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I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around Elon Musk’s attack on the civil service, efforts he claims he makes to rid the government of waste, fraud, corruption and an evil deep state of unelected bureaucrats. He seems to think civil servants have been spontaneously generated in their offices to interfere with the workings of democracy, like a virus or parasite.
The truth is that civil servants are the people whom we have hired to work for us to accomplish goals and services that Congress has legislated across many administrations. Many have devoted decades to serving us in jobs that we, through our representatives, created.
Any project of significant size can have some waste, some inefficiencies — good governance demands constant pruning and refining. But the all-out assault on civil servants is a disgrace. It is dishonest, cruel, deceptive and itself plagued by corruption and conflicts of interest, especially when done by billionaires pulling large amounts of money from federal contracts and those under investigation for unlawful practices and influence.
Musk seems to understand efficiency only in its most mechanical sense. In human affairs, efficiency is really about human dignity, connection, and trust — creating systems that serve people not terrorize or traumatize them.
Neither our president nor his partner seem to have the faintest inkling of what civil service is nor of its tremendous importance in this complex world where efficiency (as Musk presents with his Argentinian chainsaw) can overwhelm and destroy lives, often more quickly than it can help them; where helping people doesn’t even seem to be the goal.
Brian Dyer Stewart
Harrington
