Comments on: In Bureaucracy We Trust? It Just Ain’t So! http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/in-bureaucracy-we-trust-it-just-aint-so/ Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:27:18 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Michael Wetzel http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/in-bureaucracy-we-trust-it-just-aint-so/comment-page-1/#comment-655 Michael Wetzel Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:38:14 +0000 http://www.thefreemanonline.org/uncategorized/in-bureaucracy-we-trust-it-just-aint-so/#comment-655 We hear and read much about immoral business men, evil businessmen, greedy businessmen, on and on. We hear and read about how government or the state has taken someone's property or prosecuted someone for some alleged "environmental crime," or illegally spied on someone, or closed someone's business for some arbitrary reason, on and on. Yet, government or the state does none of these things. The IRS does not treat taxpayers arbitrarily and unjustly. Individual, identifiable tax paying employees of the IRS treat other taxpayers arbitrarily and unjustly. People do these things. An individual government bureaucrat takes a decision and other individual government employees enforce the decision. Just as a business does not act immorally, the state does not act immorally. Individuals act, as Leonard Read observed and reminded us. And Individual employees of the state act immorally or unfairly or arbitrarily. Instead of speaking and writing about government or the state or the bureaucracy, we should speak about individual employees and individual bureaucrats whether we know the name of the individual or not. In so speaking and writing we will begin to assign accountability and responsibility. What are the moral and ethical responsibilities of individual government employees when they are ordered by other individual government employees to act immorally? We hear and read much about immoral business men, evil businessmen, greedy businessmen, on and on. We hear and read about how government or the state has taken someone’s property or prosecuted someone for some alleged “environmental crime,” or illegally spied on someone, or closed someone’s business for some arbitrary reason, on and on. Yet, government or the state does none of these things. The IRS does not treat taxpayers arbitrarily and unjustly. Individual, identifiable tax paying employees of the IRS treat other taxpayers arbitrarily and unjustly. People do these things. An individual government bureaucrat takes a decision and other individual government employees enforce the decision. Just as a business does not act immorally, the state does not act immorally. Individuals act, as Leonard Read observed and reminded us. And Individual employees of the state act immorally or unfairly or arbitrarily. Instead of speaking and writing about government or the state or the bureaucracy, we should speak about individual employees and individual bureaucrats whether we know the name of the individual or not. In so speaking and writing we will begin to assign accountability and responsibility.

What are the moral and ethical responsibilities of individual government employees when they are ordered by other individual government employees to act immorally?

]]> By: Foundation for Economic Education: Home to freedom and prosperity, and free-market education for over 50 years http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/in-bureaucracy-we-trust-it-just-aint-so/comment-page-1/#comment-191 Foundation for Economic Education: Home to freedom and prosperity, and free-market education for over 50 years Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:58:19 +0000 http://www.thefreemanonline.org/uncategorized/in-bureaucracy-we-trust-it-just-aint-so/#comment-191 [...] Timely Classic “In Bureaucdracy We Trust?” by Roy E. [...] [...] Timely Classic “In Bureaucdracy We Trust?” by Roy E. [...]

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