Bureaucracy (book)

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Bureaucracy

First edition (UK)
Author	Ludwig von Mises
Language	English
Subject	Politics & Economics
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Yale University Press (US) William Hodge & Co (UK)
Publication date	1944, 1962
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	148
ISBN	0-86597-663-5
OCLC	349030

Bureaucracy is a political book written by Austrian School economist and libertarian thinker Ludwig von Mises. The author's motivation in writing the book is his concern with the spread of socialist ideals and the increasing bureaucratization of economic life. While he does not deny the necessity of certain bureaucratic structures for the smooth operation of any civilized state, he disagrees with the extent to which it has come to dominate the public life of European countries and the United States. The author's purpose is to demonstrate that the negative aspects of bureaucracy are not a result of bad policies or corruption, as the public tends to think. Instead, he explains, those problems are necessarily built into bureaucratic structures. They are due to the very tasks such a system has to deal with. The main body of the book is therefore devoted to a comparison between private enterprise on the one hand and bureaucratic agencies/public enterprise on the other.