Quit Complaining: You Have the Bureaucracy You Deserve : BUREAUCRACY What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It <i> by James Q. Wilson (Basic: $24.95; 433 pp.) </i>

“Bureaucracy” immediately takes its place as the indispensable one-volume guide to American national administration for citizen and foreigner alike. When we wish to know why the bureaucracy behaves as it does, or are asked where a curious person might find this out, now we know what to recommend. The hallmarks of the contemporary classic are there: The elegance and simplicity of Wilson’s analysis of bureaucratic behavior carries the unmistakable signs of mastery; it takes immense learning to present complex matters so clearly that everyone can understand. Do not be misled, however; the lucidity is in the writing, not in the subject!

What can you learn from the master student of bureaucracy that you did not know? What can you “unlearn” from among the wrong beliefs that all of us have accumulated in a lifetime of misinformation?

The hardest untruths to unlearn are the half-truths. It is true that private corporations are often more efficient in producing the same goods and services as are public agencies. But that is not the whole truth. Public agencies are required to adhere to many other constraints, which are really additional objectives to be satisfied, such as time-consuming bidding procedures, accepting the lowest bid rather than judging who will provide the best performance, a variety of special veterans, gender, and racial preferences, civil service rules, and much, much more. It is true in a famous instance, as Wilson notes, that Donald Trump did finish a skating rink in New York City as promised (on time and at lower cost), and for that he deserves praise. It is doubtful, however, whether he or anyone else could have done so under comparable conditions; i.e. the rules prevailing in New York City government.

In many different ways, involving diverse areas of policy, Wilson shows us that We the People get from the national bureaucracy exactly what we have, in essence, programmed it to do. Stories of sabotage of innovative policies by “faceless bureaucrats” are long in the telling but short on the evidence. Strange as it seems, these public servants (as we call them when we like what they do) believe that it is their duty to follow the dictates of their political superiors . . . if only these new directions exist. Of course, like the rest of us, members of the public service interpret their duties, wherever possible, to coincide with their interests. Thus they choose those modes of implementing policy that are compatible with their modes of operation. If we want our governmental agencies to behave more efficiently in terms of cost, timeliness, and quality, Wilson tells us, we have to stop ensnaring them in a web of objectives outside of those on which we ordinarily judge their performance. Alternatively, we should (though this is a counsel of perfection) accept their inefficiencies as a price of meeting multiple and not quite compatible objectives.

Not that Wilson is without criticism of how public policy is administered. It is just that he reserves his criticism for those cases in which what works is known, as well as what doesn’t, yet the proponents, whether political appointees or top administrators, defend the losing proposition. Can this be? I will introduce two examples, one from my own experience and one from Wilson’s illuminating book.

My introduction to administration came as a counselor at a summer camp for boys who could be described as mildly troubled with parents fairly desperate to get rid of them anywhere from two to eight weeks. Throughout the summer, desperate to figure out what to do with this unruly bunch, I appealed to the camp director. He gave me the ideology of progressive education, which advocated an unstructured environment so each camper could develop his unique personality. This structurelessness, with each camper figuring out what to do, and the counselor “motivating” him unsuccessfully to do something else, was disastrous. The boys were always at loose ends, striking at whoever was unfortunate enough to come within range--usually me. Yet the advice and the bad behavior it produced never altered. Only when an experienced social worker came as an emergency replacement for the counselor in the next bunk did I come to understand that people whose lives were disordered needed a structured environment.

Feeling for feeling, outcome for outcome, that victory of doctrine over experience repeats itself in Wilson’s discussion of his student, John J. Dilulio’s report on Texas, Massachusetts and Michigan prisons under two types of administration. Huntsville, Tex., was safe (for inmates and guards), clean, and orderly. Suicides were few. In Michigan and Masschusetts, the prisoners were dangerous to all concerned, dirty, chaotic, and disrespectful. Even in Texas, when the philosophy of administration changed, murders and assaults rose, physical conditions deteriorated; and prisoners were no longer safer in prison than outside. Why these striking differences?

The main problem in managing prisons, according to Wilson, is this: “How do you keep order inside the walls when you are outnumbered and outmuscled by the inmates?” The “least restrictive model,” the Michigan philosophy, was that inmates were temporarily incarcerated citizens who should be given maximum freedom. Consequently, violence was prevalent, guard morale was low, weaker prisoners were dominated by stronger inmates. The Texas philosophy that worked, by contrast, was based on controlling prisoners because they lacked “an internalized code of discipline.” Their lives were tightly regulated. This discipline led to better behavior. Wardens, not prisoners, ran the prisons. The disadvantage was that control could be abused, and this tendency had to be watched. But what kind of problem do we want, the kind where prisoners or the kind where guards are given power?

The dilemma that Wilson writes about, whether he is concerned with authority or culture, compliance or constraint, Congress or courts, the United States or Europe, all of which are discussed with sense and sophistication, can be summarized, albeit imperfectly: What kind of people care more about prisoners’ rights than citizen safety? Or even the safety of other prisoners?

The view that authority inheres in position is part of a belief in hierarchy--the importance of moral and meritorious distinctions among people--that is dying out. Few of us, so far as I can tell, any longer admit to this belief. Yet how can government discharge its responsibilities well when the authority these require is denied? Wilson is profoundly correct when he writes that you can have less bureaucracy only if you have less government. Since we want more government but wish it to be less bureaucratic, we get government that is not as powerful as we feared it might be but less effective than it ought to be. Part of Wilson’s distinction in this magisterial volume is that he requires his readers to face up to the fact that the problem of bureaucracy lies in the midst of our American ambivalence.