Bureaucracies bloat because they gradually fill up with the sort of bureaucrats who seek foremost to expand their own dominion. From the individual perspective of such a bureaucrat, the more people they have working under them, the more important they are. From this individual selfish incentive, bureaucratic bloat becomes an emergent phenomenon.
Or put another way:
> Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
> First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
> Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
> The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.