Bureaucracy is a hierarchy. It’s organization is the same as the organization of an armed gang. There is a person at the top, the commander in chief, and all power flows downwards from that person.
The commander in chief does not gain his power from his followers. The followers are given power by their commander.
Occasionally he needs to be removed. This is a traumatic event, as the natural order of hierarchy is subverted. To prevent the trauma from destroying the whole structure of vertical power, votes taken by a controlled electoral college are used to overcome these periodic crises.
Each person in the vertical power structure is answerable to the person directly above them, and has power over those below them.
Inevitably, those on the ladder of the hierarchy look down on those below them. When they look up, their faces are pressed up against the backsides of those above them.
To justify their place on the ladder of the armed gang of the bureaucracy they must prove their worth. They must seek out ever more business for the bureaucratic gang, ever more reasons to take control over the lives of free individuals.
A bureaucratic gang never claims to be unnecessary. Bureaucrats never claim that there are less threats from foreign armies, from criminals, from child abusers, from disease, from global warming, from animal abusers, from poor teachers, from food poisoning, from depression, obesity and irresponsible behaviour. There is an ever growing need for regulation, ever more need for vigilance, for form filling and for checks.
Once a certain material standard has been attained, there is no other way to maintain economic growth within a hierarchical society than through the growth of bureaucracy and the totalitarian state
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