Re: (ReacTor) The System Works

In article <vs3uji$ksdm$1@dont-email.me>,
Mike Van Pelt  <usenet@mikevanpelt.com> wrote:

In article <robertaw-A4A11E.10151017032025@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward  <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:

Bureaucracies can stay on track if kept FIRMLY in hand. However, it is
my contention that the bigger a bureaucracy becomes, the less
intelligent it behaves (thus the jokes about military intelligence).

>
Ah, but who will bell the cat?
>
  Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy:
>
  In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the
  bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to
  the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have
  less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
>
I suspect bureaucracies might be considered to be behaving
intelligently if you take into account that their purpose
is entirely to expand the scope, power, and resources of the
bureaucracy, and nothing else.

I believe almost forgotten Hugo winner Mark Clifton wrote of this
though the story name escapes me.  (It wouldn't have been _They'd
Rather Be Right_ since I never read that (though I suppose he could
have also had the trope there)).
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