Comments on: Bureaucratic Culture’s Penultimate Expression

By: pst314

pst314 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:53:06 +0000

I liked what Niven and Pournelle did to bureaucrats in their novel “Infero”: Hammurabi’s secretary, who invented bureaucratic recordkeeping, is told that he can leave Hell if he fills out the paperwork…in his native language cuneiform…on clay tablets…in a Hell with the ambient temperature of a blast furnace.

By: david foster

david foster — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:11:32 +0000

“Bureaucrat” and “government worker” aren’t precisely identical, although they tend to be correlated. Many government workers do productive things that are not primarily about paper-shuffling…soldiers, firefighters, policemen, air traffic controllers, medical researchers, etc. And there is a large and growing class of people in the private sector whose jobs and behavior *are* bureaucratic.

Indeed, in a typical week, the average individual probably encounters more obnoxious private bureaucracies than obnoxious government bureaucracies.

Fortunately, though, members of private bureaucracies can’t vote themselves higher compensation, to be forcibly extracted from the general population. (Members of pseudo-public/pseudo-private organizations, like those the current administration seems to belive in, *can* and will.)

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:01:22 +0000

Elambend,

We’ve long since exceeded that threshold. Nearly 20% of U.S. workforce now works for government. If you assume that only 1 in 4 would qualify as bureaucrat, then that means that 1 in 20 American workers is a bureaucrat. Since the workforce is a third of the population that means we have 1 bureaucrat for every 60 citizens (including children, students, welfare dependent and retirees.)

By: elambend

elambend — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:34:15 +0000

Chinese Bureaucracies in the past grew to as much as one bureaucrat per 500 people. They got to this mass several times before falling apart.

By: Laura(southernxyl)

Laura(southernxyl) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:23:03 +0000

Only authorized rebellion will be allowed. Within certain limits.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:14:21 +0000

Jimbino,

penultimate: last but one in a series of things; second to the last : the penultimate chapter of the book.

Unfortunately this nonsense, both the comical and tragic, isn’t the worst that things can get. Britain can fall further. Thus penultimate.

By: jimbino

jimbino — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:27:33 +0000

I don’t think the word you were looking for was “penultimate.”

By: Dan from Madison

Dan from Madison — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:49:59 +0000

Shannon – thanks for the link to that Failblog, I am making it part of my daily read from now on. There is some AWESOME stuff there.

By: david foster

david foster — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:53:52 +0000

Good post as usual, Shannon. Regarding rigid rule-following, I posted some related thoughts: ZERO TOLERANCE - ZERO JUDGMENT - ZERO COMPASSION and PHILIP QUEEG PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL