Pournelle's Law

The Economist quotes Sir Keir Starmer:

Policy churn is the 'single most important reason' for the [UK's] economic malaise. Sir Keir Starmer: bureaucrat first, politician second, the 'Economist', 24 February

There is some truth there, but what explains policy churn? Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy tells us that: 

[I]n 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.

I've written (here, for example) about the swerving of organisations away from their ideals and ultimately becoming self-perpetuation. I think it applies to every type of organisation, public- and private-sector. In my understanding, policy churn follows from this: it's a result of politicians wishing to retain control over their bureaucracies. Whereas, under a Social Policy Bond regime, the incentives to achieve society's targeted goals would cascade downwards, under our current political systems the incentives of our publicly-funded bodies are to maintain their income in an environment that, thanks to policy churn, is  constantly changing. The result is the short-term thinking and learned helplessness of our bureaucracies. A bond regime would encourage the creation of a new type of organisation: one whose structure and every activity would be entirely subordinate to society's targeted goals.