A DMV Tragedy

        When I turned 16, I was over the moon to finally be able to get my drivers license and all the freedom of driving myself to school in the morning and to my friends houses on the weekends. I went into the DMV on a Tuesday (yes I remember the day, as it would become a very terrible experience) to get my picture taken and officially get my drivers license. My mom and I walked into the building and the line was almost entirely to the door, and it was only 11:00 AM. We proceeded to wait in line for 3 hours before being able to actually talk to any kind of DMV employee. During that time I watched as numerous employees appeared to be highly relaxed while their customers waited anxiously and impatiently. I saw two ladies talking for 15 minutes, and laughing with each other before each calling forward their next customers. I watched a man take 4 separate coffee breaks in the course of 3 hours. No one seemed concerned with getting through the line, or being productive. Rather, customers waited for hours, and often times appeared to leave unhappy and unsatisfied with the directions they were given. The complications of the DMV, and the problems in how it is run and the customer service it has provided appears to have only increased since the COVID-19 pandemic too.

       From conversation in class, I have found that the things I witnessed that day are examples of shirking, or what happens when employees or agents do not perform the responsibilities or duties they were hired to do, or perform tasks fit to fulfill their own preferences rather than what they were assigned to do.  The DMV employees are on a salary, and do not have much incentive to get through the long line of customers, given that their output is difficult to measure (a dilemma that arises in bureaucracies such as the DMV), they gain no additional profit themselves for getting more customers through the line at any given day, and proper, strict supervision appears to be lacking in many of these institutions. There are some that suggest privatizing this bureaucratic system to solve these apparent structural inefficiencies, but driving and handling vehicle registrations is commonly seen as a public right, and privatizing this industry may create barriers for people to receive proper licenses.

Garfield for Virginia State Representative

 Election day was two weeks ago and although I did not vote myself, I did overhear a very interesting conversation between my roommates. When I heard my roommate voice their disappointment that they forgot their 'I voted' sticker (can be seen here) at home, I took the opportunity to investigate (as a diligent public choice student, obviously). It went something like this: 

"That's interesting," I said. "Would you say that's a large part of the utility you get from voting?"

She looked at me strange. "I guess? I mean it definitely has some appeal but I also vote because it's my civic duty." I was a bit taken aback by how easily she was able to identify this within herself.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Well, y'know, it's my responsibility to support the best candidate and take part in the election process. I do my research online, read about the candidates, and try to find one I like."

"And if you don't like any of them?"

"I won't hesitate to write one in. If I can't find any to write in, I'll write in a non-legitimate candidate." She chuckles. "I've written in Garfield before." Yes, Garfield, the lovable cartoon cat, with whom my roommate is somewhat obsessed.

"Garfield?"

"I write him in as a form of protest voting, and only when the other candidates really don't deserve my support."

"And the sticker helps?"

My roommate shrugs, "It's the only emotional payoff I get. Politics sucks but at least I can show others I voted."

"Yeah," my other roommate chimes in. "Part of the reason I vote is just to get people off my back. I've gotten some seriously doomsday-esque emails from professors reminding to vote because 'who knows how long we'll have the chance.'"

I learned a lot from this talk. Even though my roommate incurred costs to educate herself, she was prepared to vote for a candidate that not only wouldn't win but didn't exist. And although my roommate forgot to wear her 'I voted' sticker that day, it's now stuck to the November 8th slot on her calendar, as a meaningful memento from that day.

Who would have thought so many voting motivations could be validated in such a short conversation? I think Mueller would be proud.

"The Surplus": Dunder Mifflin as a Bureaucracy?

 Season 5, Episode 10 of The Office is entitled “The Surplus.” In it, accountant Oscar Martinez finds a surplus of $4,300 in the office’s budget. After revealing this surplus to boss Michael Scott, the office workers spend the episode arguing how best to spend those $4,300. Hilarity ensues. While the office in question is not a bureaucracy as strictly defined in class, the opening scene suggests there are some bureaucratic elements to the business of Dunder Mifflin, Scranton. 

A few of the assumptions laid out my Niskanen are satisfied by the expressed goals of Mr. Martinez and Mr. Scott. First of all, Oscar’s statements imply that they want to have as big a budget as possible next year, satisfying assumption one (maximize budget). Next, in the lemonade stand analogy presented by Oscar, he suggests hiding the true costs from the upper levels of the business. If Michael and Oscar are successfully able to hide the true costs from the CFO, assumption three (true costs known only to senior bureaucrat) has been satisfied. Additionally, Oscar says, “we have to spend [the surplus] by the end of the day or it will be deducted from next year’s budget.” This implies the office wants to use all of their budget, which fulfills assumption five (use all their budget). Assumption two is a little difficult to analyze in this context, and I don’t think assumption four holds. Nonetheless, there are certainly some bureaucratic elements of the Dunder Mifflin, Scranton. The manager and his accountants serve as the senior bureaucrat, and the CFO and board of the company essentially act as the legislators. This likely helps explain some of the inefficiency and economic slack this office is known for in the show (see this parkour example).