Everybody likes a good analogy. I don’t know if this one qualifies. We communicate by saying this thing is like this other thing. The first one being easier to understand than the one second. It’s a basic part of storytelling.
Who understands how government and its institutions grow? I’ve no doubt there are huge textbooks full of detailed analysis and complicated theories. Sitting on dusty library shelves. Written by knowledgeable and venerable academics.
I’m coming from a background that’s more practical. One of having mixed with and worked in bureaucratic structures built to serve a public good. Bureaucracies that have both traditional administrative and technical elements.
Here goes. Government, or rather the administrations, institutions and services are like a large oak tree. It’s kind of human pyramid in the sense that there’s a top and bottom. An upside-down tree minus the roots.
Oak trees are long lived. They have branches that are substantial so that they can carry a heavy load and suffer the battering of the wind and rain. Out on the furthest limbs they are young, spindly and vulnerable.
Today’s media is full of stories of what might come. There’s a new year in prospect. Across the Atlantic a new President is about to take-up office. Speculation is rife. One part of that speculation concerns the future of the large administration that is the federal state.
The Presidents favourite billionaire has ideas to take a chainsaw to the tree of administration. Generally speaking, a chainsaw isn’t the best tool for the job, but it certainly is scary. Maybe that’s the point. Keeping a huge, embedded administration on its toes.
My point, and I have one, which is more than I can say for Rory Stewart, a former minister, talking on the BBC this morning. My point is that pruning a tree requires the pruner to be competent. That’s having the attitude, skill and experience needed to make a good job of it.
Lopping off limbs of a working administration with the sole aim of saving money isn’t such a sound idea. Each branch has a purpose. It’s as well to have a comprehensive understanding of what that purpose is before the pruning starts. From that understanding can come a sound reason to prune.
Ideally, pruning should be good for the tree and good for everyone who depends upon it. Weak branches that suck-up energy even though their days are numbered should become firewood. Fledgling young branches that are heading out to explore new territory may need encouragement and support.
So, it is with government. There’s a lot of truth in Parkinson’s Law[1]. He knew a thing or two about bureaucracies. The clever bit is finding out where this phenomenon has taken off. Where the tree has grown way out of balance.
Will Musk be competent in pruning? Who knows. One thing is for sure. The potential for loping off a branch that is vital to health, wealth and happiness is all too real. Let’s watch and see.
[1] the law – “Work expands to fill the available time”
John Vincent 