Bureaucracy

[Pra]

It seems that the above term is viewed with considerable scorn, both by the left and the right. I'm curious as to why this is so; many of our leaders who admonish this system so profusely before election become part of it at once as soon as they enter office. In addition, it seems like an inescapable black hole from which any government will eventually be sucked up into.

So aren't the laws and regulations of bureaucracy necessary?

[Last_Crusader]

Seeing as everyone else is busy ogling the various babes threads, I'll field this one. Where I live, bureaucracy has become a word meaning over bureaucracy. It's simply that the meaning of the word is changing.

Take the word 'Ignorant'. Call someone ignorant for a post and I guarantee you flame will follow in 90% of cases. In Dickens' time, 'ignorant' simply meant lacking knowledge, and lacked the negative connotations it has today. I think the same is happening with bureaucracy, because so many people have grown up only seeing red tape used as a strangulation device and not something for holding a nation together.

[Pra]

I concurr. I shall now commence the ogling at the babes thread.

[Last_Crusader]

I concurr. I shall now commence the ogling at the babes thread.

Jolly good show.

[Tom Paine]

So aren't the laws and regulations of bureaucracy necessary?

Straight answer: Yes.

Long answer: In theory, no. Human self-interest, if intelligently applied, in fact requires all to further all so that they can further you; a good deed done et cetera, and chaos helps no party when there is nothing to stem the chaos. Of course human self-interest isn't always applie and thus this theoretical answer is purely theoretical.

[the Black Prince]

bureacracy is unfortunately endemic.

a good system of bureacracy managed by a good bureacrat answering to an elected official is an efficiant and necessary administration system

however, as the system expands to deal with more situations, more rules and regulations are added, with regulations that regulate the regulations, and people making rules for every single contigency that could ever possibly exist.

this kills off the good bureacrat, who, on his own, is unable to manage such a large and complex system, and instead replaces him with the simple administrator, whose biggest skill - the knowledge and ability to apply all the rules, is also his biggest weakness.

he ends up enforcing every single rule for the sake of the rule forgetting the fact that the rules were put in place to simplify and clarify the situations.

the worst areas of bureacracy are of course health and safety regulations, which are a prime example of regulations designed to help people, where the end result is preventing people from doing anything at all (or at least requiring them to fill in the necessary forms in triplicate with attached copies of all suitable risk assesments, sending these off to the appropriate regulating authority, losing them, misposting htem, finding them, triple checking them, re-writing them finally granting the permission, then losing the permission slip and re-applying under section 563 subsection 67 para a for lost permission slip re-applications) the process of which amounts to the same tihng as not doing anything at all.


another area where bureacracy proved endemic is the administration of justice.
in the late medieval era, the judges in england had become so obsessed, so literal in the enforcement of the law, that the Lord Chancellor set up the Equity courts to review cases and grant a fair and just result instead of legal one.
by the 1800s, the rules of equity had become so formalised that they were just as bad as the main legal system, and the whole system was totally overhauled. equity only exists in some of the older areas of law where the common law dates back frequently to the pre1900s (contract and law mostly)

i find it highly ironic that in 1925 the Uks governemnt launched a landmark set of statutes to reform landlaw by totally overhauling and replacing the exisiting statute and common law on this issue. in 2002 they had to do the same thing again because the law needed clarifying, it was too complicated. the drafters of the 1925 legislation had fallen victim to the cover every clause doctrine of bureacracy

[Farnan]

I think one of the major problems people have with Beuracrats is as following:

1. Too much Gooblygock - Gooblygock is saying "manual nail fastener" instead of hammer. This costs the government money and makes it hard for a lay person to understand government papers.

2. Too much Beuracracy - People, including myself, believe that there are far too much beuracracy costing the taxpayers money and making the government take longer than its needed.

3. A natural hate - People hate Beuracracy like the Brits, and now Americans, hate the French, its just natural for them.

[Tom Paine]

1. Probably, but I personally like gobbledygook in moderation...
2. Heh, yeah, and to think I might go into bureaucracy; I mean the Civil Service...
3. Probably not.

[the Black Prince]

bureacracy in moderation can actually be highly efficiant. especially once you computerise your stuff so some of the form filling side of things is fast and automated.

unfortunately, an efficiant moderated bureacracy inevitably requires some kind of watch dog to watch over it to ensure to moderate the moderation and so it grows... and grows...

bureacracy is endemic.

unfortunately... its like a weed as well...

its look small on the surface, but if you sweep it aside its roots are so deep it usually regrows pretty fast.

also, if you sweep aside the bureacracy, you often single handedly double the unemployment rate and cause the collapse of government...

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

the real problem with bureacracy is that it is an easy way to hide incompetence. I see it a lot in IT projects, managers whose projects fail basically because they are useless at their jobs get away with it again and again because they can quite legitemately say that they have followed the bureacratic processes to the letter.

Mind you, shouldn't complain too much, it keeps me in a job....

[Tom Paine]

What, a bureaucrat or an antibureaucrat?

[therussian]

I suggest you read Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. THe ultimate symbol of bureaucracy and why it's stupid.

Good book by the way. One of the only good books that I had to read for school

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

What, a bureaucrat or an antibureaucrat?

I sort out the projects that have gone down the tubes,

so an antibureaucrat I suppose

[Tom Paine]

Good for you, hard for you.

[antaeus]

Bureaucracy itself is not wrong, nor does it imply anything slow, over controlled or bad. it is poorly run bureaucracy that is bad.

[Tom Paine]

And yet buraucracy has a tendency toward bad running as people exploit the system and get ahead although they have no real qualification to be there in the first place.