1
I, Burocrat
Rough Draft
not well known. According
to the Three Laws a public
administrator must:
Abstract
I argue for a distinction between
accountability and responsibility,
revisiting the historic Joachim
Friedrich-Herman Finer on the nature
of public administration. In these
pages “accountability” means giving
an account for one’s actions or
inactions to another. In the case of
public administration that other is the
hierarchically superior, the ultimate
superior being the government of the
day embodied in a minister.
“Responsibility” means feeling
responsible for one’s action or
inactions so as to insure that they met a
professional, external standard which
includes neutrality. Accountability
serves best to limit actions and insure a
minimum compliance. It is one proof
against corruption. Responsibility
serves to elicit dedication and
creativity from public administrators to
deal with the complexities of reality.
The conclusion is that both have a role
to play that is best understood if they
are distinguished. The argument is
made through a fictitious Wikipedia
entry from the future which assumes
that only accountability counts!
Sometimes we best understand the
value of something we take for granted
when it is gone. In this entry
responsibility has evaporated.
“I, burocrat”
Wikipedia entry, 2076
The purpose of this
Wikipedia entry is to
recover the origins of the
Three Laws of burocratics.
For while the laws are the
backbone of our system of
government their origin is
1. not harm a minister,
or, through inaction,
allow a minister to
come to harm.
2. obey the orders of a
minister except where
such orders would
conflict with the
First Law.
3. protect its own
existence, as long as
such protection does
not conflict with the
First or Second Law.
Each law is set within the
knowledge a public
administrator has at the
time. The origin of the
Three Laws begins more
than a hundred years ago.
The story begins in
1937 when Carl Friedrich,
a professor of political
science at Harvard
University, initiated,
apparently
unintentionally, a sharp
debate with Herman Finer
on the relationship
between ministers and
public servants. Because
Friedrich wrote from an
American context and Finer
in the English context,
there were differences of
nomenclature. To be
clear, let us start with
definitions of these basic
terms. In this entry a
minister is a politician
who is a member of cabinet
either by election to a
seat and selection for
cabinet or is appointed to
cabinet by an elected
politician like the United
2
States president. On the
other hand, an
administrator is a
professional public
servant. This distinction
is made all the more
important by the long
running Canadian practice
of referring to the
administrative department
head, who is a
professional public
servant, as the deputy
minister. Let us set
aside that confusion. In
what follows a minister is
a politician and an
administrator is a career
public servant.
The few remaining
historians of public
administration trace the
Three Laws of Burocratics
back to this obscure
debate. What was the
debate about? The central
issue in the debate can be
phrased as a tension
between accountability and
responsibility. Friedrich
inadvertently opened the
debate saying that “a
responsible person is one
who is answerable for his
acts to some other person
or body, who has to give
an account of his doings
and therefore must be able
to conduct himself
rationally” (1935, 30).
Finer, in commenting on
this passage draws the
conclusion that
responsibility involves “a
relationship of obedience”
[emphasis added] to “an
external controlling
authority” (1936, 580).
Friedrich goes on to say
that “political
responsibility based upon
the election of
legislatures and chief
executives [has not]
succeeded in permeating a
highly technical,
differentiated government
service any more than the
religious responsibility
of well-intentioned kings”
(1935, 31). That is to
say that the supervision
of elected legislatures
and chief executive has
been no more successful in
controlling public
administration than
religious kings could
infuse religion into their
retainers. Finer takes
the most serious umbrage
with this observation,
calling it “truly
startling” (1936, 581).
He goes on to declare it
wrong and wrong. Finer
crystallizes the
difference between them as
the difference between “a
sense of duty” (Friedrich)
and “the fact of
responsibility” Finer.
The sense of duty as Finer
sees it is directed to a
profession, one’s own
conscience, or the public
interest. Each of these
three is abstract and
ethereal. In contrast he
asserts the fact of
responsibility is
obedience to explicit
direction. Finer
implicitly upholds the
prevailing orthodoxy that
politics and
administration were to be
sharply distinguished, the
former to direct, the
latter to obey (Goodnow
1900, 22).
3
For his part
Friedrich argued that
policy and administration
blended together. Making
policy dependant on
administrative knowledge
of practical details and
likewise administration
involved political
judgement about what can
be done and what cannot be
done in context.
Friedrich argued this case
at a time of the expansion
of government services in
the early days of the
Roosevelt Administration
with a consequent focus on
administration to deliver
those services. Many of
these services had a
technical element
understood directly by the
administrator but only in
outline by the minister.
It was a prescient
argument given the
enormous expansion of
government that shortly
followed in remainder of
the Great Depression,
World War II, and the
welfare state of the post
war world. Finer likewise
realizes the all-pervasive
nature of government
(Finer 1940, 336), and
speaks of it providing 25%
of the happiness of the
people because it consumes
25% of the Gross National
Product (Finer 1936, 572).
The orthodox
distinction between
politics and
administration traces back
to Max Weber in Economy
and Society (Fry and Nigro
1996 and Van Riper 1984).
According to this
distinction, politicians
decide policy – what shall
be done and how it shall
be done – and
administrators do it.
There is a sealed door
between the two worlds
which opens only when
politicians deliver orders
to administrators. As
Friedrich made these
arguments based, in the
main, on his observations
in the United States they
drew a sharp rebuttal from
Herman Finer in the
England. Further
exchanges occurred,
creating the FriedrichFiner debate. Many
arguments were made in the
debate but the key points
provide the kernel of
three laws of burocratics.
Friedrich’s argument is
descriptive and normative.
Ministers cannot supervise
public administrators in
detail as a matter of
fact, and they should not
do so for that would
stifle creativity in
context.
Finer’s reply was
likewise descriptive and
normative: ministers can
and must supervise
administrators. He argues
that responsibility is an
arrangement of correction
and punishment including
dismal (1940, 345).
Ministers must supervise
administrators in the name
of democracy, as the
elected representatives of
the people. “Politicians
and employees
[administrators] are
working not for the good
of the public in the sense
of what the public needs,
4
but of the wants of the
public as expressed by the
public” (emphasis in the
original, Finer 1940,
337). Elections express
what the public wants.
Ministers can supervise
administrators by giving
clear directives and
specifying not only what
is to be done (policy) but
how (administration) it is
to be done. Finer argued
that the exact obedience
to orders is necessary
(1940, 337) to make public
administrators subservient
to the elected assembly
(1940, 338).
In reply Friedrich
argued that the span of
activities, the technical
and scientific aspects of
many of them and the
complexity of interaction
among activities combine
to limit political
supervision. Better he
argued to educate and
motivate officials to act
responsibly by increasing
their professionalism
through education. He
says “Pious myth-makers
continue to suppose that
parliamentary
responsibility is enough”
(1940, 3). The reality
is, he argues, that “even
under the best
arrangements a
considerable margin of
irresponsible conduct of
administrative activities
is inevitable” (1940, 3).
He argues that neither the
electorate nor the
legislative assemblies can
effectively bring out
responsible conduct by
close supervision. While
popular and legislative
supervision may suffice to
keep government from doing
wrong, they do no suffice
to make it responsible.
Obedience is at best a
negative instrument to
prevent corruption in his
view.
Friedrich continues,
many errors trace back to
contradictory and illdefined policy embodied n
faulty legislation (1940,
4). In more contemporary
terms we might say that
they trace back to policy
decisions made in haste to
placate vested interests
without regard to the wide
implications, decisions
made to surmount a crisis,
decisions made without
careful legislative
draughtsmanship to avoid
contradiction and
duplication. Happily, we
can say today that none of
these kinds of decisions
are now made.
“Public policy, to
put it flatly, is a
continuous process, the
formation of which is
inseparable from its
execution,” says Friedrich
(1940, 6). It “is being
formed as it is being
executed, and it is
likewise being executed as
it is being formed.
Politics and
administration play a
continuous role in both
the formation and
execution” (1940, 6).
Though he acknowledges,
that “there is probably
more politics in the
formation of policy, [and]
more administration in the
5
execution of it” (1940,
6). He goes on to explain
that many policies are not
ordained at the stroke of
legislative pen, but
evolve slowly over time
and administrative
officials participate
continuously and
significantly in this
process of evolving policy
(1940, 7). Against such a
reality, Friedrich argues
that “a higher official
will hesitate to reverse
the decision of a lower
official, when that lower
officials has a better
knowledge of the facts and
the details (1941, 49).
On the other hand,
Friedrich does severally
stress that where a rule
exists it should be
followed (1940, 16 and
1941, 54).
With this background,
the difference between
Friedrich and Finer might
be best understood by
making a distinction
between responsibility and
accountability. Friedrich
argues for responsibility,
which includes an inner
motivation, and Finer
argues for accountability,
a direct external
accounting to another for
one’s actions. Friedrich
characterizes the
differences as between
enforcing responsible
conduct (Finer) and
eliciting responsible
conduct (Friedrich).
Enforcing takes the forms
of explicit instructions
and schedules of
punishment for failure to
obey. Eliciting takes the
form of professionalizing
public administration
through training,
education, and conditions
of employment that give
independence of a semijudicial kind (this
latter, Friedrich 1935,
34). Friedrich concludes
that enforcing can be
effective for preventing
undesirable actions like
corruption, but only
eliciting can be effective
for securing good effects
(1935, 33).
Friedrich contends
that bureaucracy exists to
deal with needs identified
by government and the
challenge is make those
functions effective, not
to take power away from
them (1940, 10) for fear
of wrong doing. He
continuously emphasizes
technical knowledge, as
the following paraphrased
example shows: Take
agricultural policy. It
exists to help farmer
weather drought and
pestilence and other
unanticipated calamities
beyond individual control.
A variety of programs are
called into creation to
meet this goal, crop
reduction, price-fixing,
monopoly marketing, and
the like. Crop reduction
in turn leads to
processing taxes. These
taxes require reports,
inspections, and work
sheets. In this evolving
this process where does
politics end and
administration begin, asks
Friedrich (140, 6)? At
the bottom is the
6
technical knowledge
mastered by the public
administrator for whom
that special expertise may
be a life’s work, and this
technical knowledge is
derived from nature’s laws
which are always enforced
(1940, 12-13) even if
inconvenient politically.
Friedrich concludes that
we need both political
responsibility (Finer) and
technical responsibility
(Friedrich) (1940, 14).
But we can no longer
maintain the fiction that
administration is aloof
from politics and
conversely that politics
is apart from
administration (1940, 15).
Finer, likewise
arrives at a moderate
conclusion. He says that
if the political
neutrality of public
administrators “should
fall under suspicion, we
should be faced with the
social tragedy that the
unskilled political
ministers would hesitate
to accept the skilled aid
of the permanent experts”
(1936, 586), a passage
Friedrich might well have
written. Yet Finer has
argued throughout that the
unskilled minister
commands the skilled
public administrator. He
continues, the public
administrator is not a
moveable piece of
furniture (1936, 586) nor
an automaton (1936, 587).
More significantly, he
says, “I am willing to
admit an external agency
could not attend to every
administrative particular
without” damage, “some
latitude must be given –
both owing the technical
impossibility of complete
political coverage” (1940,
340, emphasis added). The
result is that
administration may include
rules, says Finer, which
look like legislation but
its essence is that the
administrator uses but
derived authority (1940,
342, emphasis added). Had
the argument ended there
it might seem that Finer
and Friedrich were
“furiously agreeing.”
However, Finer goes on to
assert that those who take
Friedrich’s view are antidemocratic (1940, 346) by
placing some modicum of
public administration
beyond the explicit
control of ministers. It
has been argued that
Friedrich’s view prevailed
in the post-war years
(O’Leary 2005) as the size
of government grew.
The 1930s, when this
debate opened, saw the
rise of European fascism,
of which Finer was a close
observer from London. His
response to Friedrich is
partly colored by that
knowledge. On occasion he
interprets the core of
Friedrich’s argument to be
anti-democratic.
Specifically, Finer says
inward responsibility is
the hallmark of
dictatorial systems and he
goes on to mention Nazi
government (1940, 336).
The essence of democracy,
Finer adds, is the
7
“primacy of the people
over officeholders” (1941,
337), where elected member
of parliament are the vice
of the people and office
holders are public
administrators. Those
administrators know better
than the elected
representatives of the
people what is best and
must act on that
(technical) knowledge. In
contrast, Finer argues,
with Thomas Hobbes, that
administrators are but the
bone and sinew of the
sovereign, which is the
government-of-the-day;
they are instruments, not
agents. Theirs is not to
reason why but to do as
they are told even if it
does not make sense in the
local context for it may
make sense in the larger
context seen by the
minister. That implicit
reference to the mistaken
Charge of the Light
Brigade in the Crimean War
leads one to thinks of the
British army officers in
World War I who stuck to
plans in battle that were
visibly failing in
deference to a higher
logic.
For his part,
Friedrich saw ministers
and administrators as
partners. The minister
and administrator together
pooling their knowledge to
develop policy through
interaction based on the
experiences unique to each
perspective.
Administrators are
responsible both for the
letter and spirit of the
directives they receive
and accept. Moreover,
once a policy is developed
its implementation may
require judgment in
context rather as a
physician make judgment
about when to tell
patients what they have to
know to manage reactions.
Thinking again of the
experience of World War I
(which neither writer
mentions) brings to mind
Field Marshal Graf Helmuth
von Moltke’s maxim that
“No battle plan survives
contact with the enemy”
that influenced German
thinking in the War.
Planning and preparation,
it follows, must allow for
flexibility when tested by
reality. Likewise, one
might image Friedrich
thinking that no policy,
however carefully
developed, survives intact
contact with the diverse
heterogeneous reality of a
continental federal system
like the United States.
Finer, surveying a smaller
scope in a unity
government, prefers the
tight rein of control.
Over the years these
poles evolved, but
nevertheless remained
poles. On the one side
there is Finer with a
command and control
concept of bureaucracy and
on the other there is
Friedrich with an
entrepreneurial and
flexible idea of
bureaucracy. The Finer
command and control
approach places a near
absolute priority on
8
obedience to instruction,
while the Friedrich
entrepreneurial and
flexible model speaks of
the discretion of
administrators to adapt
instruction to the hard
ground of reality guided
by a higher concept of the
public interest or the
common good that transcend
the government of the day.
Friedrich’s argument
partly rested on the
concept of a public
interest or common good
that stood apart from the
government of the day and
superordinate to it.
Accordingly part of the
duty of a public servant
was to consider that
enduring and general
interest of the nation
that transcended the
political interest of the
government of the day.
In multi-cultural
societies intellectuals
soon conclusively
demonstrated that there
was no such thing as a
public interest or common
good. Without faith in
the belief that some
wider, deeper, and common
interest united a people
than the government of the
day Friedrich’s arguments
were weakened.
(Curiously many of these
same intellectuals decried
government policies,
programs, and practices,
but as their arguments
showed there was no master
narrative to legitimate
their criticisms, which
then fell on deaf ears.)
This argument took
many twists and turns and
government grew until the
1980s when the size of
government itself became a
cause of concern. The
result was considerable
re-thinking about the
nature of government and
led to many changes to
reduce the size of
government by adopting
private business practices
(making corporation out of
public entities like
airlines and telephone
companies), contracting
out pubic service to
businesses, scaling back
some services and the
like. This is a well
known story of the times.
The search from the 1980s
on was to bring to
government market
discipline that made
business so flexible,
responsive, effective, and
cheap. The examples of
that inspired this trend
include Adelphia, Arthur
Andersen, At&T Canada,
Barrings, Enron, Global
Crossing, Halliburton,
Hollinger, Maxwell,
NatWest, Nortel, Parmalat,
Qwest, Sunbeam, Tyco,
Waste Management, and
World.Com.
Interestingly enough,
Finer and Friedrich both
cited private business as
instructive examples for
public administration.
When each looked at
private business saw the
parts that supported their
case. Finer admired the
discipline and direction
of business governed by
the price mechanism (1936,
583), while Friedrich
praised the
9
resourcefulness and
flexibility of business
needed to win and keep
customers (1940, 20). In
the end the size of
government was altered if
not exactly reduced, and
those who remained public
administrators - defined
as working directly for a
minister or under a public
service act came to be
regarded as burocrats,
though no historian as yet
has been able to identify
either the first time the
term “burocrat” replaced
“bureaucrat” in official
communication, though they
have been able to pinpoint
the date when the
Microsoft Word
spellchecker came to
accept it, as the 1st of
July 2017 curiously
coincident with the two
hundredth anniversary of
the first British North
America Act.
In time the
relationship of ministers
to administrators was
codified into the Three
Laws of burocratics “in a
Civil Service where smooth
and sociable performance
was more useful than
individualistic competence
(Asimov 1959, 76). These
laws were inspired by the
three laws of robotics
created by Isaac Asimov.
While the public officials
Asimov presents struggle
with inner qualms about
some of the laws they must
enforce (1959, 32), the
robots do not. When a
human says in anger to a
robot “Don’t ever do that
it again!” The
positronically mind robot
replies “Never again
insist on the observation
of the law” (1959, 38)?
“The essence of the robot
lies in a completely
literal interpretation of
the universe” (1959, 102).
In contrast, “a human
being can recognize the
fact that, on the basis of
an abstract moral code,
some laws may be bad ones
and their enforcement
unjust” (1959, 104). The
Three Laws of Burocrats
were designed to secure
literal obedience and to
relieve burocrats of
conscience by defining
their role as obedience
only.
Initially, the laws
were rendered as absolute.
Thus the first law
prevented an administrator
from obeying any
instruction from a
minister that an
administrator had reason
to think might possibly
result in harm to the
minister no matter what
the odds were. Complete
risk aversion. Harm
itself had to be defined
as loss of political
legitimacy or authority.
Thus a burocrat could not
cooperate with a minister,
like Roger Quaife
portrayed in C P Snow’s
historical novel,
Corridors of Power who
devises a high risk plan
for unilateral nuclear
disarmament, on the ground
that the plan might well
lead to the end of the
minister’s career as it
did in that case. Of
10
course, judging political
harm is no easy matter.
Complete risk aversion
meant doing nothing.
While that was an
attractive option in time
a half-way point was
developed. The present
state of affairs is that
administrators must make
the minister aware of
potential political risks,
however slight, and
thereafter accept the
minister informed
direction.
The strict
constructionists of the
Three Laws maintain that
an administrator should
interpret the First Law
absolutely, while the
revisionists contend that
interpretation effectively
freezes any change in
policy, program, or
practise. Strict
constructionists agree
that it does so and so
prevents any change.
Equally, the Second
Law has been tested many
times. It has been
narrowed in meaning to
obeying any directive from
one’s superordinate
ministers that is
consistent with the law,
relevant to the
administrator’s statement
of duties, and concerns
the public business of the
minister. Thus the
minister cannot require a
public administrator to
perform sexual congress
unless that is stipulated
in the duty statement of
the public servant or is
included in the duties of
the minister’s portfolio.
Finally, the Third
Law has preserved an ever
decreasing number of
public administrators
employed under the public
service act.
Yet these law remain
imperfect, for as Asimov
(1959) has shown
repeatedly, a burocrat may
act against a minister
unknowingly. This mistake
occurs when a burocrat is
but one set of hands among
many and participates in a
chain of events that bring
harm to a minister.
The last remaining
Friedrichites marginalized
in universities, have
formulated but dared not
publish a law prior to the
First Law that they call
the Zeroth Law. This
unpromulgated law states
that
0. A public
administrator may not
injure humanity, or,
through inaction,
allow humanity to
come to harm.
One sees immediately that
this law would limit
ministerial authority by
making the judgment of
utility – the public good
– prior to the obedience
of the First Law. And so
a burocrat, acting on this
law, might say “Perhaps my
action was to your harm.
I am sorry if the general
good requires that,”
(Asimov 1959, 237),
chilling words no minister
wishes to hear from a
burocrat. No longer does
a burocratic say, “No
11
Minister, I do not work
for you; I work for the
public interest.
Friedrich quoted this
passage from John Gaus
(1936, 39-40) often: “the
responsibility of the
civil servant [Is] to the
standards of his
profession, in so far as
those standards make for
the public interest.”
This is a corollary of the
Zeroth Law in that it
makes a separate and
independent judgment by
the public servant
necessary. Moreover, it
takes the exclusive
judgment of utility from
the minister alone and
makes the administrator
responsible, at least in
part for making a
concurring judgment about
the public good. This
ridiculous idea is
maintained only by a few
irrelevant professors.
References
Asimov, Isaac (1959) Caves
of Steel. New York,
Doubleday.
Asimov, Isaac (1956) The
Naked Sun. New York,
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Political Science
Quarterly 51(4): 569-599.
Finer, H. (1940).
"Administrative
responsibility in
democratic government."
Public Administration
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Friedrich, C. J. (1935).
Problems of the American
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McGraw-Hill.
Friedrich, C. J. (1937).
Constitutional government
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development. New York,
Harper.
Friedrich, C. J. (1940).
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Fry, B. R. and Nigro L.G.
(1996). Max Weber and US
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neutral servant, Journal
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(1), 37-46.
Gaus, John (1936). The
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University of Chicago
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Goodnow, Frank (1900)
Politics and
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O'Leary, R. (2005). The
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Washington, D.C.
Congressional Quarterly.
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Van Riper, P.P. (1984).
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Rabin, J., Bowman J.S.
(eds), Politics and
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