Little stood in the way of arbitrary exercises of power. Bureaucracy is a hallmark of civilized society. Even oppressive bureaucracies are better than the brutal chaos that preceded them. Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman bureaucrats regularized relations between citizens and state by applying consistent codes of conduct expressed through bureaucratic process. Pharaoh mobilized Egypt's vast bureaucratic apparatus to store grain during the fabled seven abundant years.
Bureaucracies have paradigms of their own.
In the paperwork paradigm, citizens go to a government office, wait in line, fill out forms, perhaps wait in another line, talk with clerks and, with luck, get what they came for. So customers must take time off from their jobs to endure this paper-based process. I have little doubt that this contributes to government's unpopularity. Under an ideal e-business paradigm, a citizen would log on to a government Web site using a private key. The site would verify the person's identity with a public key, and the confidential transaction would begin.