Lalit Shastri

Anthropologist David Graeber argued that modern capitalism manufactures vast quantities of meaningless work—not for economic efficiency, but for political control. In his view, economies no longer need most people’s labour, but they still need their compliance. Work, therefore, has been transformed into a moral credential and a disciplinary tool.

This thesis, unsettling as it may sound, begins to feel uncomfortably real when examined against the architecture of governance—especially in countries where administration has grown heavier even as outcomes have worsened.

A revealing counterpoint exists in Switzerland.

Why the Swiss Model Works

Switzerland is organised into cantons—federal units that function as near-sovereign entities rather than subordinate civic bodies. Unlike municipal corporations or local authorities in India, cantons are not delivery arms of a distant bureaucracy. They possess real political, fiscal, and administrative autonomy.

The crucial distinction lies here: cantons govern, municipalities merely administer.

In Switzerland, municipalities are clearly and unambiguously subordinate to cantons. Their powers, functions, and finances flow from canton-level authority, leaving no confusion about where decision-making rests or who is accountable. Authority aligns with responsibility, and responsibility is backed by fiscal power.

Because cantons raise and manage their own revenues, frame policies suited to local realities, and remain directly accountable to citizens, there is little space—or need—for sprawling supervisory hierarchies. Administrative layers remain lean, decision-making is swift, and accountability is visible. The system does not generate jobs merely to justify control.

Singapore: Centralisation Without Administrative Bloat

Switzerland is not the only rebuttal to administrative excess. Singapore offers a structurally opposite—but equally instructive—model.

Where Switzerland decentralises authority, Singapore centralises it. Yet both systems arrive at the same destination: lean administration, high accountability, and an absence of meaningless work.

Singapore’s governance is tightly centralised but relentlessly outcome-driven. Ministries are compact, hierarchies shallow, and mandates precise. Officials are well-compensated, rigorously evaluated, and swiftly removed if they fail. There is no incentive to create posts merely to supervise other posts. Jobs exist to solve problems, not to preserve organisational turf.

Automation is embraced, simplification is continuous, and administrative reduction is treated as a permanent objective—not a reform slogan.

Switzerland prevents bureaucratic inflation through decentralisation.
Singapore disciplines it through consequences.
India does neither.

India’s Municipal Paradox

India’s municipal corporations occupy a deeply dysfunctional space.

They are democratically elected, yet administratively captive.

Mayors and councillors are chosen by the people, but real authority over day-to-day functioning rests with state-appointed bureaucrat commissioners who sit at the apex of municipal corporations. These commissioners control finances, staffing, contracts, and execution, while elected representatives are reduced to debating forums with limited operational power.

This bureaucratic stranglehold hollows out urban democracy.

Accountability flows upward to state secretariats rather than downward to citizens. Political responsibility exists without administrative authority, while administrative authority exists without political accountability.

As a result, Indian municipal corporations are over-administered but under-empowered—burdened with responsibilities without autonomy, visibility without control, and procedures without outcomes. Neither fully sovereign nor clearly subordinate, they become ideal breeding grounds for administrative excess.

This structural ambiguity inevitably creates what Graeber described as “bullshit jobs”—roles that exist not because they are socially necessary, but because the system requires bodies to manage its own confusion.

A Top-Heavy Bureaucracy

The same logic extends upward.

India’s elite services—particularly the Indian Administrative Service—have evolved into an overly top-heavy structure. Authority concentrates at the apex, while execution is diluted across endless layers. Promotions reward conformity rather than outcomes, and risk-taking is actively discouraged.

This is not a comment on individuals. There are many able and sincere officers who have prevented total administrative breakdown. But even integrity struggles to survive within a system designed more for control than delivery.

Administrative excess is compounded by institutionalised impunity. Corruption cases against senior officials rarely reach logical closure. Files seeking permission to prosecute often remain pending for years—even after investigations are completed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

When accountability requires permission from the same system it threatens, punishment becomes improbable. And when punishment is improbable, corruption becomes rational.

Artificial Intelligence: The End of the Excuse—and the Start of a Test

Artificial Intelligence has now exposed the hollowness of this model.

AI is not merely automating routine tasks; it is eliminating entire categories of clerical, supervisory, and compliance-driven work that bureaucracies have relied upon for decades. Tasks that once required layers of files, forms, approvals, and personnel can now be executed faster, cheaper, and more accurately by machines.

This is not a future scenario. It is already happening.

Productive work in the AI era demands new capabilities: analytical reasoning, problem-solving, digital literacy, and ethical judgment—rather than rote processing and rule-following.

Yet systems built on hierarchical control instinctively resist AI—not because it threatens employment, but because it threatens control. Automation collapses supervision. It exposes redundancy. It makes meaningless work impossible to justify.

AI Also Runs on Power

There is, however, a reality often glossed over in AI evangelism: AI runs on energy.

Data centres, server farms, cloud infrastructure, and high-performance computing place enormous and continuous demands on electricity grids. Without reliable, scalable power generation and grid resilience, AI remains cosmetic—limited to dashboards and pilot projects.

Countries serious about AI invest simultaneously in energy capacity, grid upgrades, and infrastructure planning. Where governance is bloated and indecisive, power projects stall and AI ambitions rest on fragile foundations.

Without energy, AI will not eliminate meaningless work.
It will merely digitise it.

A Message for Madhya Pradesh—and Other States

This makes the recent announcement by the Madhya Pradesh government to implement AI in mission mode both timely and consequential.

For such an initiative to succeed, AI must be approached not as a software upgrade but as a systems reform. Mission-mode AI requires parallel planning for assured and scalable energy generation, grid stability capable of supporting data centres, local and decentralised server infrastructure, and large-scale reskilling aligned with AI-enabled decision-making.

Equally important is intent. Using AI to reduce layers, accelerate decisions, eliminate redundant supervision, and empower frontline governance will transform administration. Using AI merely to digitise existing bureaucracy will only automate inefficiency.

AI should not be used to make a heavy system faster.
It should be used to make the system lighter.

If Madhya Pradesh integrates AI with energy planning, skills development, and administrative simplification, it has the opportunity to demonstrate how technology can serve governance rather than decorate it.

The Choice Before India

Switzerland demonstrates that decentralised authority reduces administrative bulk, enhances accountability, and eliminates the need for meaningless work. Singapore demonstrates that even centralised systems can remain lean—provided accountability is ruthless and outcomes non-negotiable.

India, by contrast, has built governance models that centralise power without consequence and decentralise responsibility without authority—generating jobs to preserve hierarchy rather than to serve citizens.

If India wishes to compete in an AI-driven, fast-moving world—where data, skills, and energy converge—reform cannot be incremental.

It requires dismantling redundant layers, empowering genuinely autonomous local units, enforcing time-bound accountability, reskilling the workforce, and redefining governance as service—not surveillance.

Modern capitalism may no longer need most people’s labour.
But India must decide whether its governance system exists to keep people busy—or to let them think, learn, create, and participate.

That choice will determine whether administration remains theatre, or finally becomes governance.