Thanks, Henry, for your insightful and thoughtful response. You are correct that the differences between the U.S. system and the British-based forms of government are substantial, and your observations about the separation between society and the civil service in the British and Australian systems are spot on.
As you mentioned, the merit-based promotion system has flaws (I, too, admit to recruiting a few people who turned out to be duds). Still, from my experience, most civil servants are competent and dedicated professionals. However, the presence of political appointees often complicates this landscape.
The distinction between "bureaucracy" and "bureaucratic" is an excellent point. The negative perception of civil servants often arises from the interference of political appointees.
Let me share an illustrative case: A friend of mine worked for the Bureau of Standards, ensuring compliance with product labeling standards. When he confronted his own Minister about the mislabeling of his (the Minister's) bottled water [company], my colleague was transferred to a completely unrelated department (in this case, Gender Affairs) as a punitive measure. The Minister then appointed a political crony to the Standards Bureau, who lacked the necessary qualifications. This not only led to the public perception of incompetence within the Bureau but also misallocated a qualified civil servant, affecting the entire system's efficiency. The public, using the Gender Affairs department, also rightfully believed their new Gender Officer was incompetent. In frustration, my colleague left the government and started his career in a different area never to work for government again.
I recall that in Belgium, after the elections in 2010 and again in 2020, there was no government for 541 and 592 days, respectively. I thought, surely there must be chaos because we in my society could not function without a government. Belgium apparently has very good local government institutions and a caretaker government that keeps the country running fine without an elected government. I wonder how we could implement such a system in our countries.
We are woefully dependent on corrupt politicians, pretending to care about people during election season and promptly forgetting how they got there after they win and failing us miserably every time.
My experience is this: the leader of a winning party appoints a random Minister who won his seat as Minister or Secretary of Education. Suddenly, with no background in education [or pick your portfolio topic], he walks into the Ministry on day one, declaring orders as if he is a guru on education—never taking time to understand the environment he now works in. He/ (sometimes she, but usually a 'he'—which is another story about the mental illness that the patriarchy gives us) often refuses to listen to his civil service technicians. In fact, due to this insecurity, the less he knows about education, the more he pretends that he does, the more mistakes he makes, frustrating the real qualified people from doing their work. Then the public says there is incompetence and that the private sector will do a better job! Often they don't, because now the incentives are not towards people or civilians, but corporate profits.
Once again, thank you for your comment. It sparked what seemed like another article!
