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 am bit more optimistic then he was in that it I am assuming (hoping
that it is possible) that a bureaucracy can be forced to stay focused on
what it is supposed to accomplish. It does require significant effort
from higher authority (who are NEVER selected from the bureaucrats in
question). BTW, if "FIRMLY" requires executing 1% of the bureaucrats
every decade, you must execute that many.

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.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com