There’s a story my grandfather used to tell. One of my favorite tales of his.
My grandfather spent about three decades in the New York City Public School system. The school in Brooklyn that he taught at had an annex building that gradually fell into disrepair.
Plans were made to shore up one part of the building by repainting the exterior doors. But as this proposal made its way through the Board of Education’s financing and approval process, red tape smothered it. A simple process that Tom Sawyer once completed in an afternoon was left pending for years.
Eventually, the city decided to demolish the annex and use the land for something else. But a day before the wrecking ball was set to arrive, the repainting order was finally approved.
So, workers showed up at the now-vacant building, painted the doors, and left. The next morning, demolition crews knocked down those doors, along with the rest of the building.
A fresh coat of paint was effectively wasted.
My grandfather used this story to illustrate the woes of bureaucracy. Having served in the Navy and the public school system, my grandfather wasn’t opposed to government on principle. But in practice, he saw much to be desired.
I think many of us can relate. Whether we’ve had to wait hours to renew our driver’s license or we’ve had to jump through hoops to change information on a document, we’ve seen how bureaucracy can make mincemeat of our time and a mockery of common sense. We’ve been flustered, agitated, and inconvenienced. And yet, we’ve done nothing substantive about it.
Should we have?
As I’m writing this, something fascinating is going on up in Canada.
Protesters have been occupying the nation’s capital — Ottawa — for weeks. And some protesters have been blocking several key border arteries to the United States.
This movement — which was started by disgruntled truckers — has been exceedingly disruptive. Cross-border business has effectively been halted, traffic has been snarled, and the idyllic image of mild-mannered and polite Canadians has been shattered.
It’s clear that something is broken in the land of the maple leaf. Clear to everyone except the Canadian government, that is.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has responded to the crisis with derision, branding the protestors as a fringe group and telling them to go home. Others have labeled the blockade as a White Supremacist movement. And while neither statement is baseless, both seem to miss the point.
Canada is effectively a socialist democracy. Federal and provincial governments provide many services to Canadians — including healthcare, car insurance, and economic assistance — in return for tax dollars.
Such a system is not uncommon in the western world. In fact, the United Kingdom and many European nations follow the same practices as Canada.
These systems provide a sense of security, but they’re far from infallible.
For one thing, socialist democracies can lead to even more red tape than we experience in America. There are plenty of anecdotes from people who needed to wait months to schedule non-emergency medical appointments in Canada and Europe.
But, beyond that annoyance, these pseudo-socialist policies come with another implied cost. Namely, that of expanded government control.
The Canadian protests are a direct result of this toll. For the movement stands in opposition to many pandemic restrictions and mandates established by the government.
These restrictions were far from unique in origin. In fact, most countries instituted restrictions to protect public health as the COVID virus spread around the world.
And yet, Canada’s restrictions and requirements were notably stringent. They had to be so that the government could provide its sweeping services to residents from Newfoundland to the Yukon.
At first, most Canadians seemed to comply without complaint. After all, fear of the virus was rampant, and treatments were lacking. Plus, such measures seemed to keep COVID’s rampage in the True North from reaching the catastrophic levels found in the United States.
Yet, after roughly two years of this vice grip, the unified front has started to crumble. Vaccines, high-quality masks, and anti-viral pills are now available to combat the virus. But the government hasn’t budged on loosening restrictions.
Bureaucracy has once again failed to meet the moment. But this time, people aren’t going along with it.
Government is not the solution. It’s the problem.
So said former United States President Ronald Reagan when he was running for office.
Reagan was far from flawless during his time in the Oval Office. His trickle-down economic theory didn’t quite work, and the War on Drugs had racist undertones.
But Reagan is still one of my favorite presidents for two reasons. He effectively won the Cold War, and he brought the concept of small government to the big stage.
Reagan understood that a government’s best function was to lead through legislation at home and diplomacy abroad. He recognized that high-functioning governments were more protectors than providers.
This thinking ran against the grain. For on both sides of the Iron Curtain, governments had spent half a century operating as distribution businesses.
In the Soviet Union and other communist nations, central planning and state-owned enterprises had effectively replaced the corporate sector. And in the west, socialized programs and federally funded programs had governments considering their balance sheets in a whole new way.
These systems were meant to serve the greater good. But all too often, they ended up clunky and inefficient.
Business pedigree was simply not in government’s DNA. Corporate functions worked best in the purview of the free market, just like legislation decisions belonged in the halls of parliament.
Reagan recognized this. So, he sought to shift the state of influence.
As president, Reagan unwound the U.S. government from many of its prior functions. And in the process, he made the nation’s legislative machine more efficient.
Much of Reagan’s work has not stood the test of time. Few initiatives meet that mark in Washington.
But the legacy lives on.
The United States government is nimbler today than it was decades ago. Sure, the politics are fraught, and too many bills die on Capitol Hill. But we don’t have doors repainted the day before the building is torn down. We aren’t stuck with long-term restrictions on our lives, simply because the government can’t afford to take a financial loss on a service it provides.
So, while we have plenty to argue over these days, one thing should be clear. Bureaucracy doesn’t build momentum. It destroys it.
Let’s do what we can to avoid that bulldozer at all costs.