ABSTRACT
Traditional political theory, the theory inherited from Aristotle, holds that the tasks of government are grounded in the nature of civil society and, thus, are immutable: defense, justice, law and order. However, very few of the tasks of modern public administration, whether governmental or non-governmental public service institutions, such as the hospital, the Red Cross, the university, or the Boy Scouts, are of that nature. The public service administrator who wants results and performance will, thus, have to build into his own organization an organized process for abandonment. Everyone in public administration knows most administrators commit most of the "sins" all the time and, indeed, all of them most of the time. The malperformance of public service institutions may well be a symptom only. The cause may be far more basic: a crisis in the very foundations and assumptions on which rests that proudest achievement of the Modern Age, national administrative government.
