Bureaucracy as an antidote to inefficiency. What an interesting concept.

Having managed and worked in both government and corporate bureaucracies my experience is that it generally serves to magnify inefficiency not mitigate it.

In the case of physicians, bureaucracy has served to increase inefficiency for primary care providers by requiring layers of approvals in order for patients to access speciality care. These layers create barriers to access in the attempt to reduce the cost of care and balance supply/demand. But, delayed access to specialists actually raises the overall cost of care by preventing early intervention. It also serves to create inequality of access since wealthy patients can bypass scarcity by paying out of pocket and/or travelling to centres of excellence.

Initiatives to make government more efficient are often disrupted by policy or union regulations. Often an individual worker's main motivation is to avoid rocking the boat while patiently waiting for early retirement and a nice pension.

The best way to create greater efficiency is to provide incentives that encourage people to contribute toward the elimination of their own job. Artificial barriers to progress should never be allowed. Instead, unions and public policy should work toward incentives for robust, lifelong retraining and education infrastructure coupled with something like universal basic income.

As technology-driven job displacement accelerates, a way to redistribute excess profit to our evaporating middle class will be critical to keeping the economy from imploding.