99%+ of the individuals who make up the government are bureaucrats. Less than 1% are politicians… but when people see the ‘government’ on TV they see a politician. So in the eyes of most ‘the politicians = the government.'
Too often the really powerful people in the government are the senior bureaucrats. The politicians who are meant to wield real power are the ministers. The ministers are meant to be setting the agenda of the government department they’ve been allocated to run… but often the tail is wagging the dog.
Most ministers today have been highly political since Young Libs or Young Labs. Most Lib ministers have had a short stint in a law firm or bank etc, and most Labor ministers have had a short stint with a union or as an academic… but increasingly their pre-parliament CV is mostly staffing or other politics adjacent jobs. That experience gives the good broad knowledge but little specialist knowledge.
Ministers are almost always bright and personable. They work long hours and truly believe they’re helping the public. But when a PM or premier appoints a politician to a ministry it often resembles a lucky dip as to who gets which ministry. Ministers often have had some interest in the portfolio they get allocated but it’s usually shallow. Sometimes they have had no track record in their portfolio. So the person appointed to be the boss of a complex part of the bureaucracy knows very little about the many intricacies of the behemoth.
Who does know everything about the department are the half dozen or so top bureaucrats who’ve been in the department for forever. These are the people the public doesn’t know but who slowly but surely set the agendas of most governments. Most ministers have to spend the first few months just trying to get their heads around the basic jargon of their department.
The top bureaucrats are perfectly deferential to the ministers… and so after holding their hand for a few months, the minister trusts the senior bureaucrats (they depend on them). The bureaucrats make suggestions… and more often than not they suggest something that expands the reach and the budget of the department. There’s always a ‘compelling case’… so the minister goes to cabinet and says ‘hey can I have some more money for XYZ? It’s really important - here read this.’ This goes on and on and is why all our governments have recklessly high levels of debt.
Politicians are meant to be the advocates of the citizens - a counterweight against a bureaucracy that constantly wants expansion. Few politicians today have that mindset but our democratic electoral system means we can turn it around… once enough have woken up to how much a big government saps initiative and genius. Other ‘right of centre’ political movements believe we can make government great again… if we just elect better politicians who will appoint better bureaucrats.
Libertarians know even if we had great politicians and great bureaucrats today… give it a decade or two and we’ll be right back where we are today with a big bloated government that itches to tower over citizens.
Inspired by the success of Thatcher and Reagan in the 80s, governments across the world in the 90s embarked on tax cutting, privatisations, deregulation etc… but then 9/11 happened and then the subprime crisis happened and then the COVID hysteria… and western governments today are bigger and more indebted than they were pre Thatcher. If Thatcher and Reagan could see the size of government today they’d consider themselves long term failures. They didn’t sufficiently emasculate the state to prevent its comeback.
If we don’t win this battle against the state, the citizens will sleepwalk into a high tech version of Orwell’s nightmare. There’s only one political movement with the required intellectual capacity to lead the ‘shrinkage of the state’ crusade: libertarianism.