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> If built correctly it's genuinely difficult to mess things up. ...but that also implies that it can built in such a way that it's genuinely difficult to imp

> If built correctly it's genuinely difficult to mess things up. ...but that also implies that it can built in such a way that it's genuinely difficult to improve, too, right? I worked in state government for a while, and I noticed that whenever the governor switched, all the upper management switched too. All the new people would be gunning to start some big initiative that would look good on their resume (and they'd not be around for the aftermath). There was a lot of institutionalized inertia resistant to these efforts, which I eventually decided was basically survivorship bias - anything not resistant to change would stumble and fail in the face of such regular (and often wasteful!) pet projects. What resulted was the stereotypical concept of bureaucracy today. But here you are saying that such inertia can be designed into the system. Interesting...

Spooky23 7y ago
Bureaucracy isn't necessarily bad. The natural ebb and flow of political appointees in government is a great example of it. Good civil servants can make things go great. Where government performs very poorly is typically where both the formal and informal leadership networks are not up to the task. Brilliant appointed leaders exist and can do amazing things. The informal leadership and machinery requires care and feeding, and tends to fail spectacularly when it's ignored or actively undermined.
- ergothus 7y ago
  > Bureaucracy isn't necessarily bad I didn't mean to imply it was! What it is, however, is resistant to change. Often that's a feature, not a bug. I've often generalized things as "govt is good at reliable, bad at efficient, while private industry is good at efficient, bad at reliable" . (The entire idea of competition is that companies can and will go out of business, switch markets, etc). Thus, I personally approve of private industry where I care about efficiency more than reliability (say, garbage/recycling/compost pick up) and govt where I care about reliability over efficiency (say, childhood education). This is also why I personally oppose most "public-private partnerships", as they tend to take the reliability of private industry and add the efficiency of govt. To agree to your point about leadership - most of the pet projects to arrive from upper leadership failed to last, often failed to ever get past early stages...but those projects that DID survive and became part of the new process were able to do so because enough people pushed for it long enough and hard enough, which serves as a decent barometer for what is important. Here I've been associating govt and bureaucracy, but that's only a generalization - large corporations (and smaller ones, occasionally) can have plenty of bureaucracy, for the exact same reasons and with the exact same outcomes (both good and bad).
  - nfoz 7y ago
    Another benefit of beauraucracy, which I think is understated, is that it might be our best antidote to corruption. When you have a networked system of approvals and records, and people whose livelihood depends on them maintaining those records in good order, it can become more risky and expensive to buy favours and break the rules than to follow them. But you need both a good beauraucracy, and a culture of civil servants that value honesty and good order and following-the-rules. A good beauraucracy can reinforce those cultural values, and vice-versa. But just one half is not enough.

Spooky23 7y ago

Bureaucracy isn't necessarily bad. The natural ebb and flow of political appointees in government is a great example of it. Good civil servants can make things go great. Where government performs very poorly is typically where both the formal and informal leadership networks are not up to the task. Brilliant appointed leaders exist and can do amazing things. The informal leadership and machinery requires care and feeding, and tends to fail spectacularly when it's ignored or actively undermined.

ergothus 7y ago
> Bureaucracy isn't necessarily bad I didn't mean to imply it was! What it is, however, is resistant to change. Often that's a feature, not a bug. I've often generalized things as "govt is good at reliable, bad at efficient, while private industry is good at efficient, bad at reliable" . (The entire idea of competition is that companies can and will go out of business, switch markets, etc). Thus, I personally approve of private industry where I care about efficiency more than reliability (say, garbage/recycling/compost pick up) and govt where I care about reliability over efficiency (say, childhood education). This is also why I personally oppose most "public-private partnerships", as they tend to take the reliability of private industry and add the efficiency of govt. To agree to your point about leadership - most of the pet projects to arrive from upper leadership failed to last, often failed to ever get past early stages...but those projects that DID survive and became part of the new process were able to do so because enough people pushed for it long enough and hard enough, which serves as a decent barometer for what is important. Here I've been associating govt and bureaucracy, but that's only a generalization - large corporations (and smaller ones, occasionally) can have plenty of bureaucracy, for the exact same reasons and with the exact same outcomes (both good and bad).
- nfoz 7y ago
  Another benefit of beauraucracy, which I think is understated, is that it might be our best antidote to corruption. When you have a networked system of approvals and records, and people whose livelihood depends on them maintaining those records in good order, it can become more risky and expensive to buy favours and break the rules than to follow them. But you need both a good beauraucracy, and a culture of civil servants that value honesty and good order and following-the-rules. A good beauraucracy can reinforce those cultural values, and vice-versa. But just one half is not enough.