Published by the Centre for Civil Society, a public policy think tank based out of New Delhi, this excerpt has been borrowed from Sauvik Chakraverti’s essay titled “New Public Management: Escape from Babudom”. The essay builds a case for new public management as an escape from the statist clutches of Indian bureaucracy – starting with the attributes and importance of a liberal administrator, and the essence of bureaucracy – as written by Max Weber and Ludwig Von Mises.

Sauvik Chakraverti (1956-2014) was an award-winning columnist and author whose books, monographs and columns advanced the cause of libertarian movement in India. Sauvik had studied governance at LSE and was deeply influenced by the ideas of FA Hayek.

What is a Liberal Administrator?

A liberal is one who believes wholeheartedly that the greatest political value is freedom: a liberal administrator, therefore, does not wish to infringe the freedoms of the people with unnecessary rules, regulations, and red tape. His laissez faire attitude to the people whose common affairs he is to administer comes from a profound realisation of the fact that the people do not really need him: in fact, they can get along much better without him. Having understood this, the liberal administrator tries to make himself useful by going after the bad guys, the frauds, cheats, murderers, and rapists, and leaving the good guys, the businessmen who create wealth, alone. The notion that there is a natural ‘spontaneous’ order in society is easily proved by the fact that there is order on the streets and in the markets of London, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong or Calcutta, Bombay and Delhi, not because the police is there enforcing order, but because people are orderly on their own. Trade is a positive sum game–both sides win–and man has being playing this positive sum game from time immemorial. This profound truth–the very opposite of Thomas Hobbes’ dark conceptions of a ‘state of nature’–is something only the liberal administrator appreciates. Indeed, it may be said that the state of nature–what Adam Smith called ‘natural liberty’–is the ideal of the liberal administrator. The liberal administrator knows and respects the fact that the institution of civil society which makes ‘natural liberty’ so harmonious is the market. He keeps his hands away from the market. He does not seek to compete with businessmen, and so does not set up factories and shops with government money. He spends tax money on those things people cannot build on their own, like roads, parks, clocktowers, libraries and so on. On the practical side, in the cities and the towns falling under his jurisdiction, the liberal administrator always ensures that the physical markets on the ground are clean and accessible. He worships his city’s central business district. At the opposite end, we have the statist ‘control freak’ administrator: the one who cannot bear to see society left alone and wants to feel important. He wants the people to line up and queue before him, he wants to check documents and papers, and he wants to enforce complex rules and regulations. Hong Kong has had liberal administrators always (and we discuss John Cowptherwaite later in this essay), and see how it has prospered, to levels of per capita income far higher than its erstwhile colonial master, Britain; and India has had control freaks for 50 years, and see how she has suffered. Control freaks in India must wake up to the fact that their administrative philosophy is all wrong, and it leads to a ‘rent seeking society.’ So here’s to more liberal administrators in India.

What is Bureaucracy?

The German philosopher Max Weber laid great store by bureaucracy. He considered it to be the civilian equivalent of a disciplined army, performing the duties of the state. According to Weber, bureaucracy has four characteristic features:

• Hierarchy: that is, a ladder; a command-and-control structure.
• Impersonality: or impartiality. The bureaucrat takes an unbiased decision based on rules.
• Career: it was a life, like joining the priesthood.
• Expertise: that is, administration based on knowledge.

Such an organisation would provide the state what Weber called ‘rational-legal legitimacy.’ When the servants of the state act with reason and law–‘rational-legal’–the structure of domination, the state, acquires ‘legitimacy’ in the eyes of the subject populace. At the outset, let us realise that there are some problems with this organisational structure that Weber did not think of. For example, flat organisations are increasingly preferred over hierarchy in management. Strict hierarchies with promotion based on seniority lead to the ‘rule of the aged,’ such organisations are graveyards for talented youth. As Ludwig von Mises put it:

It is evident that youth is the first victim of the trend toward bureaucratisation. The young men are deprived of any opportunity to shape their own fate. For them there is no chance left. They are, in fact, ‘lost generations’ for they lack the most precious right of every rising generation, the right to contribute something new to the old inventory of civilisation… What are young people to whom nothing is left to change and to improve? Whose only prospect is to start at the lowest rung of the bureaucratic ladder and to climb slowly in strict observance of the rules formulated by older superiors? Seen from their viewpoint bureaucratisation means subjection of the young to the domination of the old.

Similarly, a lifelong career is no longer the best option for the youth. It is essential today to switch jobs, move up the value chain, and acquire new skills. Lifelong careers and ‘job security’ are preferred only by the incompetent. As far as the Indian bureaucracy is concerned, they fall flat on the counts of impersonality and expertise. A recent survey by The Economist found impartiality the most important work ethic of European civil servants. In India, they are known for their bias. Even the police are biased. Further, they completely lack knowledge: from traffic management to garbage management, everything they do is marked by ignorance. Thus:

• The Weberian ideal has its limitations in today’s context.
• Indian civil servants fall far below Weber’s ideals.

You can access the complete essay here.