Bureaucratic Logjams
Whenever I hear a member of government offer an opinion on who would be a better leader, I conclude that the member of government has reached a point of being concerned about his job.
Remember the USSR leadership? That was the ultimate in the reward structure for members of the bureaucracy. The leaders of a Communist country lived a life of luxury because they could. The leaders of the USSR developed a bureaucracy that sheltered these leaders from the prying eyes of the lower class public. As people rose up through the ranks, they were given greater rewards for doing their job. As silly as it sounds, this activity was the exact counter culture of Communism. The people put up with it because they did not have a choice, they were told it was in the best interests of country and the people were expected to do what was best for the country.
Every major government in the world has developed the exact same structure of bureaucracy structure to provide those in the elite levels with the rewards that they think they deserve. While the compensation package may not be glorious, the perks make it worthwhile and these same bureaucrats build this structure to serve themselves. The further a person moves up the ladder, the more that person wants people to report to him because the bigger the reporting pool, the more important the person is considered.
It is pretty scary that our bureaucracies are nothing more than self fulfilling prophesy. Each person that has more than a couple of people reporting to him needs an assistant and ever noticed that any government agency takes forever to do anything which requires more people committed to the work. This is how these structures grow. At the same time, the scope of work for any group is limited so that more groups are required.
There is a simple reason that our government has never hired efficiency experts to increase the capability and capacity of any structure. It would be simple for a good manager to take over any group and increase the output while cutting costs because workers are only interested doing things the same old way because that is how they were taught. Everything is designed to follow a pattern so it can be done thousands of times without any change or variation, variation means more work.
At the same time, this structure allows a manager to hire his friends and relatives so everyone gets paid and there is still work to be done. Of course, someone figured out that there was a problem hiring relatives so managers work together to make sure everyone gets hired without crossing any boundaries.
Ever noticed how it seems that no matter who is in charge, the structure of the bureaucracy never changes.