I've a general bureaucracy theory which I bet someone smarter has already invented, and has been named after someone else.
1. Start a small company. One person handles all HR and office functions: tracking vacations, sick time, pay rates, new hires, old fires, stocking the break room. Probably has a real job too.
2. More people are hired. At some point, the HR person is working 50 hours a week, so the company hires an HR clerk. Now they together work 60 hours a week.
3. Wouldn't do to have the new full-time clerk only work half time, or loan him out to other departments, so the HR boss finds new work. Organize a Christmas party, river and trees outings for morale, monthly lunches and go kart afternoons.
4. And so on. Company eventually gets to 100 employees and 3 in HR.
5. Then trouble. Market changes, new competition, economic downturn. Lay off production and design employees, but HR? Not on your life! Employees have come to expect go kart afternoons, and too much cutback leads to industry rumors of not doing so well.
6. But markets force changes, if businesses won't make them voluntarily.
And 6 is where government goes off the rails. They are monopolies.
The US created a tea importation board in 1897 to verify "that the tea should be rejected if it was unfit" which bureaucrats of course expanded to include tea tasting. It was finally abolished in 2023, 27 years after its budget had been zeroed out and was no longer taste-testing tea.
Bureaucracy leads to less output, or more inputs for the same output. Also delays. It also prevents innovation, new product discovery, etc.
Main reasons:
(1) chain of command approvals/committee approvals
(2) No awareness of applying rules to unique cases
(3) Turf wars
(4) Budget expansion and more employees yearning for direct reports
(5) Paperwork: minutes, memos, forms
(6) scheduling issues, people fighting to be kept in the loop
(7) Pettifogging: undue emphasis on petty details
I've a general bureaucracy theory which I bet someone smarter has already invented, and has been named after someone else.
1. Start a small company. One person handles all HR and office functions: tracking vacations, sick time, pay rates, new hires, old fires, stocking the break room. Probably has a real job too.
2. More people are hired. At some point, the HR person is working 50 hours a week, so the company hires an HR clerk. Now they together work 60 hours a week.
3. Wouldn't do to have the new full-time clerk only work half time, or loan him out to other departments, so the HR boss finds new work. Organize a Christmas party, river and trees outings for morale, monthly lunches and go kart afternoons.
4. And so on. Company eventually gets to 100 employees and 3 in HR.
5. Then trouble. Market changes, new competition, economic downturn. Lay off production and design employees, but HR? Not on your life! Employees have come to expect go kart afternoons, and too much cutback leads to industry rumors of not doing so well.
6. But markets force changes, if businesses won't make them voluntarily.
And 6 is where government goes off the rails. They are monopolies.
The US created a tea importation board in 1897 to verify "that the tea should be rejected if it was unfit" which bureaucrats of course expanded to include tea tasting. It was finally abolished in 2023, 27 years after its budget had been zeroed out and was no longer taste-testing tea.
https://reason.com/2024/03/17/after-a-century-the-federal-tea-board-is-finally-dead/