Every day, anonymous bureaucrats make decisions that will have a profound effect on people’s lives. These decisions are as boring as they are important, and I suspect that most people are okay with the process to a degree — civilization requires a certain amount of paperwork. The problem comes when the usual unhelpfulness and rule-following of civil servants is mixed with something worse: favoritism. What frustrates people I talk to at home is that the bureaucracy actually does work — you just need a $300 an hour lobbyist to make it go in your favor.