Within a free economy competitive forces provide rapid feedback, swiftly rewarding successful innovations and punishing failures. These characteristics hold great potential for improving environmental quality. This is the powerful force discounted or neglected by the early greens. Economies, like ecosystems are complex and dynamic, evolving spontaneously, from the bottom up. In stark contrast, the bureaucracies greens seek are largely immune from these evolutionary forces.
Agencies become parasitic when they are buffered from the consequences of their actions.
In the end, bureaucracies are run for the benefit of the bureaucrats in them and the clientele upon whom they depend. Thus, we should not be surprised when agencies like the U.S. Forest Service systematically advocated environmentally costly and financially wasteful programs. This once proud agency squandered its reputation and good will and is having a terrible time earning it back. Political pressures inhibit meaningful reform. As people become better educated and more wealthy, their demand for a quality environment increases dramatically.