As Saunders points out, there is nothing new in the right's antipathy to the state. Mulroney's neoliberal vanguard came to power in 1984 promising to furnish civil servants with "pink slips and running shoes." While it is reasonable to expect value and a degree of transparency from the civil service, it is also appropriate to acknowledge — in principle — the day-to-day, non-partisan expertise that civil servants bring to policy management; the standard explanation for job descriptions on the ship of state suggests that politicians "steer" while the civil service "rows"  — although, personally, I prefer the metaphor that likens the role of the civil service to that of the maritime "pilot." The bottom line is that the right hates the state to the extent that it represents an impediment to the unfettered accumulation of capital — hence the antipathy to the rule of law, regulation, human rights, taxation and even expertise (other than accumulating capital), which is, apparently, "elitist."