Once in a while, someone out there agrees with the sometimes random thoughts that get ink in my column. Last week, a good friend called to say that while our politics usually differ, he thought we were on the same page for a change. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

For a while, my friend was involved in county government. When he took his place in Chesterfield government, he thought that the county needed to run like a business. But it wasn’t long before he realized that the management of government and business management are so different they will never come together.

Can the words bureaucracy and business ever be synonymous? Aren’t government and creativity contradictory? A bureaucracy is meticulous to a fault; it’s obsessive about accurate record-keeping. There’s a system in place and the system is followed until someone further up in the hierarchy somehow changes the rules.

Famous social scientist Max Weber’s stated, “that a good bureaucracy removed or reduced opportunities for corruption, favoritism and arbitrary exercises of power. Bureaucracy may concentrate power (at the top), but also provides for checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power.”

Weber says, “Sometimes extra paperwork is added to a system to make corruption or favoritism more difficult. This almost certainly makes the system less efficient, but is supposed to make it more equitable.”

So my friend had hit the nail on the head. No matter how much we hate the way a bureaucracy works, it is an inevitable part of government. A small business can be flexible, and change direction or policy quickly to react to the market. Bureaucracies are slow and cumbersome and any shifts in policy or fiscal direction can take time.

I believe that is something we don’t quite understand when we find our governments -- local, state, federal -- slowly going broke. These behemoths cannot react, change direction, find new funding or create jobs fast enough because this time they were caught looking. Of course, smaller government bodies are a slightly more agile and can adjust quicker, but when they’re also tied to the lumbering bodies of state and federal government, budgeting becomes a much more difficult task.

Chesterfield and the Richmond metro area were a little late in feeling the crunch. I remember hearing about economic problems in other parts of the country long before we heard the sucking sound here.

Once the economic crisis hit our home, the Village News felt the effect immediately and over a matter of a couple of months we hunkered down, made adjustments and are now waiting it out. I remember telling a friend in Chesterfield’s finance department at the time about what we were feeling. He said dismissively, “I guess you’re a leading indicator then.”

Chesterfield cut back a little at the time, but it had to wait for the following year’s budget to make significant changes to its budget.

I don’t think there is any way to change the way the bureaucratic side of government works. And in fact, we probably shouldn’t change it, not totally.  As Mr. Weber says, bureaucracy offers safeguards for us. While it may be aggravating when we have to deal with it, it has its place.

Yes, government is cumbersome and slow to react, but react it does. If you look at it positively, as they figure out how to turn the ship, the ship will turn and eventually we’ll get back on course. And in the end we’ll reach our port.

On the other hand, it’s our job to lean on our elected officials (not bureaucrats) to do their due diligence and captain the ship. The problem is that unless they are substantive leaders, they won’t be able to turn the bureaucracy and pilot us to safety.

Bureaucrats know that elected officials come and go on a regular cycle and their influence is temporary. I can see the roll of eyes when a less-than-competent elected official tries to influence how things are done in the county. The problem is sometimes these people are elected over and over and the bureaucrats become more and more independent and contemptuous. We need strong leaders, especially now; leaders who will stand up for their constituents in a non-ideological way.

So while we should tighten our proverbial ship, maybe toss a couple of seamen overboard and reduce the size of the buffet, we always need to keep in mind that we can’t throw everyone overboard, we can’t close the buffet and we can’t bunk our passengers 10 to a room. The ship needs staff, some seamen and a good captain, to remain viable, just as government needs some staff, a good solid bureaucratic hierarchy with an effective manager and a group of elected leaders that understand the reality and dynamics of a bureaucracy.