Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses, and Abuses

Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1977. First Printing [Stated]. Trade paperback. Good. 22 cm. ix, [1], 100, [2] pages. Wraps. Illustrations. Footnotes. Cover has some wear and soiling. Pencil erasure residue on title page. Kaufman takes us on an unblinking tour of the dismal landscape of red tape. But he also shows us another side of red tape, one we often forget. Red tape is how government protects us from tainted food, shoddy products, and unfair labor practices. It guarantees a social safety net for the elderly, the disabled, children, veterans, and victims of natural disasters. One person's red tape is another person's protection. Most people talk about red tape as thought it were a loathsome disease or the product of evil conspirators or the result of bureaucratic stupidity. Kaufman attempts a detached examination of the subject to find out why something so universally detested flourishes so widely and enjoys such powers of endurance. Each of us applies it to our own pet grievances, not realizing that other people's grievances are often quite different from our own. The first part of the book identifies a shared understanding. The second part searches for the origins of the despised phenomenon in the federal government. Red tape, according to this analysis, springs largely from the diversity of values to which people in our society subscribe, and from the responsiveness of the government to the demands. Kaufman concludes that a more fruitful policy would be to concentrate on relieving the worst of red tape's irritants so as to make bearable what we cannot end, and he explores several steps he believes will have this effect.