Wilson began with the presumption that the behavior of bureaucrats and bureaucracies was purposive; that is, it was motivated by some goal or objective. He rejected the argument that the goals driving bureaucratic behavior were wholly, or even largely, determined by legislatures. Wilson noted that bureaucratic missions encapsulated in law tend to be vague (the goal of the Department of State, for example, is to “promote the long-range security and well-being of the nation”). Fuzzy exhortations to “do the right thing” are politically appealing, but they provide no hint of the specific actions a bureaucracy is expected to undertake. In Wilson’s terms, these goals do not define “operator tasks,” meaning they do not tell the frontline workers of a bureaucracy what they should be doing. These workers, whom Wilson termed the “operators,” are those whose work actually justifies the existence of a given organization—for example, teachers in a school, patrol officers in a law enforcement agency, or soldiers in an army (1989, 33–34).