Bureaucracy Is Dead: Meet the Philosopher Replacing Government with Personal Satisfaction

In a world where government and bureaucracy have long since ceased to serve the individual and have become self-justifying mechanisms demanding obedience, Professor Avraham Ehrlich proposes a revolutionary theory: at its center lies human satisfaction—not as a vague ideal, but as a functional metric of a just state.

Ehrlich calls for a reexamination of power, law, and governance—not as structures of dominance but as technologies of service: tools to serve the individual, not subjugate them. According to him, the act of ruling over another is, paradoxically, a form of trust—even if unconscious—granted by the ruled. But this "trust" emerges from a lack of alternatives, a lack of transparency, and a culture of obedience, and may prevent from achiving higher forms of trust and cooperation.

From this insight emerges a profound demand: to dismantle mechanisms of control through accurate, technological, and measurable reflection, where intimate knowledge of a person’s needs becomes the barometer of governance. No longer should authority dictate solutions—it must function as a responsive system, calibrated to the defined value of individual satisfaction.

Drawing inspiration from a critical reading of Hegel and in contrast to Plato, Ehrlich identifies bureaucracy as a remnant of primitive control, fossilized into ideology. His revolution is to dismantle the “value monopoly” of the official or the institution, and return value-judgment to the individual. A regime where the individual evaluates the government—not the other way around.

The peak of his vision lies in a proposed constitutional framework, in which the supreme law is neither equality, nationalism, nor even liberty—but “The Basic Law: Individual Satisfaction.” This law forms the foundation of the social covenant, requiring all state mechanisms to aim not only for public order but for private, personalized resolution.

In place of traditional hierarchies of rulers and ruled, Ehrlich proposes a renewed structure: the “Ministers of Tens, Hundreds, and Thousands”—not a nostalgic replication of biblical councils, but a futuristic management model powered by AI. In this model, every individual receives attention, listening, and a personalized solution—within a clear timeframe, and under a system that measures itself by its success in solving individual problems.

This is a bold fusion of the biblical and the technological, of Moses and modern automation. Bureaucracy, which in previous generations demanded blind loyalty, becomes a “ministering angel”—a coded, accountable, and service-bound system.

It is no surprise that Ehrlich’s philosophy is gaining renewed relevance in a post-messianic era. It breaks the ancient political cycle described by Polybius—of democracy turning into oligarchy, then into dictatorship—and reveals this loop as a sadomasochistic, Kafkaesque ritual in which the citizen eternally bows before an invisible system.

But in Ehrlich’s vision, there is a new Exodus.

It is technological.

It is principled.

And it is functional.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be diving deeper into this groundbreaking vision—unpacking its principles, implications, and the bold future it dares to imagine.