WORK AND WEALTH 
wider view of public interest from which the departmental public 
official is, by the necessity of his situation, precluded. That 
claim of the public employee is frequently misunderstood. It 
does not arise from any real or pretended opposition of interests 
between the public and a group of its employees, and a claim on 
the part of the latter that the public shall make some concession 
or sacrifice to their particular group interest. There is no such 
real opposition of interests. The valid claim for an appeal from 
the arbitrary decisions of the public departmental managers is 
based upon the fact that the latter are disqualified for a full im- 
partial view of the public interest, so far as that public interest 
is affected by the conditions of employment of the employees 
under them. The fact that the employees are often likely to 
make unreasonable demands and to claim in wages, hours and 
other conditions, an excessive share of the public revenue, does 
not affect the validity of this contention. For practical conven- 
ience official departmentalism exists. But this departmentalism 
involves a business management essentially defective from the 
standpoint of public welfare, inasmuch as it tends to depreciate 
or overlook the interest which the public has in the total welfare 
of that section of the public which is in its direct employment. 
§ 11. Of course, in treating the issue of a public business as if 
it consisted simply in reconciling the immediate interests of the 
consuming public with those of the public employees, we have 
intentionally excluded another view which may often be more 
important. State socialism may be run primarily in the interests, 
neither of the citizen-consumer nor of the employer, but of the 
bureaucracy, who here occupy the place of the capitalist-managers 
under private enterprise. The official may be held to be naturally 
disposed to magnify his office and to abuse any power which can 
be made to subserve his personal or class interests. Practical 
permanency of tenure of his office, and the special knowledge 
which it brings, enable him, with safety, either to neglect his 
public duties, or to encroach upon the liberties of citizens, accord- 
ing as he is lethargic or self-assertive. He may squander the 
resources of the public upon ill-considered projects, or in serving 
the private interests of his friends. Or, he may practice a tyran- 
nical or a niggardly policy towards his employees, not through 
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