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John_Maxwell_IV comments on Political ideas meant to provoke thought - Less Wrong
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How are they so incentivized?
There is a rich literature, normally referred to as "public choice", which looks at the incentives facing government officials. There's far too much to describe in a short reply, but the Wikipedia article is a good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
If you employ someone to work on problem X, under what circumstances does that person have an incentive to tell you that ...
For instance, if you employ a Witchfinder General, whose job it is to locate witches and prosecute them for laying curses that sicken their neighbors' cattle, that person may resist coming to the realization that cattle get sick due to pathogens, not curses ....
Fortunately, bureaucrats are part of a wider ecosystem including opposition politicians and journalists, both of whichparties are well motivated to seek out waste and ineffectiveness.
We vote for politicians that do what we want them to do, not for ones that are successful. For example, we might decide that we want to increase minimum wage, and regardless of if that's a good idea, increasing it will help a politician win the election.
They are also incentivized to do what people who pay for lobbyists want them to do, since they need campaign contributions to win the election.