A Critique of the Critique of the Administrative State
July 29, 2024
Lately, there’s a desire on both the left and the right to repeal the 20th century, to repudiate the bureaucratic administrators. The administrators crushed the socialist revolution. The administrators imposed corporatism. The administrators politicized science and intersectionalized politics. They blurred the lines between the state and society, between the public and the private. The administrators think they are experts but only have a very flimsy, middling kind of education. They are narrow, empty textualists. They fetishize the letter of the law, forgetting its spirit. In one way or another, they are unfit to rule.
All of this is true. And yet – forgive me – the administrators did not fall out of a coconut tree. We have administrators because they are better at running the state than the people who came before them. Before the corporations and the bureaucrats, there was the bourgeois householder. The bourgeois householder was a man of business. He had private affairs that needed attending. So, he could only ever be a part-time statesman. As his businesses grew, they became unwieldy. Too much of the food was poisonous. Too many chemicals were dumped in the air and water. Too many workers got killed on the job.
Market forces alone could not regulate these things away. Customers in the 19th century bought the cheap stuff. They didn’t earn enough to do otherwise. To be sure, many social organizations tried to get the businessmen to clean things up. There were all sorts of moral campaigns, banging on about this or that. But the customers didn’t have the money to pay for overengineering. In those days, danger was the rule. Safety was a luxury few could afford.
The bourgeois householder was a poor manager, a poor statesman. He was poor in everything – except the obvious, of course. The only way to take the danger out of social life was the administrator, the full-time, professional regulator. In a vacuum, we don’t like this. In moments of safety, we puff out our chests. We say we regret taking the fun out of life. But as soon as the doors start flying off the airplanes, we run back to mommy. When grandpa starts choking to death on his own phlegm, everybody better stay home. When the cities start to burn and the sea levels start to rise, you’d better do what the cops say. Or else.
Of course, we don’t like this. We say we want to abolish the police, abolish human resources, abolish health and safety, abolish, abolish, abolish. But we don’t mean it.
They don’t mean it, either. The people who promise to get rid of the administrators – to get rid of the deep state, the EU, the WTO, the department of this or that – none of them mean it. But they know we want to hear it. So, they say it. And we love words, especially when people don’t mean them.
We love to pretend these people threaten democracy. Aren’t they very bad? Isn’t it brave of us to stand up to them? Oh, it makes us feel alive. But we don’t want to live. No, we’re quite comfortable right where we are. As I write this, I am behind my screen. As you read this, you are behind yours. We are where we both wish to be. Somewhere out there, Donald Trump is looking at his phone, too. He’s just like us, you know – in every way.
We love roguish chit chat, but when we go to the grocery store, we expect to find our favorite brand of pizza. The packaging must be immaculate. Unspoiled, reasonably priced, and don’t forget our favorite toppings. Don’t look at us. Don’t talk to us. We’ll be through self-checkout in a jiff.
That’s who we are. If anything good ever happens again, it will have to be compatible with every bit of that. And you know who is a big part of making all of that happen? The administrators. God bless them.
They’re flawed, they’re oppressive, they’re bullies, it’s true. So, educate them. What else are we going to do? Buy moldy pizza?
That, more or less, was the motto of the New Left. The New Left recognized the administrative turn as irreversible. It tried to formulate a strategy for emancipation that was compatible with that turn. The strategy revolved around education – when the administrators reached Adorno’s level, they could finally be reconciled with him.
But the New Left’s “education” degenerated into the struggle sessions we now associate with miseducated middle managers. In the name of diversity and expertise, they impose a uniform stupidity. We Millennials tried to do something different – to work with the ordinary person again, through the medium of the internet. We sought to reach you where you are most comfortable – right where you are.
But when we finished school and found the job market was ugly, we grew mean. We brought back the struggle sessions. We returned to the politics of blame and shame. We forgot about healthcare. We forgot about housing. Now we have neither, and everyone hates us. We hectored and lectured and what do we have? Nothing but the hard-won disdain of both the young and old.
Then the administrators took over the internet. They pushed our links down the algorithms. They turned the social media feeds into mazes of advertising. We aren’t search-engine-optimized anymore. We don’t know how to use TikTok. We were ahead, but now we’re behind. Now the kids are wearing socks with crocs.
So, we’re mad at the administrators. They ruined the internet, just like they ruined socialism. They ruin everything! Except pizza.
The administrators aren’t going to get better, and they aren’t going away. The future belongs to them. Our possibilities will be those the administrators themselves create. The New Left failed to educate the administrators, but it did succeed in miseducating them. This miseducation is making the administrators worse over time. Our own mistakes were part of this process. Our meanness and cruelty were themselves instrumental. It is our fate to fail, and through this failure, to succeed.
The Soviet Union disappeared not because its administrators became wise but because they became rigid and feckless. We did not overcome our administrators. We did not educate them. But our administrators have worked for generations to create the conditions for their overcoming. They are making it impossible to buy a house, impossible to raise a family, impossible to run the schools and universities, impossible to create a new generation of administrators capable of effectively carrying on their work. They are creating cohort after cohort of inadequately socialized wretches who can’t understand complex texts or fix leaky faucets. These people already think large language models are intelligent and cryptocurrencies are money. Some even think the DSA can still be saved. They throw their kids in day care – in glorified orphanages – so they can live their dreams. And already, they dream so small, and of so little. Yes, the administrators are barbarizing the whole population, including themselves, including their own children. The fools!
Even the overrated, overestimated 19th century business boy looks like a sage by comparison. But don’t forget – he was stupid, too. He didn’t just let the administrators tie him down. He invited them in. He funded them. He was so scared of us. He would do anything – give up anything – to stop us from expropriating him. He wanted pizza and was glad to have it. We used to matter. They used to worry about us.
The working class may no longer drive history, but that does not mean history is without an engine. We may no longer ride the gorgeous steam trains from long ago. But those trains were dangerous and filthy, anyway. They belched cinders and ashes all over the place. The administrators put a stop to all that. They gave us the diesel engine.
Then they gave us the electric trains. You know the ones – they look like tin cans. My god, they’re revolting. They’re always overcrowded. They’re often late. But they get you to Cockfosters. Eventually. Or so I’ve heard – truth be told, I’ve never ridden one that far.
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