Bureaucracy Basics: Crash Course Government and Politics #15

This week Craig Benzine discusses bureaucracies. Bureaucracies tend to be associated with unintelligible rules and time-wasting procedures, but they play an important, though controversial, role in governing. From the FDA to the EPA, these agencies were established to help the government manage and carry out laws much more efficiently - to bring rule-making and enforcement closer to the experts. But the federal bureaucracy (which is part of the executive branch) has a lot of power and sometimes acts like Congress in creating regulations and like the courts through administrative adjudications. It's all a bit problematic for that whole "separation of powers" thing. So we'll talk about that too, and the arguments for and against increased federal bureaucracy.

Chapters:
Introduction: Craig does paperwork 00:00
What is bureaucracy? 0:51
What do bureaucrats do? 1:34
Bureaucracy & division of powers 2:19
Bureaucracy & regulations 2:43
Bureaucracy & administrative adjudications 3:36
Why do we have bureaucracy? 4:15
Credits 6:25

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[drozingler]

Absolutely loving sitting awake at 12:43 in the morning writing the 3 main points, 3 major facts, and 3 big questions about this video.

[catie]

When it's 2020 and your AP exam is only 45 minutes long so you spend 10 hours writing review materials while listening to crash course in the hopes that your brain will somehow retain any of what your shoving into it.

[Sketchi]

AP Gov exam tomorrow. Let's do this.

[mushroomsamba]

"Rage against the correct machine" gave me a good laugh, thanks!

[annemarie]

y’all it’s quarantine and i fell down a political rabbit hole

[RainaRamsay]

Can we get a shirt that says "Rage Against the Correct Machine"?

[potato]

I thought "Bureaucracy" was a government problem until I got a job at a company with 200k+ employees worldwide. I would say it's even worse in the corporate world.

[emilybarefoot]

Just watched every Crash Course Government and Politics video to help prepare myself for the AP US Gov and Politcs exam in two days... Great way to review the semester and even learn some things my teacher hadn't taught!

[ArcaneInsignia]

The biggest problem with bureaucracy "is" that it allows experts to make and control the rules. So average folk have no grounds for challenging anything, which leads to the capacity for control guaranteed to corrupt said powers. They can conspire to fulfill their own agendas and who can do anything about it? What they need is a bureaucracy for morality that can take down corrupt systems when they overstep moral boundaries with their expertise and rule making.

[khaleefax]

*"Bureaucracy is a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives."*

[GuardsmanBass]

One thing I'd add is that complexity often comes from the way bureaucracies have to deal with changing tasks and rules. Many bureaucracies are "system-critical" in a way, meaning that you can't simply shut them down and completely reform them after a period of time - imagine doing that with a school system, for example. Instead, you have to gradually implement the new rules, work out conflicts with the old ones, and replace/remove old rules and tasks so that the transition is much more seamless.

[FunkyHonkyCDXX]

"Rage against the correct machine." Brilliant line!

[sabrinahaque]

Sooo glad this video came out! Good luck to everyone taking their AP government exam this Tuesday!

[wk]

The wisest person I ever knew once told me that the complexity of any system or bureaucracy is inversely proportional to the intelligence and competence of those who established it. I've seen this truism validated many times over the years.

[timbobb]

"Rage against the correct machine" I love it.

[MrDylan]

Which machine do I rage against so that eagles get protection from punches?

[jfranklin]

I just discovered this guy’s page this morning and this is beautiful. I love his work and I love how he broke down the understanding of the word bureaucrat and bureaucracy. Great job.

[AlanmanAaron]

"Crash Course was made with the help of these soulless bureaucrats. Thanks for watching!" 😂

[libbybollinger]

Is it bad that all I know about bureaucracy I got from parks and rec

[MrAydenca]

Good luck to everyone that’s taking the AP Test on Monday!