On bureaucracies

Continuing from another thread

Aaron Fox said:

The biggest problem is that to be frank, we don't pay the government enough and don't have enough people working the bureaucracy.

It's a correlation that the better paid your civil servants are (and the less they're overworked), the less corrupt they'll be funnily enough.

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PsihoKekec said:

You can never have enough bureaucrats and you can never pay them enough. The main aim of bureaucracy is to perpetuate bureaucracy and no matter how well you pay them, they will always demand more. Right now in most countries the majority of the bureaucrats are simply part of the bloat, doing bureaucratic work for the sake of bureaucratic work. Adding people and pay increases will solve nothing, it will only drive up the deficit and furtherly empower the bureaucratic leviathan, you need radical restructuring of the bureaucratic gordian knot, but no one is willing to do it, because bureaucracy is too powerful.

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Aaron Fox said:

That isn't exactly the case. The size of the bureaucracy is every growing because the complexity of the engines that keep civilization afloat keep growing. Remember, the major powers of the Bronze Age had immense bureaucracies due to the fact that they need people to keep the food flowing. These sorts of systems (at least, to the immense size) wouldn't really appear again until the Roman Empire (and throughout the Middle Ages this very bureaucracy would continue via the Byzantines), mind you.

We've seen what happens if you work to slim down the bureaucracy, and it only caused us problems.

But this is going to be a derail.

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And when these bureaucracies grew out of control, they became a burden for the civilizations they used to serve and major factor in their downfall. And Western civilization has long passed the point where it's bureaucracies were a net benefit to the society, they are a burden now and feeding them more money and people will make that burden even heavier. Which is good, if you are one those accelerationists.

PsihoKekec said:

Continuing from another thread





And when these bureaucracies grew out of control, they became a burden for the civilization they used to serve and major factor in their downfall. And Western civilization has long passed the point where it's bureaucracies were a net benefit to the society, they are a burden now and feeding them more money and people will make that burden even heavier. Which is good, if you are one those accelerationists.

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And states controlled by them are doomed to fall,becouse they belive that whatever they did,state which they occupy would always exist to made them happy and powerfull.

PsihoKekec said:

And when these bureaucracies grew out of control, they became a burden for the civilizations they used to serve and major factor in their downfall. And Western civilization has long passed the point where it's bureaucracies were a net benefit to the society, they are a burden now and feeding them more money and people will make that burden even heavier. Which is good, if you are one those accelerationists.

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Wow, that is a level of stupid that I can't contemplate. You also forget that our civilization relies on a complex system that makes the Bronze Age look like a simple mechanical clock at best.

ATP said:

And states controlled by them are doomed to fall,becouse they belive that whatever they did,state which they occupy would always exist to made them happy and powerfull.

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Not really the case. Then again people here consider what the GOP has been saying about 'big government' as truth than the fiction they are...

PsihoKekec said:

Continuing from another thread





And when these bureaucracies grew out of control, they became a burden for the civilizations they used to serve and major factor in their downfall. And Western civilization has long passed the point where it's bureaucracies were a net benefit to the society, they are a burden now and feeding them more money and people will make that burden even heavier. Which is good, if you are one those accelerationists.

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You're arguing with Aaron Fox; a guy who lives in fear of people building nukes in their basements, and pines for the day when an authoritarian government controls every aspect of everyone's lives. I mean, the man has literally said he wishes America was more like China; I don't think you're going to get very far trying to convince such a person that there should be an upper limit to the size, scope, and power of government bureaucracy.

I could be wrong,but once i read about Sullivan /i think/law which stated,that every organisation bigger then 1000 people would serve itself and found problems to solve without caring about reality or oryginal goal.

ATP said:

I could be wrong,but once i read about Sullivan /i think/law which stated,that every organisation bigger then 1000 people would serve itself and found problems to solve without caring about reality or oryginal goal.

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Takes a certain level of integrity to not make busy work for yourself when your job depends on it. That said fuck the people who don't have that integrity. It takes a certain level of integrity to not squeeze everything you can from those working for you such that they have the time and freedom to let wage cashers get away with that. One reciprocates the other or its all a sham waiting to happen from the start.

The problem with public sector jobs is that it becomes a matter of being a spendthrift with other peoples money as opposed to having integrity when managing your own. That is being more and more the norm for 'HR' in general too. I blame you guys.

"The beauracracy is expanding, to meet the needs of the expanding beauracracy."

Aaron Fox said:

Wow, that is a level of stupid that I can't contemplate. You also forget that our civilization relies on a complex system that makes the Bronze Age look like a simple mechanical clock at best.

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So what percentage of GDP would in your opinion sate the bureaucratic leviathan? 50%? 100%? 150%? Because no matter how much money and personnel you throw at bureaucracy it always demands more, it's a fact most people understand this, the exemption being bureaucrats of course, they always want for their gravy train to bring them more.

Abhishekm said:

Takes a certain level of integrity to not make busy work for yourself when your job depends on it.

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Thus it takes some form of outside control to reign in such instincts, but they went out of control long ago and are law unto themselves.

Terthna said:

You're arguing with Aaron Fox; a guy who lives in fear of people building nukes in their basements, and pines for the day when an authoritarian government controls every aspect of everyone's lives. I mean, the man has literally said he wishes America was more like China; I don't think you're going to get very far trying to convince such a person that there should be an upper limit to the size, scope, and power of government bureaucracy.

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I know I'm not changing anything, but sometimes I get a kick out of baiting people into showing themselves fools.

Bureaucracies grow as a direct result of executive and legislative actions. You want smaller, leaner bureaucracies? Elect governments and representatives who directly act in favour of deregulation. One if not the major reason bureaucracies have become such clumsy giants is because they are tasked with turning and ever-increasing tide of laws and regulations into processes for the real world. That's not the fault of the bureaucrats or public sector employees. Yes, there is a certain amount of inertia to maintain offices and positions once those have been set up, but that's by and large no different from how the private sector acts. There, people also jealously guard their own little fiefdoms.

@Aaron Fox also is not wrong when asking for better pay for civil servants. Now, I'm not exactly unbiased here, given I fall into that category myself. But it's not just an issue of the actual salary itself - though that's far from stellar for many. Worse, in my opinion, is that the payment and job structure is insanely rigid, with very little chance for advancement on the one hand and a vast increase in complexity, workload and responsibility on the other hand, all of which favor the employer immensely.

A wage structure that took the employee's skills acquired on the job, accomplishments and handled tasks into account on a more flexible scale would solve a lot of the issues w/regards to efficiency in bureaucracies. The way it is now - in Germany - is that you're basically stuck in a pre-determined wage bracket once you got accepted for a certain public sector job, and rather than there being an "organic" way to rise through the ranks by skill and experience it boils down to "the agency has an alloted number of jobs in wage bracket X, Y and Z, and regardless of what you do and what new and additional tasks you get handed, this is where you're stuck".

Say, you're in wage bracket X, and over the years you've acquired new skills and experiences that would put you in wage bracket Y? Doesn't matter, no more Y jobs in the planned budget, you're stuck. If that's the case, why should I excell at my job? Why should I put in extra hours? Why should I train new skills? In the private sector I could negotiate with my superiors for better compensation. Here? The job's safe, and the working hours are flexible and great, but it's basically one plain field, no matter what I do. So why put effort into it? I've got colleagues who haven't trained extra skills for 25 years, and why should they? They'd be no better off with them financially, and they are coasting along nicely. If your efforts aren't recognized and valued, why do more than the minimum you've been hired for?

And by now I see where they're coming from. I gave this job my all for the past/first five years. Took two additional courses, workload per cases pretty much tripled in quantity and complexity in the meantime, we had to incorporate tasks from other agencies, I started standing in for my department head when they were sick or on vacation, I helped setting up a service bureau for a new office, sat in with the local agency leadership team on meetings - and rather than stay on top of that or get on track to maybe vice department head I got shafted into a small office with a grumpy old coot to work on fringe cases, for no reason. What did I take away from this? Engagement on part of the employee is not reciprocated by the employer. So if my bare minimum gets me the same as my best? The bare minimum it is. Lesson learned.

PsihoKekec said:

So what percentage of GDP would in your opinion sate the bureaucratic leviathan? 50%? 100%? 150%? Because no matter how much money and personnel you throw at bureaucracy it always demands more, it's a fact most people understand this, the exemption being bureaucrats of course, they always want for their gravy train to bring them more.

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That is a level of naivety that I can't even begin to fathom. The bureaucracy is, in essence, the bedrock of the economy. Do you want a smoother bureaucracy? You need to have it well funded and manned.

Let's give an example here, the reason that the IRS has been seen as ineffective isn't that bureaucracies are bad, it's that defunded and undermanned bureaucracies are bad. The IRS was once a beacon of effective tax collection but after decades of 'cost cutting' via the GOP, it became a shadow of its former self and unable to effectively collect taxes.

Culsu said:

Bureaucracies grow as a direct result of executive and legislative actions. You want smaller, leaner bureaucracies? Elect governments and representatives who directly act in favour of deregulation. One if not the major reason bureaucracies have become such clumsy giants is because they are tasked with turning and ever-increasing tide of laws and regulations into processes for the real world. That's not the fault of the bureaucrats or public sector employees. Yes, there is a certain amount of inertia to maintain offices and positions once those have been set up, but that's by and large no different from how the private sector acts. There, people also jealously guard their own little fiefdoms.

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The thing is, a lot of those regulations are put into place because Hobbes is surprisingly right in determining the human condition, and those that recognize it made laws to keep it from happening or get even worse. Remember, companies are more than willing to poison rivers, kill people, use dangerous chemicals, store dangerous chemicals (and near residential areas no less, as what happened in Bhopal showed us!), and even wage war in the name of profit. Hell, we almost had a Bhopal in the US because corporate would rather not disclose certain chemicals to the public (in this case, Methyl Isocyanate or MIC for short) than getting the fire under control!

@Aaron Fox also is not wrong when asking for better pay for civil servants. Now, I'm not exactly unbiased here, given I fall into that category myself. But it's not just an issue of the actual salary itself - though that's far from stellar for many. Worse, in my opinion, is that the payment and job structure is insanely rigid, with very little chance for advancement on the one hand and a vast increase in complexity, workload and responsibility on the other hand, all of which favor the employer immensely.

A wage structure that took the employee's skills acquired on the job, accomplishments and handled tasks into account on a more flexible scale would solve a lot of the issues w/regards to efficiency in bureaucracies. The way it is now - in Germany - is that you're basically stuck in a pre-determined wage bracket once you got accepted for a certain public sector job, and rather than there being an "organic" way to rise through the ranks by skill and experience it boils down to "the agency has an alloted number of jobs in wage bracket X, Y and Z, and regardless of what you do and what new and additional tasks you get handed, this is where you're stuck".

Say, you're in wage bracket X, and over the years you've acquired new skills and experiences that would put you in wage bracket Y? Doesn't matter, no more Y jobs in the planned budget, you're stuck. If that's the case, why should I excell at my job? Why should I put in extra hours? Why should I train new skills? In the private sector I could negotiate with my superiors for better compensation. Here? The job's safe, and the working hours are flexible and great, but it's basically one plain field, no matter what I do. So why put effort into it? I've got colleagues who haven't trained extra skills for 25 years, and why should they? They'd be no better off with them financially, and they are coasting along nicely. If your efforts aren't recognized and valued, why do more than the minimum you've been hired for?

And by now I see where they're coming from. I gave this job my all for the past/first five years. Took two additional courses, workload per cases pretty much tripled in quantity and complexity in the meantime, we had to incorporate tasks from other agencies, I started standing in for my department head when they were sick or on vacation, I helped setting up a service bureau for a new office, sat in with the local agency leadership team on meetings - and rather than stay on top of that or get on track to maybe vice department head I got shafted into a small office with a grumpy old coot to work on fringe cases, for no reason. What did I take away from this? Engagement on part of the employee is not reciprocated by the employer. So if my bare minimum gets me the same as my best? The bare minimum it is. Lesson learned.

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Yep. Hell, the nicest and most helpful people I met were the hated bureaucrats! IRS especially.

Aaron Fox said:

The thing is, a lot of those regulations are put into place because Hobbes is surprisingly right in determining the human condition, and those that recognize it made laws to keep it from happening or get even worse. Remember, companies are more than willing to poison rivers, kill people, use dangerous chemicals, store dangerous chemicals (and near residential areas no less, as what happened in Bhopal showed us!), and even wage war in the name of profit. Hell, we almost had a Bhopal in the US because corporate would rather not disclose certain chemicals to the public (in this case, Methyl Isocyanate or MIC for short) than getting the fire under control!

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Oh, no arguments from me there. Many regulations are indeed necessary. There are also many (outside, for example, the environmental ones) which are not really necessary and are just the logical byproduct of legislation which in turn itself often may not be necessary. My point simply was: don't blame the bureaucracy for doing it's job. Blame the legislative and executive for making that necessary in the first place.

Yep. Hell, the nicest and most helpful people I met were the hated bureaucrats! IRS especially.

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Well, I don't work for our equivalent of the IRS, but by and large me and my colleagues actually like our jobs and like to help people. It's just kind of a fight not to become indifferent to it all when it's not valued from above.

Buracracies are a lot like small stupid children.

Give them a simple singular task and it will perform it well. The more tasks you give it the more its supposed to do the worse it will go until everything blows up in your face in horrific ways.

so yes pay your buracrats well, but keep their number few and make sure their responsiblities and powers are limited to small number of tasks.

Aaron Fox said:

The bureaucracy is, in essence, the bedrock of the economy.

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That is retarded on so many levels it ought to be worth a special olympics medal. The bedrock of economy are the sectors that produce value, which are primary and secondary sectors, with the bureaucracy being the government part of the tertiary sector, assisting the other sectors in running more smoothly. This of course has been perverted in modern times, with our debt driven fiat economy, but just because insanity has been made the new standard it doesn't mean it should be embraced as we plunge into the abyss.

Aaron Fox said:

That is a level of naivety that I can't even begin to fathom. The bureaucracy is, in essence, the bedrock of the economy. Do you want a smoother bureaucracy? You need to have it well funded and manned.

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....... Let me point out basic economics. That which generates value, that's people doing things people want enough to pay for.

Things like making food. Or, clothing. Perhaps even services, that sort of thing. Nobody wants to pay for the bureaucrats. At best, they can be seen as management, on a general level. On their own, they have zero value.

bureaucrats makes nothing. It feeds nobody. It fixes nothing. It's only job, is to find certain types of economic activity, and stop them. And, it's a fact. Unless forced, they never shrink. No matter how much work they have, or do not have, they never, ever stop growing, until they choke whatever is supporting them.



You want to build a house, in Sydney, Australia? You need permission. On average, to get that takes 18 months, and adds two hundred thousand dollars. On land you, in theory, own.

A while ago, I was going to TAFE, that's a Gov school setup, for various courses including apprenticeships, and other, in theory, practical skills. There were a number of stupid things, there, but the one story that I want to tell? While I was there, they renovated half the campus. Not because it needed it, no. Because if they didn't spend that "infrastructure" money, then their budget net year would be smaller. All Aust Gov Bureaucracies had the same budget setup. Spend or loose it, and if you didn't need it last year, you won't need it next year, right?


I could go on. It's just, the moment you devorce the job from feedback (Ie, you fuck up hard enough, the Company goes under), Then, there's no reason to make things better. Thus, bureaucrats.

Terthna said:

You're arguing with Aaron Fox; a guy who lives in fear of people building nukes in their basements, and pines for the day when an authoritarian government controls every aspect of everyone's lives. I mean, the man has literally said he wishes America was more like China; I don't think you're going to get very far trying to convince such a person that there should be an upper limit to the size, scope, and power of government bureaucracy.

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I am sigging this.

I'm not sure where this idea that government bureaucrats are underpaid comes from, according to the CBO, in all sectors of workers, save high end educated professionals (those holding doctorates), the Federal government pays MORE than comparable private sector work. As to that last segment, when you're dealing with that level of education, there's a fairly narrow field of work, and those jobs aren't what most would consider "bureaucrats", as the jobs in government that require such a degree of education tend to either be specialized research fields or are heading entire governmental departments (in which case, they have considerable overlap with appointed positions and so compensation often is secondary to being able to make and implement policy).

Now, perhaps State level bureaucrats are underpaid depending on the State, but State level bureaucrats are rarely what people complain or talk about when they're concerned with the growth of the bureaucratic state.

Speaking as someone who actually works within the public/private sphere of the DC bureaucracy, everyone knows the "Govies" are paid better than Contractors and have a sweet gig where they can't be fired for anything less than explicit criminal activity (and even then, it's a hell of a process) and get systemically better compensation than any of us do. It's a fairly frequent dream of many contractors to manage to get into a cushy government job, with it's greater employment security, better benefits, and better retirement...

So yeah, I'm REALLY not sure where this idea that we need to pay the govies even more money comes from...

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Further Sources:

Aaron Fox said:

That is a level of naivety that I can't even begin to fathom. The bureaucracy is, in essence, the bedrock of the economy. Do you want a smoother bureaucracy? You need to have it well funded and manned.

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Here, I have something for you:


I recommend you familiarize yourself with the basics before you draw too many conclusions.

Aaron Fox said:

That is a level of naivety that I can't even begin to fathom. The bureaucracy is, in essence, the bedrock of the economy. Do you want a smoother bureaucracy? You need to have it well funded and manned.

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No, you need it to be well organized and efficient. Which means removing as much waste from it as possible - which means decentralization and, overall, minimizing the bureocracy. To quote from my post on monarchy:

In monarchies of 1900s, only 3% of populace worked for the crown. Today’s democracies in Europe have the proportion of 10% of populace working for the government at minimum, with maximum of 29% and average on level of EU of 16%. In democracy, government has achieved autonomy from society. Serf gave 10% of income to lord and 10% to Church; in modern democracy, half the salary goes to various insurances (see here), and total tax is 35% (just value-added tax is 25% in Croatia).

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And Austria-Hungary was far more efficient and organized than modern-day Croatia.

Honestly, from everything I've heard about government employment, much of it could be improved by going to Klingon disciplinary measures and/or automating the job away with basic AI.

However, a lot of the problem is the fact that a lot of regulations that are obsolete or need reworking still exist, instead of having sunset clauses that force them to be renewed or replaced, which would provide an organic way to simplify the fucking absurd Federal register.

Aldarion said:

No, you need it to be well organized and efficient. Which means removing as much waste from it as possible - which means decentralization and, overall, minimizing the bureocracy. To quote from my post on monarchy:


And Austria-Hungary was far more efficient and organized than modern-day Croatia.

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Part of the problem is that governments often excuse their bloat as a way of providing jobs for people. Actually, that's kinda the case across the board; I suspect that if businesses were also forced to trim the fat, you'd suddenly find that there are far less jobs to go around. The value of labor would probably tank overnight.