A major contributor to this is the mindless budgeting process in large organizations: by default, the budget for each department is set based on how much that department had spent the previous year, because management has no idea how much value is actually produced. In fact, management rarely knows the value of anything, as that would take a more serious effort.
And then you go and write about how bureaucracy hurts biology:
Almost ten years earlier, a French couple from Grignols, in the Dordogne, found themselves in an unenviable position. Their neighbours had sued them for the disturbance created by the loudly croaking frogs in the natural pond in their garden, and the court had ordered them to fill in the pond. However, some of the frogs were a protected species, and the couple risked two years in jail and fines of €150,000 if they moved the frogs or filled the pond. Eventually, in March 2021 – after a nine-year legal battle that went all the way to the highest court in France – the Cour de Cassation ordered the pond drained and the frogs moved elsewhere. It seems happy endings for frogs only happen in fairytales.
BTW here in rural Japan the frogs croak in the rice paddies every summer. The sounds of frogs and cicadas and so on is welcomed as a sign of nature.
I don't know what the actual law is in Japan, but I am absolutely certain that a new resident to a community in Japan who complained about the noise of frogs or the smell of licestock or whatever would get absolutely nowhere. If such people actually took it to court they might win (after a decade or more) or they might not, but they would be shunned by the community for the entire time and likely discover they had all sorts of problems of their own that would be borderline harassment. The local council would be inspecting their garbage to make sure they were disposing of things correctly, if their car was not 100% parked on their property the police would give them a fine and so on.
Standing in a small valley in a building museum village near Narita airport, with preserved traditional farming practices, the sense of life everywhere, Shinto made so much more sense to me. The feel of an otherworld just beyond one’s immediate senses has never felt so present.
I have considerable sympathy for the respect for nature bits of shinto and always get a kick of the shrines at the tops of mountains and so on.
Mind you "traditional farming" is not really true round here given the use of drones to spray the paddies etc. But the farmers do give us a small sachet of rice to apologize for the noise each time they spray which is roughly twice a year
Japan also has shrill cicadas - I’ve heard them - but people welcome them too. Interesting what social pressure and mores can accomplish, regardless of what the law is.
Excellent distillation! Something that I can never unsee is when someone said that budgets, forecasts and the like are merely predictions no different from chicken entrails, astrology or reading tea leaves.
Modern Spreadsheets are cover for modern rituals to legitimise them doing nothing.
(Yes, there are definitely uses for data and numbers, but there's also a lot of absolute useless data constantly being collected.)
Perhaps our descendents will look back at this time and think of us as superstitous materialists.
Catching up on my reading, I found this. I would not argue with anything you say about bureaucracy, having spent twenty years of my life laboring in the fields of the Lord in one of Australia's largest bureaucratic institutions, at a very low level. I retired on a nice pension. However, my husband at the same time worked as a tradesman/contractor at one of Australia's largest steel companies. He used to come home with stories that made my place of work seem a miracle of efficiency and rationalism. He and his immediate boss would scratch their heads and wonder at which mastermind had decreed the latest work order for them to make concrete reality and speculate if it was a room full of monkeys typing. His boss would say: 'Just take their money, Brendan, just take their money". Many times in the Office where I worked, people would say things life: 'this wouldn't happen in private industry'. I had to respectfully disagree.
The notion that (1) there is not corporate bureaucracy and (2) such bureaucracy is always efficient, is very silly. Bankruptcy, it exists for a reason.
“Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.“
A major contributor to this is the mindless budgeting process in large organizations: by default, the budget for each department is set based on how much that department had spent the previous year, because management has no idea how much value is actually produced. In fact, management rarely knows the value of anything, as that would take a more serious effort.
great analysis
Excellent post. Thank you.
And then you go and write about how bureaucracy hurts biology:
Almost ten years earlier, a French couple from Grignols, in the Dordogne, found themselves in an unenviable position. Their neighbours had sued them for the disturbance created by the loudly croaking frogs in the natural pond in their garden, and the court had ordered them to fill in the pond. However, some of the frogs were a protected species, and the couple risked two years in jail and fines of €150,000 if they moved the frogs or filled the pond. Eventually, in March 2021 – after a nine-year legal battle that went all the way to the highest court in France – the Cour de Cassation ordered the pond drained and the frogs moved elsewhere. It seems happy endings for frogs only happen in fairytales.
https://www.whatkatydid.net/p/when-the-cow-moos-it-moos-for-thee#footnote-anchor-2-143412224
Oui! Les pauvres grenouilles… et les mauvais bureaucrates.
BTW here in rural Japan the frogs croak in the rice paddies every summer. The sounds of frogs and cicadas and so on is welcomed as a sign of nature.
I don't know what the actual law is in Japan, but I am absolutely certain that a new resident to a community in Japan who complained about the noise of frogs or the smell of licestock or whatever would get absolutely nowhere. If such people actually took it to court they might win (after a decade or more) or they might not, but they would be shunned by the community for the entire time and likely discover they had all sorts of problems of their own that would be borderline harassment. The local council would be inspecting their garbage to make sure they were disposing of things correctly, if their car was not 100% parked on their property the police would give them a fine and so on.
Standing in a small valley in a building museum village near Narita airport, with preserved traditional farming practices, the sense of life everywhere, Shinto made so much more sense to me. The feel of an otherworld just beyond one’s immediate senses has never felt so present.
If you come out to my part of rural Japan you'll feel it even more.
https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/enmusubi-life
I have considerable sympathy for the respect for nature bits of shinto and always get a kick of the shrines at the tops of mountains and so on.
Mind you "traditional farming" is not really true round here given the use of drones to spray the paddies etc. But the farmers do give us a small sachet of rice to apologize for the noise each time they spray which is roughly twice a year
Japan also has shrill cicadas - I’ve heard them - but people welcome them too. Interesting what social pressure and mores can accomplish, regardless of what the law is.
Excellent distillation! Something that I can never unsee is when someone said that budgets, forecasts and the like are merely predictions no different from chicken entrails, astrology or reading tea leaves.
Modern Spreadsheets are cover for modern rituals to legitimise them doing nothing.
(Yes, there are definitely uses for data and numbers, but there's also a lot of absolute useless data constantly being collected.)
Perhaps our descendents will look back at this time and think of us as superstitous materialists.
Catching up on my reading, I found this. I would not argue with anything you say about bureaucracy, having spent twenty years of my life laboring in the fields of the Lord in one of Australia's largest bureaucratic institutions, at a very low level. I retired on a nice pension. However, my husband at the same time worked as a tradesman/contractor at one of Australia's largest steel companies. He used to come home with stories that made my place of work seem a miracle of efficiency and rationalism. He and his immediate boss would scratch their heads and wonder at which mastermind had decreed the latest work order for them to make concrete reality and speculate if it was a room full of monkeys typing. His boss would say: 'Just take their money, Brendan, just take their money". Many times in the Office where I worked, people would say things life: 'this wouldn't happen in private industry'. I had to respectfully disagree.
The notion that (1) there is not corporate bureaucracy and (2) such bureaucracy is always efficient, is very silly. Bankruptcy, it exists for a reason.
Exactly.
You describe Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
Yes. (Added as reminder.)
“Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.“
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Wonderful stuff. Thanks.