What Is the Federal Bureaucracy? — Transcript

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1. 0:01hi my name is Paul sergeant and welcome
2. 0:02to my series on American government
3. 0:05today we're going to take a look at a
4. 0:07bureaucracy now one of the hardest
5. 0:09Concepts in any American government
6. 0:11course or maybe any government course is
7. 0:13the idea of what a bureaucracy is and so
8. 0:17in today's episode we're going to take a
9. 0:18look at what a bureaucracy is and what
10. 0:21it should be and why we often talk so
11. 0:24badly about a bureaucracy and the
12. 0:26bureaucrats that run it now in order to
13. 0:29understand what a bureaucracy is you
14. 0:30have to understand this fact a
15. 0:32government has a lot of things to do and
16. 0:35the way our government is set up it's
17. 0:37divided into three different branches
18. 0:38the legislative branch that makes the
19. 0:40laws the executive branch that carries
20. 0:42out the laws and then the judicial
21. 0:45branch that interprets those laws and
22. 0:47determines guilt and all of that well
23. 0:49the executive branch mainly being the
24. 0:52president and the vice president inside
25. 0:54of the Constitution is obviously not
26. 0:57that big if that's all you have and so
27. 1:01they have to carry out all of the laws
28. 1:02that are passed by Congress that have
29. 1:04ever been passed by Congress and that
30. 1:06takes a lot of work well what do you do
31. 1:10you hire people to do the work that is
32. 1:13the bureaucracy and in the simplest
33. 1:16terms you can describe our bureaucracy
34. 1:19as and this is not an exact definition
35. 1:21but it's a pretty good one as pretty
36. 1:24much any person that works for the
37. 1:26federal government and hasn't been
38. 1:28elected there there are some exceptions
39. 1:30to that Congressional staffers and
40. 1:32things like that but for the most part
41. 1:34the bureaucracy is people who work for
42. 1:37the government and haven't been elected
43. 1:39so why do we need a bureaucracy well
44. 1:41there's so much work that has to be done
45. 1:45taxes have to be collected meat has to
46. 1:48be inspected National Parks have to be
47. 1:51run um the postal service has to deliver
48. 1:55letters we we've got so many different
49. 1:57things going on that are run by the
50. 1:58federal government that you need an
51. 2:00effective organization in order to do it
52. 2:03and it needs to be divided up and
53. 2:05organized in a way that will work
54. 2:06efficiently and as best as possible well
55. 2:10this is where most political science
56. 2:13courses get into the ideas of a guy
57. 2:16named Max Weber or verber if you want to
58. 2:19go with the German pronunciation of this
59. 2:21who put forth the ideal organization of
60. 2:24a bureaucracy and he basically said this
61. 2:27a bureaucracy needs to be hierarch iCal
62. 2:30in other words decisions need to come
63. 2:32from the top they need to make their way
64. 2:34down people need to you know follow
65. 2:37orders and do their part so that the
66. 2:40whole thing can work also it needs to be
67. 2:43staffed by people who have great
68. 2:45expertise in the field and in the job in
69. 2:48which they're working you don't
70. 2:49obviously want people who are
71. 2:51inexperienced working in this he also
72. 2:54said that specialization is super
73. 2:56important so people should be in
74. 2:58specialized roles where they can get a
75. 3:01lot of expertise on a very specific
76. 3:03topic and they should use that expertise
77. 3:06in order to create rules that further
78. 3:09clarify laws which can often times be
79. 3:11vague and and and not all that specific
80. 3:14and kind of tough to enforce the way
81. 3:16they're written that's the idea of a
82. 3:19bureaucracy now most people have a
83. 3:22negative view of bureaucrats and in fact
84. 3:25if you've watched any of the
85. 3:27presidential debates from the 2016
86. 3:29season you'll see that the bureaucracy
87. 3:31and the bureaucrats are sort of
88. 3:33scapegoats everybody is talking about
89. 3:36this this huge bureaucracy this
90. 3:39overwhelming mass of stuff that's
91. 3:41unnecessary and not getting things done
92. 3:44it's an easy target because people don't
93. 3:46tend to understand it very well but the
94. 3:49reality is is that a bureaucracy is
95. 3:52essential to carrying out the functions
96. 3:55of government now finally we have to
97. 3:57talk about this idea of the Merit
98. 3:59principle okay people should be hired
99. 4:01based on their ability to do their job
100. 4:04in the past in the United States this
101. 4:06was not always the case in fact in the
102. 4:09presidency of Andrew Jackson the spoils
103. 4:12system as it has come to be known was a
104. 4:15more prevalent way of doing things and
105. 4:17the spoil system simply meant that if
106. 4:18you were friends of related to if you
107. 4:22donated to or worked hard for a
108. 4:24candidate who won the presidency then
109. 4:26you could be relatively assured of
110. 4:27getting a nice high- paid government job
111. 4:30that you may not be qualified for but
112. 4:32would provide job security and a good
113. 4:34income for you
114. 4:36know for your family and
115. 4:41that's not how the Merit principal works
116. 4:44because you get a lot of people in
117. 4:45office who make bad decisions because
118. 4:47they don't have the information and the
119. 4:48experience to be able to make the
120. 4:49decisions they need to make if they
121. 4:52would have experience in the things that
122. 4:54they need to be experienced
123. 4:56in so today and we'll talk about in a
124. 4:59future episode how we got here today we
125. 5:01work off of the Merit principle where at
126. 5:03least theoretically most of the people
127. 5:06who have jobs in the government have
128. 5:08them because they have the necessary
129. 5:09background knowledge and experience in
130. 5:11order to carry those jobs out as best as
131. 5:14possible so therefore we should have an
132. 5:18efficient bureaucracy whether we do or
133. 5:21not well that's a question for another
134. 5:23time so anyway that's what a bureaucracy
135. 5:26is it's the people who work for the
136. 5:29government and who make things happen
137. 5:31get the work of government done they're
138. 5:34unelected they're hired to serve long
139. 5:36careers that overlap many many
140. 5:40presidencies these are the bureaucrats
141. 5:42of the federal bureaucracy and I hope
142. 5:44that clears it up for you so until next
143. 5:47time my name is Paul Sergeant thanks for
144. 5:50watching