Dangerous government
Friedrich Hayek says that in centrally-planned economies, an individual or a select group of individuals must determine the distribution of resources, these planners will never have enough information to carry out this allocation reliably.
This is true but incomplete.
All centralised systems are intrinsically unable to scale efficiently because the number of interactions is a geometric function of the number of participants: the overheads are crippling. Moral, social, ethical and other justifications are irrelevant for an unworkable system.
Whether they explicitly admit it or not, all governments and administrations know this. It is the conceptual foundation of representative government, mitigating the problem by reducing the number of participants. It is also the ostensible purpose for forming a working committee, even if the more worldly among us can all but hear Sir Humphrey explaining.
[Sir Humphrey] The purpose of a working committee is to contemplate a difficult and volatile issue in a politically neutral, ethically constructive and cautiously proactive manner until the press gets bored with it and the budget reallocated. Such important issues are never abandoned, but there is always so much to do that, regrettably, more than one idea - even the important and excellent ones, such as your own, Minister - may of necessity be held in abeyance pending more temporally commodious conditions. Tempus fugit, as they say, Minister. Tempus fugit.
[Minister] I've never heard anyone say that.
[Bernard] Yes you have, Minister. Sir Humphrey said it just now. Twice, if I'm not mistaken.
[Sir Humphrey] Thank you, Bernard, that will be all.
[Minister] That's all very well, but this is a time-sensitive issue, the will of the electorate is clear, and I am the Minister. I want something done, Humphrey.
[Sir Humphrey] Minister, I have anticipated your desire and the wheels are already in motion. Your proposal goes before the Allocations and Working Group Committee this very afternoon, at 3pm.
[Minister] 3pm? They break for tea and biscuits at 3-15, the whole lot of them will take one look at this fifty page document and declare an adjournment for consideration. It could be months before anything happens. Can't we pull it out and just take an executive decision?
[Sir Humphrey] Good heavens no, Minister. You've spared no pains to clarify the importance of this issue to everyone in this department, and several others. It wouldn't do to indulge in such an opprobrious breach of protocol. You'd never keep it quiet and your standing with the cabinet would never be quite the same.
It would be terrifying were it not so funny.