All ideas of the usefulness of bureaucracy will be killed once you read this real-life example of a back-to-back comparison in the 1930s

 A brilliant book by a well-known man who was part of the competition for airship design in the 1920s-30s. 

See here: 056 - Shute and R 101 

Nevil Shute says of the (intelligent can consciencius) civil servants of his day. “A politician or a civil servant is an arrogant fool to me unless proved otherwise…. The men in question put their jobs before their duty… In this case a number of high civil servants shirked their duty in order to preserve their jobs.” (p. 147)

Enjoy!