The Administrative State—A Republic No More

American government has been markedly changed since the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, who instituted the New Deal. A plethora of autonomous agencies have been organized and have served to manage governmental affairs without adequate executive or legislative supervision. Hundreds of these agencies are active today.

The rise of the administrative state that is such an integral feature of modern liberalism and Progressive policies has required the defeat of the separation of powers as a governing principle, as it was originally understood, and its replacement by a system that allows delegations of power, combination of functions, and the insulation of administration from the full measure of political and legal control.

I have written an extensive paper on this subject, which I am not going to post on my blog, because it is a bit too long for the usual reader. Anyone interested in this subject is welcome to write to me; and I will gladly send you my more complete description of this problem. My e-mail address is enmanring@hotmail.com.  

The problems posed by the development of the administrative state is the prototypical problem described in the recent book by Jay Cost—A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption. Mr. Cost has repeatedly pointed out in his book that our American polity has developed without adequate structural change to keep up with the functional requirements to justify these administrative changes.