BEREAUCRACY

        People in government prefer to be called "civil servant." Progressives argue that bureaucracy is a system inherent in capitalism, which is inescapable in the inevitable process of its own disappearance. It is therefore mistaken to blame the system if the bureaucrats are no longer acting as civil servants "but irresponsible and arbitrary masters and tyrants". The culprit is the new political system, "which restricts the individual's freedom to manage his own affairs and assigns· more and more tasks to the government" (ibid.). And besides, the political system considers the anti-business policy of bureaucracy as commendable, and any businessman who resists it is considered a public enemy.

Corporate Bureaucracy 

Under this section, we will see how the "progressives" divert the attention of the people to big business by attacking its bureaucratic system. In it we find the nature of the accusation in general, the absence of "creative leadership" as the chief accusation, and the subtle way the government used the income tax to stifle creativity among entrepreneurs.

• The Nature of Accusation
• Creative Leadership
• Income Tax

Government Omnipotence 

The next section shows how the advocates of government omnipotence utilized the bureaucratic system to advance the power of the state. Mises started his argument by narrating first that "The history of government bureaucratism is very old," and "It characterizes the governments of ancient Egypt and imperial China". In fact, the rise of modern government bureaucratism out of the ruins of feudalism was simply an attempt on the part of the state to substitute "the supremacy of a multitude of petty princes and counts" with bureaucratic management. 

Profit Management

The best way to assess the bureaucratic system is by comparing it to profit management "within the framework of a capitalist society" (p. 18). Both "The essential features of capitalism" and the nature of the bureaucratic system are not widely known. The former has been misrepresented through "spurious legends" (ibid.). Capitalism has been discredited "as an 'economy of scarcity,' " whereas socialism has been praised as the economy of abundance. Mises refused to give a detailed analysis of these "fables" (p. 19). (He did that elsewhere). His primary concern in the book is to show "what the two systems in question are, how they work, and how they serve the needs of the people".

Theological Response

Four years after the publication of Bureaucracy, R. B. Kuiper of Westminster Theological Seminary published an essay in November 1948, The Word of God Versus the Totalitarian State. The essay has five sections: the function of government, the nature of man, the autonomy of spheres, the kingship of Christ, and the sovereignty of God. Since Mises explained in the Introduction that totalitarianism is the destiny of the bureaucratic system, I want to share what Kuiper has to say on the subject limiting my summary to the first two sections of his essay. 

Bureaucratic Management The foregoing section is about profit management. which is about bureaucratic management. Mises explains this subject under five sections: 

• Bureaucracy under despotic government 
• Bureaucracy within a democracy 
• The essential features of bureaucratic management 
• The crux of bureaucratic management, and 
• Bureaucratic personnel managemen

The Two Biggest Obstacles However, fulfilling the above duty is not easy. There are many obstacles to overcome, and two of them are intimidation by professionals who strongly advocate bureaucratization and socialization, and the settlement to compromise between capitalism and socialism, the third way.

• Intimidation by professionals. 
• Settling for the third way, government interventionism

In the Philippines, we have yet to see a public figure, whether a politician, a political and economic commentator or a journalist who advocates personal responsibility, economic liberty, and limited government. So far, the political and economic stance of most public figures we know are statist, socialist, nationalist, interventionist, and progressive. Filipino citizens do not have to wait for the emergence of a libertarian leader.