Bureaucracy

The bureaucrat is in a peculiar position: he is both employer and employee. And his pecuniary interest as employee towers above his interest as employer, as he gets much more from the public funds than he contributes to them. From Chapter V: "The Social and Political Implications of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

Under a market society the profit motive is the directing principle. Under government control it is regimentation. There is no third possibility left. From Chapter V: "The Social and Political Implications of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

Capitalism is a system under which everybody has the chance of acquiring wealth. Not everybody, of course, is favored by good luck. But everybody knows that strenuous effort pays. All roads are open to the smart youngster. Life is worth living because it is full of promise. All this was literally true of America. But it is quite a different thing under the rising tide of bureaucratization. From Chapter VI: "The Psychological Consquences of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The capitalist variety of competition is to outdo other people on the market through offering better and cheaper goods. The bureaucratic variety consists in intrigues at the "courts" of those in power. From Chapter VI: "The Psychological Consquences of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The aim of the popularization of economic studies is not to make every man an economist. The idea is to equip the citizen for his civic functions in community life. The conflict between capitalism and totalitarianism—on the outcome of which the fate of civilization depends—will not be decided by civil wars and revolutions. It is a war of ideas. Public opinion will determine victory and defeat. From Chapter VII: "Is There Any Remedy Available?". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

No private enterprise will ever fall prey to bureaucratic methods of management if it is operated with the sole aim of making profit. From Chapter IV: "Bureaucratic Management of Private Enterprises". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The German youth movement was an impotent and abortive revolt of youth against the menace of bureaucratization. However, it was doomed because it did not attack the seed of the evil: the trend toward socialization. From Chapter VI: "The Psychological Consquences of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

Bureaucratization is necessarily rigid because it involves the observation of established rules and practices. But in social life rigidity amounts to petrification and death. From Chapter VI: "The Psychological Consquences of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

Bureaucratization is only a particular feature of socialization. The main matter is: Capitalism or Socialism? From Chapter VII: "Is There Any Remedy Available?". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The spurious catchwords and fallacious doctrines of the advocates of government control, socialism, communism, planning, and totalitarianism cannot be unmasked except by economic reasoning. Whether one likes it or not, it is a fact that the main issues of present-day politics are purely economic and cannot be understood without a grasp of economic theory. From Chapter VII: "Is There Any Remedy Available?". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The strait jacket of bureaucratic organization paralyzes the individual's initiative, while within the capitalist market society an innovator still has a chance to succeed. Just common sense is needed to prevent man from falling prey to illusory fantasies and empty catchwords. Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

Every kind of government meddling with the business of private enterprise results in the same disastrous consequences. It paralyzes initiative and breeds bureaucratism. From Chapter IV: "Bureaucratic Management of Private Enterprises". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

In the bureaucratic environment the entrepreneur must resort to two means: diplomacy and bribery. It is a dangerous kind of double-dealing; only men devoid of fear and inhibitions can last in this rotten milieu. From Chapter IV: "Bureaucratic Management of Private Enterprises". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The truth is that the government cannot give if it does not take from somebody. A subsidy is never paid by the government out of its own funds. Inflation and credit expansion do not add anything to the amount of resources available. They make some people more prosperous, but only to the extent that they make others poorer. From Chapter V: "The Social and Political Implications of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

All champions of salvation through the rule of noble despots blithely assume that there cannot be any doubt about the question of who this lofty ruler or class of rulers should be and that all men will voluntarily yield to the supremacy of this superhuman dictator or aristocracy. From Chapter VI: "The Psychological Consequences of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

There has always been bureaucracy in America. What characterizes our time is the expansion of the sphere of government interference with business and with many other items of the citizenry's affairs. And this results in a substitution of bureaucratic management for profit management. From Chapter II: "Bureaucratic Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

A bureaucrat differs from a non-bureaucrat precisely because he is working in a field in which it is impossible to appraise the result of a man's effort in terms of money. The nation spends money for the upkeep of the bureaus, but what it gets for the expenditure cannot be appraised in terms of money, however important and valuable this "output" may be. Its appraisal depends on the discretion of the government. From Chapter II: "Bureaucratic Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

Socialism (i.e., full government control of all economic activities) is impracticable, because a socialist community lacks the indispensable intellectual instrument of economic planning and designing: economic calculation. The very idea of central planning by the state is self-contradictory. From Chapter III: "Bureaucratic Management of Publicly Owned Enterprises". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

As soon as an undertaking is no longer operated under the profit motive, other principles must be adopted for the conduct of its affairs. From Chapter III: "Bureaucratic Management of Publicly Owned Enterprises". Narrated by Millian Quinteros. This audio book is made available through the generosity of Mr. Tyler Folger.

The virtue of the profit system is that it puts on improvements a premium high enough to act as an incentive to take high risks. If this premium is removed or seriously curtailed, there cannot be any question of progress. From Chapter IV: "Bureaucratic Management of Private Enterprises". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The State is the only institution entitled to apply coercion and compulsion and to inflict harm upon individuals. From Chapter V: "The Social and Political Implications of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

It was a purposeful confusion on the part of the German metaphysicians of statolatry that they clothed all men in the government service with the gloriole of altruistic self-sacrifice. From Chapter V: "The Social and Political Implications of Bureaucratization". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The first virtue of a government administrator is to abide by the codes and decrees. He becomes a bureaucrat. From Chapter II: "Bureaucratic Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

In public administration there is no connection between revenue and expenditure. The public services are spending money only; the insignificant income derived from special sources is more or less accidental. From Chapter II: "Bureaucratic Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

A bureau is not a profit-seeking enterprise; it cannot make use of any economic calculation; it has to solve problems which are unknown to business management. It is out of the question to improve its management by reshaping it according to the pattern of private business. It is a mistake to judge the efficiency of a government department by comparing it with the working of an enterprise subject to the interplay of market factors. From Chapter II: "Bureaucratic Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The capitalists, the enterprisers, and the farmers are instrumental in the conduct of economic affairs. They are at the helm and steer the ship. But they are not free to shape its course. They are not supreme, they are steersmen only, bound to obey unconditionally the captain's orders. The captain is the consumer. From Chapter I: "Profit Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The impracticability of all schemes of socialism and central planning is to be seen in the impossibility of any kind of economic calculation under conditions in which there is no private ownership of the means of production and consequently no market prices for these factors. From Chapter I: "Profit Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The sovereignty of the consumers and the democratic operation of the market do not stop at the doors of a big business concern. They permeate all its departments and branches. Responsibility to the consumer is the lifeblood of business and enterprise in an unhampered market society. The profit motive through the instrumentality of which the entrepreneurs are driven to serve the consumers to the best of their ability is at the same time the first principle of any commercial and industrial aggregate's internal organization. From Chapter I: "Profit Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The price of labor is a market phenomenon determined by the consumers' demands for goods and services. Virtually every employer is always in search of cheaper labor and every employee in search of a job with higher remuneration. From Chapter I: "Profit Management". Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

The main issue in present-day social and political conflicts is whether or not man should give away freedom, private initiative, and individual responsibility and surrender to the guardianship of a gigantic apparatus of compulsion and coercion, the socialist state. Should authoritarian totalitarianism be substituted for individualism and democracy? Should the citizen be transformed into a subject, a subordinate in an all-embracing army of conscripted labor, bound to obey unconditionally the orders of his superiors? Should he be deprived of his most precious privilege to choose means and ends and to shape his own life? Narrated by Millian Quinteros.

Nobody doubts that bureaucracy is thoroughly bad and that it should not exist in a perfect world. Mises's introduction includes five parts: 1. The Opprobrious Connotation of the Term Bureaucracy 2. The American Citizen’s Indictment of Bureaucratism 3. The "Progressives'" View of Bureaucratism 4. Bureaucratism and Totalitarianism 5. The Alternative: Profit Management or Bureaucratic Management Narrated by Millian Quinteros.