There are two intertwined aspects to this entrenchment, and to the expansion of government as a result of the civil service system. In the first place, the civil servant cannot be removed and replaced by someone else. He enjoys, short of drastic budget cuts and job abolition, lifetime tenure. That entrenches the bureaucracy, and blazes the path for the sort of dysfunctional system outlined by Parkinson, Tullock, and Barber. But there is another, neglected reason why civil service, and its continuing expansion, leads inexorably to the growth as well as the entrenchment of the bureaucracy. Let us say that, in a certain year, incoming Republicans (or Democrats) appoint 10,000 people to political jobs. (They can either attain these posts by kicking out Democrats or by adding new jobs.) Before civil service reform, the Democrats, after being elected in their turn, could happily kick out the 10,000 Republican rascals and replace them by deserving Democrats.

But suppose, during this putative Republican term, the Republicans, succumbing to a fit of public-spiritedness and devotion to civil service reform, now expand civil service protection to those 10,000 jobs. Hence, the happy result, which perhaps was not overlooked by the Republicans in their reforming zeal: 10,000 Republicans have now been locked into their jobs permanently, courtesy of civil service "reform." Four years later, when the Democrats return to office, they find that they cannot simply resume their good old ways, eject the rascally 10,000 and replace them by 10,000 good Democrats. To find jobs for these 10,000, they have to expand the bureaucracy by 10,000. Later, of course, seized in their turn by a fit of reforming zeal, they expand the civil service reform to these new jobs, thereby freezing 10,000 good Democrats into lifetime appointments. And so, in the sweet-sounding name of removing the bureaucracy from the sordid process of politics, both parties in effect collaborate into fastening both sets of rascals onto the taxpayers permanently. The process, of course, only works by expanding the total number of government jobs.

Or put it another way: regardless of how principled and ideological a political party may be, an essential point of party politics is to find jobs for the faithful of the winning party. If jobs cannot be found, the party system withers and dies, leaving only a self-perpetuating bureaucratic oligarchy behind. A system of minimal government can provide jobs for the winning party by throwing out the jobholders of the losing faction. But if civil service law freezes jobholders in place, the function of providing jobs for the winners can only occur by expanding the number of jobs: that is, at the expense of the taxpayers and of the productive, private sector. The "spoils system" allows all the costs to be imposed upon the losing party, and not at all on the body of the taxpayers. Surely a just and admirable system: who better to bear the costs of political defeat than the losing party?

I have only seen this analysis of the propulsive effect of civil service upon the growth of government in the charming little book noted above by Thomas H. Barber. Thus, Barber writes:

In former days all appointments to the bureaucracy were made by the political party in power. When that party was defeated, all the bureaucrats in office were immediately thrown out and their places were filled by faithful heelers of the victorious party. It was not a very noble system. It was not conducive to efficient governmental administration…. It did have certain virtues, however. It prevented anyone from becoming a bureaucrat for life and so losing completely the point of view of the man on the street. It also permitted the elected officials to reward their political workers by changing, instead of increasing, the bureaucracy.

After the advent of Civil Service reform, on the other hand, "once installed in the bureaucracy … the incumbent was there for life, or during good behavior." These laws meant that for the elected officials "to reward their political workers, they now had to devise new jobs for them instead of merely turning out the incumbents of the opposing party and filling their jobs. The result, of course, has been a great increase in the number of jobs, and thus in taxes…."[21]

Barber adds another highly important point: with the advent of Civil Service reform, the once temporary set of bureaucrats are now converted into a permanent and self-conscious class or caste, set aside from, and in fundamental opposition to, the mass of the citizenry. Until the coming of the Civil Service laws, Barber notes, the bureaucrats had "held their positions temporarily, until a change of party at election threw them back to earn what living they could … as ordinary citizens." Before reform, in short, the job holders "had not been a class — merely a group of people temporarily doing the same kind of work." But the Civil Service law "gave them a life tenure of their jobs — welded them into a class." When the class of bureaucrats began to get unpopular with the public, adds Barber, they "very quietly began organizing 'publicity bureaus', that is, propaganda bureaus, to 'educate the public' into believing in the divine wisdom and beneficence of the government (as represented by themselves) in managing everything and everybody." In other words, "the bureaucrats are given a strong incentive to organize and form a powerful bureaucratic lobby."[22]

[21] Barber, Where We Are At, pp. 109-10.

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