I'm French, we probably have the biggest number of civil servants to population ratio in the world.

We're not dysfunctional (yet?) like parent described so I'm not sure every problem in Texas can be attributed to bureaucracy.

Not intending to comment on your broader point, I'm just amused at remembering a story that hit HN last month about a French woman who was accidentally (or possibly maliciously) declared legally dead, and has unsuccessfully spent five years attempting to convince the bureaucracy that she is alive: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/03/they-sa...

The irony in this story is that we're still paying retirements of hundred of thousands people that are actually dead.

So now that you make me think of it, we might actually be as dysfunctional as Texas but we just have better weather so it's not apparent as much.