In 1792 the government had 780 employees. Today the federal government has about 3 million employees. State and local governments have about 20 million employees. The size of the federal bureaucracy peaked during World War 2 and has been slowly declining since the war. Bureaucracy has it's roots in the military and church who were the first to use bureaucratic structures.
Bureaucracy is a hierarchy.
The higher up the less people. It is based on specialized tasks and division of labor. Almost all industrialized countries have a bureaucratic structure. Our country's bureaucracy is much smaller compared to other countries. Other countries spend much more money on their bureaucracies and present many more benefits such as a free college education and free health care.