That's the $64,000 question. I don't know the answer, and I doubt it can be answered in a forum comment or blog post. The best I can do is throw out some ideas.
Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy[1] - a sufficiently large bureaucracy will come to be dominated by an oligarchy, which will act to defend its own interests rather than to achieve the stated goals of the organization.
A corollary of this observation:
A bureaucracy whose existence is not externally influenced by its ability to achieve its goals will work against those goals. To achieve its goals would be to negate the reason for its existence, which would have negative consequences for the oligarchy. A key point here is "externally influenced by its ability to achieve its goals" - a business which does not achieve its goals will lose to its competitors, whereas a government agency or NGO designed to reduce poverty will only become stronger if poverty actually increases.
This leads to Conquest's Second Law of Politics[2] - every organisation appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents. The question then, - Why is the movement always leftward? In his original article[3] O'Sullivan says "the people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don't like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy takes over — and the rest follows."
Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy[1] - a sufficiently large bureaucracy will come to be dominated by an oligarchy, which will act to defend its own interests rather than to achieve the stated goals of the organization.
A corollary of this observation: A bureaucracy whose existence is not externally influenced by its ability to achieve its goals will work against those goals. To achieve its goals would be to negate the reason for its existence, which would have negative consequences for the oligarchy. A key point here is "externally influenced by its ability to achieve its goals" - a business which does not achieve its goals will lose to its competitors, whereas a government agency or NGO designed to reduce poverty will only become stronger if poverty actually increases.
This leads to Conquest's Second Law of Politics[2] - every organisation appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents. The question then, - Why is the movement always leftward? In his original article[3] O'Sullivan says "the people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don't like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy takes over — and the rest follows."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest
[3] http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback-jos062603....