[Escapado]

I won't dispute that there is corruption and that there are still Nazis and right wing forces around - especially if you look in certain german states.

But if I am completely honest lots of government agencies and the people working there are entirely complacent with the state of bureaucracy because they don't feel like they can or need to change this sorry state of affairs. I had to wait more than two months to get an appointment to be able to formally leave the christian church to avoid paying church tax. When I went there the woman took my ID, started typing all my credentials into some interface of some government software for 10 minutes and then I could go. I don't even remember saying or hearing anything but "Hello", "ID Please" and "Bye".

Why can I not do that online with my ID? Why did she have to type in all my information and not get that from some other government body? Why is she even typing it at all of it's all on the ID and that could be scanned as they are entirely standardized. What did I wait for two months for?

When I talk to people who work for the government they tell me it's just the process and they simply don't question it. Sometimes some complain but there is little or nothing to be gained. And I think herein lies a bigger part of the problem. The structure does not reward or incentivise improvement.

And so I would argue the problem is not one of being publicly or privately owned but about the structures that provide incentive to offer good service. And if there is none - regardless of the ownership model - then most likely it will fall flat. When you have privately owned monopolies you see a similar effect - they don't need to improve affairs, they just need to stay in power.

[helge9210]

> Why can I not do that online with my ID? > Why is she even typing it at all

Social function of work. If you do it yourself, what will she do?

If you come up with a solution freeing hundreds of people doing some monkey jobs some in Germany will consider this evil, since people are losing their means of earning salary. This is more difficult with the officials, since they have guaranteed employment.

[Edit: typo]

[nforgerit]

German speaking here. Keeping people busy with bullsh*t jobs just for the sake of keeping them busy is not a good investment, not financially nor for the sanity of the people themselves.

In fact, in Germany you can see that it leads to government paralysis everywhere. In contrast, they should free "Staatsbeamte" from those stupid jobs and encourage them to start thinking themselves instead of blindly executing top-down commands. No jobs lost, but talent attracted. This eventually leads to operational excellence. The current state of affairs is overly defensive and reactionary.

[helge9210]

I live and work in Germany for almost two years now.

I witnessed at least two panic attacks caused by the implementation of your suggestion to "encourage them to start thinking themselves instead of blindly executing top-down commands".

[meghan_rain]

elaborate?

[lispm]

The church does not want you to leave, so they want to make it difficult. The government also has no interest to make that easier.

It has very little to do with bureaucracy. It's about supporting the large churches.

In some regions there is a lot of additional (social) pressure to prevent people from leaving the church.

[beebeepka]

> I had to wait more than two months to get an appointment to be able to formally leave the christian church to avoid paying church tax.

Learning something new every day. How does it work. When and how does one get signed up for this lovely tax

[eska]

You automatically get signed up for it if your parents were in the church and paid tax. You have to pay a fee to get out of it and keep your paper document forever in case the government forgets you don’t owe that tax for 20 years past