus or a mercurial and arbitrary political master, or a combination of both. The fundamental problem is not an administrative state or a state at the whim of politicians, but a powerful state. Worshipping elected officials is just as bad as an administrative state. These general results do not depend on the ideological shade of the ruling party or the country under consideration.
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A fickle politician nation. By DALL-E, influenced by your humble blogger
