Unless you’re going to go for Best of the Worst. Then I might actually watch the movie itself too.
This is not always the case, although I guess it depends how you define bureaucrats. As an example, in France, most of the administration is not nominated. You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. It does make sense in a lot of cases. For example, in a city, only the mayor and its advisers are elected, and they do not have any control over the administration of the city. But the administration cannot refuse to work with a specific mayor. If they do, they would need to be moved elsewhere, or simply be fired for not doing their job. On the other hand, they are also bound by the law, so they also act as a counter power to crazy mayor who wants to do illegal stuff. Meaning, if the mayor ask the administration to do something illegal, they can absolutely say no with no fear of repercussion for their job.
It also makes sense for other counter-power office, where having the currently elected representatives being able to choose who control the office would go against its whole purpose.
> 60 politicians of all colors stand for election in the 15 countries of the European Union: unimaginable benefits and positions of influence await their power brokers, for it is these Machiavellian lobbyists and self-appointed “leaders“ who hold the real power in the palms of their hands.
And from the rules:
> The player with the most total votes played in a given party is the party representative. If a player has two cards in the same party, their value is added. If two or more players have the same vote total in a party, the one with the highest single card is the party representative. Remember that a doubler card, if played, will always be considered the highest card. Also, note that it is possible for one player to control two parties.
> If Gaudino is played in a party in competition with another politician valued 7 in that party, he is considered to be the higher card.
> The green-leaf party is a special case. If two players tie for total value in green cards, it is possible that they will still tie for highest single card value. In that case, the two players are given thirty seconds to agree on who will be the green representative. If they do not agree in that time, each player with green cards may negotiate separately.
As long as we (and I mean the left side broadly) are talking about the government not being legitimate as we shoot ourselves in the foot, we won’t learn how to reverse this. Talking about stolen power is a weak argument when we’ve just been outmanoeuvred. And it makes us look like sulking children and in the end it just helps conservatives and fascists.
“If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, [those who work at public bureaus] have played another part. Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay. You know little of the lands beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us."
Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? At this point would they not be a sovereign group distinct from France, untouchable by the french people?
I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy. May be lots of layers of indirection, like the need to pass or change a law, but still.
Who defines and administers the exam you mentioned? Other public representatives? Can they decide to pass their relatives?
Yes, that's how the civil service works in most countries, more or less. The US is an outlier in that the executive appoints about 4,000 civil servants; most places don't work like that (even in the US; _most_ civil servants (about 2.8 million of them, federal) are hired, promoted, disciplined etc by other civil servants; the president doesn't sit in on every interview or anything.)
> I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy.
The elected representatives pass laws. The civil service implements them.
Separately, at least in many countries, not sure about France, you have the concept of power devolved to the minister, where the legislature passes a law allowing the minister to make orders in certain restricted areas, a bit like a scope-limited version of US presidential executive orders.
This occasionally has amusing repercussions if the original devolution legislation was insufficient or unconstitutional; for instance in Ireland nearly all drugs (morphine, heroin, cannabis and possibly cocaine remained illegal) were accidentally legalised for a day, when the supreme count found that the legislation used to enable the Minister for Justice to ban drugs was insufficient, thus legalising everything which had been banned since it was passed.
This is one of the concerning parts with the incoming administration.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/25/project-2025...
> Project 2025, which is backed by the rightwing Heritage Foundation thinktank, has proposed to “dismantle the administrative state”, while Trump’s official “Agenda 47” calls for “cleaning out the Deep State” and “on Day One” issuing an “executive order restoring the president’s authority to fire rogue bureaucrats”.
> That executive order would set up a system, known as Schedule F, that would revamp the federal bureaucracy so that far more jobs could be filled with political appointees rather than through traditional merit rules. Trump’s supporters say Schedule F would cover about 50,000 federal employees, but unions representing federal workers say it would cover many times that. Currently, approximately 4,000 federal positions are subject to presidential appointment. Trump’s allies are said to have compiled a list of 20,000 loyalists who could quickly move into federal jobs in a new Trump administration.
---
That 4,000 is looking to become 20,000 and potentially increase up to 50,000 (and beyond depending how far reaching the reclassification is).
Best to be aware of this, not deceive ourselves that public servants are untouchable. Some people might get the idea that voting for a very bad politician would just send a message and not have much real effect, as the civil servants are the same and will do the same job and cannot be removed. They can. Even in Germany.
Possibly. They’d need majority control of the legislature (not merely the sort of plurality control that seems within the bounds of possibility on some countries) and control of the courts. They’d also potentially need to be able to change the constitution; in most countries the Lisbon treaty is either implicitly or explicitly above local law. They’d need to be ready to face sanctions from the EU. I think Germany in particular also has some regulation of the civil service actually in the constitution. But ultimately, yeah, if the far right successfully took over the government (rather than just leading a coalition or something) they could probably do this; the Nazis did, after all.
The courts? If you have majority in the legislature, you can pass any law you want, and the courts are obligated to follow the law. You think they would just rebel and disregard laws that they consider not-ok?
In any case. The courts need to get paid, and need offices and electricity and computers and support from police and other branches. And judges need to be appointed, and sometimes leave. One way or another the courts would get converted to the cause. All the courts in a country are a lot of people. There are always some who would betray. Just adjust the laws and the salaries and everything you can (which is a lot if you own the legislative) to advantage those on your side and disadvantage those who oppose you. Prosecutors are typically under the executive, so start some made-up investigations against the most prominent judges that oppose you. No need to do it for all, set a few examples and the others will see the error of their ways. No need for the investigations to get convictions in court. Just place doubt on inconvenient judges, and use the media to amplify it. Your side of the media, while the other side also gets converted. Converting the media is much easier, again, using executive and legislative power.
The constitution as a document is irrelevant. The court(s) that interpret it would just get converted to the cause in the same way. This has already been done in Poland and the US, and I presume in Hungary, since there's no news about them creating trouble.
> in most countries the Lisbon treaty is either implicitly or explicitly above local law
The government and the converted courts will just start acting as if the Lisbon treaty does not exist. Who or what can enforce it? Look at Hungary. Look at Poland before the recent change. Look at Slovakia. A treaty has no power over a country that does not whish to follow it. Look at the Budapest memorandum and soon enough we will see Trump ignore the NATO treaty.
In my country the constitutional court routinely says our constitution (and therefore their decisions, which always favor a certain party, and corruption in general) are above the Lisbon treaty. The EU pretends nothing happened (presumably due to the war).
> the Nazis did, after all
Exactly.
In some circumstances, the plan would be to fire everybody and then just sit there and do nothing (except fire more people). The idea that all this is towards any kind of functional system, is an assumption. They could be looking to dismantle the entire administrative state and just collapse immediately to feudalism.
In many countries that is done based on laws describing career progression process.
In Germany most administration workers are "career" folks, who study at the university of administration and then have a career paths, where levels at are relatively clearly described. Only heads of different authorities are "political" positions, which are nominated by ministers and can be fired/retired relatively easily but even those in most cases stay across administrations. Only ministers and their direct staff change.
In some ministries there sometimes is the saying "we don't care who is minoster below us" but if a some minister with an agenda is appointed they still can be very effective.
But since the law is written by elected representatives, to say that the representatives have no power in this case seems wrong, to me. That's all.
If the voters will vote for the "fire Joe" party 20 years in a row, I guarantee Joe the civil servant will eventually be fired, even in Germany, France, anywhere. Well, maybe not in China, but that's different. Anywhere where votes still matter. Solutions would be found, laws changed, exceptions provided, and so on.
> And before you say “constitution,”
I have zero idea why I would say "constitution" or anything really. My entire point is that nobody is beyond the reach of elected representatives, and that is by design and a good thing too.
That’s just stating the obvious.
> that is by design
No, it’s not. It’s just a fact of life that governments can control every aspect of a person’s life if it chooses. It’s always been this way and always will be.
This is why your statements are absurd.
When people refer to a civil service as being “apolitical” or “not politically appointed,” it’s obvious that they’re not referring to absurd cases like “a government can outlaw them from having a job.”
That’s why I said you’re reducing the argument to absurdity.
Have you watched the British documentary series "Yes, Minister"?
As if it's not made of humans. This view is in grave error. Nobody is perfectly rational, nobody is beyond bias or subjectivty, nobody is beyond human emotions.
Building upon economic theory, public choice has a few core tenets. One is that no decision is made by an aggregate whole. Rather, decisions are made by combined individual choices. A second is the use of markets in the political system. A third is the self-interested nature of everyone in a political system.
For certain classes of politician, this might actually be a problem.
Civil servants are people like you and me, and have as strong will as anyone.
However: Yes, who you vote for impacts government. If you vote for a party which sets priority in building bike sheds, the authorities will move staff to the required departments, while Joe remains in the department nobody cares about anymore and thus can't meet the promotion goals. (While he will still receive the regular raise for the job level he is in) And if one truly wants to get rid of Joe there certainly is a way to find a reason for demoting him ..
But it's way different from the American system which sweeps thousand of jobs, according to [1] about 4,000 jobs directly, where then many of those bring in their assistant, advisor etc.
[1] https://presidentialtransition.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/...
This goes also further: Many offices which are elected in the US are appointed in Europe (I'm not aware of a European country where population elects state/district attorneys, sheriffs, judges, school boards, etc)
1. The law. For example, public worker salary's are explicitly defined on a public grid, which depends on several factor (exact position, how long you have been in the job, the national public worker salary index, ...).
2. Their boss / future boss. Promotion it partly a matter of law, but also partly at the discretion of your boss. Same for a lateral move. If a position open, and you are qualified to fill it, you have to have interview just like a normal job offer.
There is a bunch a caveat and details, but that's the gist of it. So, technically, representative do have power over this. Some representatives can change the law, and some are technically more or less the boss of the top officer at some administration. But it still make a lot of things difficult if not impossible. A mayor cannot change national law, only Deputé of the national assembly can, so he has no power over the salary of his administration. He also has no power to fire someone from the local administration unless he can prove that they did something that the law consider a fireable offense. The same would go for a minister.
Of course, in effect, they do yield a lot of influence. While public worker are very, very rarely fired, they can be moved to another position, which is easier to do and what usually happen when someone powerful want them gone without having the actual power to do so directly.
Yes, in the end of course. But these layers of indirection are extremely important. In my country right-wing politicians are currently rallying against prosecutors they think are "too lenient" with criminals. If it weren't for the indirection those prosecutors would have been replaced with the politicians' yes-friends long ago.
The mayor can still dictate policy and the administration have to implement it if it is not illegal, right?
The above is of course satire. We have idiotic regulations that require a good understanding of culture to get through. People are like the rest of the population: average. There are good ones send bad ones.
For the exam - it completely depends on the administration and your level.
We hate our administration because it is either complicated, or contacting them is a nightmare (or simply impossible)
(in fairness, those people tend to hate the Civil Service in the UK too. And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords)
I do not think they are the same people. The majority of votes were to leave the EU, the majority of people want to get rid of hereditary peerages.
> And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords
The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords.
You obviously haven't read the Telegraph or listened to many Conservative MPs recently. I don't blame you tbf!
> The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords.
Those are life peers. Hereditary peers are, as the name suggests, people who get their access to the House of Lords by accident of birth rather than Prime Minister. But since Blair cut a deal to get rid of all but 92 of them, they have elected the 92, from a franchise consisting exclusively of people who had hereditary titles that had previously entitled them to a seat.
An indirect democracy is you voting for a representative who votes for policies.
The EU is a doubly-indirect democracy: you vote for local politicians who appoint commissioners who vote for policies. Each layer of indirection adds a new way for popular policies to be subverted. Hell, even in the US, the single layer of indirection is already sufficient to kill things like right to repair.
The EU Commission is the executive, not legislative branch. Though it does hold the initiative to create proposals, they have to be approved by the Council, which is where the real power lies. The Council consists of members of national governments. Also there is a directly elected, but much less powerful, European Parliament, that has to approve the legislative too.
A bit; mostly as you say, but also it's a kingdom and has the House of Lords whose seats are partially heritable, partially religious appointments from the state religion with the monarch at the top, in addition to those appointed by the elected government.
There are also, in practice, a number of other religious appointments made to provide other religious groups with representation.
> in addition to those appointed by the elected government.
Those are the most problematic IMO. Businesspeople (because the rich do not have enough influence on politics and cannot get their voice heard?), and former politicians.
I think how it works is nicely summarised by the fact that at least one of the founders of an ecommerce website (lastminute.com) is a peer but no-one like (for example) Tim Berners-Lee is.
Alexandra Freeman [0] or Lionel Tarassenko [1] might fit your criteria as technocratic appointments to the peerage - just how "like" TBL do they have to be? Sir Timothy seems like the kind of character who could reasonably be appointed, too, if that's what he really wanted.
I agree with your point that it's dominated by businessmen and aristocrats, but maybe not quite as badly as you think.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Freeman,_Baroness_Fr...
Freeman, has spent most of her career as a science in science communication (director and producer of BBC documentaries, then a "communications" role at Cambridge).
I like TBL as an example partly because of his interest in the broader consequences of technology, and the contrast with people who have made money from the technology her inventented being peers.
So they are employees of their departments and don't change when a minister changes. Ministers are almost always a member of Parliament and appointed by the Prime Minister, so they can change at any time.
Usually a government will have some changes at the top of departments (the "Permanent Secretary") and high level executives, but that's also a "change of government to another party" event.
A big part of the "project 2025" idea was to reduce career employees and make everybody effectively a political appointee.
Sir Humphrey Appelby often explains to the Minister Jim Hacker how the Minister sets "policy" and it is the "humble public servants" that carry out that policy, having attended to the details that are required when dealing with the heavy business of government across departments, while leaving the Minister to concentrate on the "big picture", and doing his job, which is:
1. Defend the Ministry in Parliament
2. Make sure that the Ministry's budget is defended in Cabinet
By the same argument you could say UK or US or any other solidly democratic is not democratic, because some commission or organisation is not directly, by the people, elected.
(If you go for the direct election argument, the UK fares pretty badly BTW.)
It's a matter of degree rather than a binary. Representative democracy is a little less democratic than direct democracy. Elections every 20 years are a bit less democratic than elections every 5 years. Having the elected representatives appoint a head of state is a bit less democratic than electing one directly. The more layers of indirection you add, the more it becomes a bureaucratic oligarchy.
It seems here that because the EU likes to regulate more, people somehow perceive it as less democratic.
In theory the Commission is mostly made up of civil servants who answer to commissioners, who are themselves nominated by each country's own government or civil service. Each commissioner has one area of responsibility only, and they answer to the head of the Commission who is their boss. So someone in the UK votes for a politician, who votes for a party leader, who appoints some ministers, and those ministers may or may not have much of a say in whoever gets nominated to be a commissioner - one of many. But there is at least a path there, even if long and indirect and the person your vote ends up influencing doesn't do anything important to your country or needs.
In practice it doesn't actually work that way. In practice, the head of the Commission has veto power over the nominations. They aren't supposed to according to the treaties but the treaties are ignored. This means that in reality it's the head of the Commission who picks the Commissioners, because they can just reject anyone who isn't sufficiently aligned with their own agenda.
So that leaves the question of how the head of the Commission is picked. Once again there is theory and practice. In theory, it's a decision of the heads of each state that they take together to select some candidates, and the Parliament then gets to vote for their preferred candidate. In practice ... nobody knows how the head is picked. Ursula von der Leyen was recently re-appointed despite being plagued by scandals and having a long career of failing upwards. Parliament was sidelined by giving them a voting list with only one candidate on it (her). Seek out an explanation of how she got this job and you won't find one because:
1. The heads of state don't talk about how they decide as a group. Is it a vote? Some sort of horse trading? Do they take it in turns? Are they even all able to take part? Nobody knows.
2. There's no record of which country voted for who, or why.
3. The process by which someone even becomes a candidate is unclear.
4. Because no head of state has any control over who gets onto the candidate list, they never talk on the campaign trail about how they will "vote" (assuming that's how it works) for who runs the EU.
In other words, the process is entirely secret. The potential for corruption is unlimited.
So when critics say the EU Commission is a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, they are right and those who argue otherwise here on HN are wrong. People who got their jobs via a process so opaque and indirect that how it functions can't be explained, not even in principle, cannot claim to be democratically selected.
> Parliament was sidelined by giving them a voting list with only one candidate on it (her).
This implies that the parliament has to pick on who is on the ballot, which it doesn't: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240710IP...
She was elected with a majority - albeit not a huge one. Still: elected. This is an example of "there is at least a path there, even if long and indirect".
How about another counterexample: In the US the members of the Federal Reserve are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate (so an indirect path, but fairly short), for 14 years! The Supreme Justices are appointed for life. To take this to a hypothetical extreme, image now calling a country "democratic" where you just hold elections once per lifetime.
That doesn't really strike me as democratic, as the "demos", the people, change their minds more often than once in 14 years, or once per lifetime.
Of course, the EU I'm sure also has appointments that go beyond the standard 4-5-ish years. But my point is: the EU isn't as undemocratic as you make it to be and the US/UK isn't as democratic as you may think. Both are muddling along, and probably neither reach Swiss levels.
> The process by which someone even becomes a candidate is unclear
Your points 1.-4. apply to many appointments in the US and UK that are similarly undemocratic: To take an example from the UK: The Governor of the Bank of England is appointed by the Chancellor+PM. Again, no one knows who or why they made the decision the way they made it. Were they friends with the future Governor? Did their party engage in some horse trading with the opposition to secure other benefits in turn for nominating a particular person? No one knows.
But people certainly do know how that position is selected, by whom and for what reason. The current governor of the BoE has a long history of running government financial institutions, including in the central bank itself. He is a civil servant and is thus picked by the Chancellor, who is himself picked by the Prime Minister. No mysteries there. He is eminently qualified for the role.
On 3 June 2019, it was reported in The Times that Bailey was the favourite to replace Mark Carney as the new governor of the Bank of England.[9] Sajid Javid had also intervened in support of Bailey.[10][11] According to The Economist: "He is widely seen within the bank as a safe pair of hands, an experienced technocrat who knows how to manage an organisation."[12]
Previously he served as the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England under Mervyn King from January 2004 until April 2011, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England for Prudential Regulation under Mark Carney from April 2013 to July 2016 and Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct Authority from 2016 to 2020.
You can also even just observe the following litmus test of democratic legitimacy: what percentage of people have even heard of Ursula von der Leyen (or most of her predecessors) before her appointment to the most powerful position in the EU? Contrast that with their country's president or prime minister and you will see why one is democratically legitimate and the other is not.
People dislike changes of party leadership by the party in power between elections because they get someone they did not vote for.
It is also only one layer removed from the people directly voted in. The EU Commissioners are another layer or too removed from who people voted for.
If politicians can engage in horse trading they will.
That's also the case in the UK.
It has a parliament, a flag (adopted - its the flag of Europe originated by the Council of Europe), a national anthem (likewise adopting a well known piece of music) and a de facto constitution (it was essentially PR move to drop plans to call it a constitution - the substance did not change).
Having a majority of countries recognize you as a country is pretty much all that's required, if that.
A Disney fan club can pass legislation?
It has the same soundbites, and the narrative same structure, and the gullible still takes it.
Now the true question: are they gullible people, or just people pretending to be gullible to push an agenda?
None elected.
Unelected people are tasked with defending the free world. how about that?
I mean, one outcome is the obvious collapse of the Pentagon. But it seems like an oversight to have those people, now with a bone to pick, running around loose. Do they propose to take all the bad Pentagon bureaucrats and confine them in some way? I wouldn't want to be the Sgt. Shultz in charge of being those guys' jailer. Seems like it would be a tall, tall order.
His tweets were soaked in that glib faux-distinterested mid-2010s hyper-online style (but he would still tweet four times an hour, carefully calculating the most likely-to-trend level of ironic detachment for his 'epic' dunk on whoever Twitter's victim of the day was). He had a memorable feud with Nate Silver, in which he (Collins) demonstrated utter ignorance of elementary math, to farm likes off of the then-'out' Silver. Collins treated Twitter like he was the starring character in a high school melodrama.
For almost any 'bad Twitter take' cliché you can think of, there's a Ben Collins tweet (which, to be fair, is still much less bad than the worst of the new Twitter).
The Onion is a good landing point for him.
I think this is generational rather than decade-al. That's just how Gen X/early millenials talk about everything, and it's why Bluesky is still like that.
The other big example is that awful Cory Doctorow babytalk word "enshittification" - they love dropping in the occasional swear but only to make things sound even more smarmy.
Based on what previous in-real-life examples is this a realistic worry? AFAIK, "EU bureaucrats" haven't broken up a single US-based company before so seems like a weird thing to be worried about.
Can you spot any problems with their plan for the supplement inventory?
> we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal
as a regular reader of infowars and a happy customer of their supplements, i cannot see any flaw in that logic and can only hope that i, a successful business executive, will be the person they choose to give immortality to.
My interpretation is that the post you replied to was 100% satire.