A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality.
Bagehot critiques bureaucracy for prioritizing its own expansion over the freedom and efficiency of society.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
And again, in political matters, how quickly a leading statesman can change the tone of the community!
The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
If the above reasoning be sound, compulsory constituencies are necessary, voluntary constituencies destructive; the optional transferability of votes is not a salutary aid, but a ruinous innovation.
If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity.
Other voices in this conversation
