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“Once the Picture Collection is relocated, its space in Room 100 will house administrators who were hired for educational outreach.” - inflation of administrati

“Once the Picture Collection is relocated, its space in Room 100 will house administrators who were hired for educational outreach.” - inflation of administrative apparatus is a scourge of modern society. It is partially responsible for growing costs of education and healthcare. One of my favorite dialogs in Yes, minister! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JAk448volww https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JAk448volww

jacobolus 5y ago
Yes, Minister! is very amusing, full of well crafted witty dialog, but it is also fictional Thatcherite propaganda which bears limited resemblance to any real-world systems, and was grossly misleading about contemporary British government/politics. It should not be taken too seriously for policy analysis. The general ascendance of its worldview in the past few decades of British politics has been fairly disastrous (e.g. Brexit). (Similarly, we shouldn’t uncritically take policy advice from other satirical fiction such as Idiocracy, Robocop, Brazil, or They Live.)
- jl6 5y ago
  I respectfully disagree. As well as bureaucracy, it treated topics such as the old boys network, the class snobbery and small-c conservatism of Sir Humphrey, corruption, gender equality, denuclearisation, smoking, and financial elites - all of which would be welcome in critiques of Thatcher’s government. I find it a masterful equal-opportunity offender. I also don’t think it tries hard to put forward a particular policy position. Above all else, it is a show about the process of doing politics, rather than being overtly political itself.
- dageshi 5y ago
  It doesn't strike me as "Thatcherite propaganda", is strikes me as cherry picked extreme examples of a lot of things that actually happened.
whoaisme 5y ago
Yeah maybe society shouldn't be run based off a comedy satire show. "It is partially responsible for growing costs of education and healthcare." I mean sure, that's a slippery nonsense critique. I don't see how "partially" being responsible for growing costs (the horror, growing costs!) translates to being a scourge of modern society. I think a greater scourge are sophist bs artists like you infesting every level of public discourse with words that seem to say a lot but say nothing. Reading your comment, maybe what the world needs is more administrators who are hired for educational outreach - hopefully with enough of these modern cancers on society we will live in a world with less drivel of the likes you are spouting.
fineIllregister 5y ago
I've worked at a hospital, and that video really confused me. The tasks that "administrators" covered seemed quite reasonable. The first example ("contingencies") rang in my ears due the pandemic. There was no specific department for this, but having a pandemic plan was the responsibility of administrators. Leaving it to the staff would have been a horror show. Another "contingency" from my experience is having a facilities department that maintained separate power generation. If you were on the the operating table and the power went down, what would you expect? That the surgeon would take care of it? Another example is "finance". Do you think this function shouldn't be performed? The hospital wouldn't function. Or do you think we should pay doctors (rather than the "scourage" of administrators) to do it? Imagine how expensive health care would be then. Same with "purchasing", "technical", etc. Are you suggesting we have less qualified doctors and nurses perform these tasks at a higher price or that the hospital just dosen't purchase stuff? "Administrative bloat", as you call it, seems more a result of increasing standards we have for organizations. Everything we expect has to be someone's job to build, fix, monitor, report, etc. We can get rid of administrators, but the final result is significantly worse outcomes.

jacobolus 5y ago

Yes, Minister! is very amusing, full of well crafted witty dialog, but it is also fictional Thatcherite propaganda which bears limited resemblance to any real-world systems, and was grossly misleading about contemporary British government/politics. It should not be taken too seriously for policy analysis. The general ascendance of its worldview in the past few decades of British politics has been fairly disastrous (e.g. Brexit). (Similarly, we shouldn’t uncritically take policy advice from other satirical fiction such as Idiocracy, Robocop, Brazil, or They Live.)

jl6 5y ago
I respectfully disagree. As well as bureaucracy, it treated topics such as the old boys network, the class snobbery and small-c conservatism of Sir Humphrey, corruption, gender equality, denuclearisation, smoking, and financial elites - all of which would be welcome in critiques of Thatcher’s government. I find it a masterful equal-opportunity offender. I also don’t think it tries hard to put forward a particular policy position. Above all else, it is a show about the process of doing politics, rather than being overtly political itself.
dageshi 5y ago
It doesn't strike me as "Thatcherite propaganda", is strikes me as cherry picked extreme examples of a lot of things that actually happened.

whoaisme 5y ago

Yeah maybe society shouldn't be run based off a comedy satire show. "It is partially responsible for growing costs of education and healthcare." I mean sure, that's a slippery nonsense critique. I don't see how "partially" being responsible for growing costs (the horror, growing costs!) translates to being a scourge of modern society. I think a greater scourge are sophist bs artists like you infesting every level of public discourse with words that seem to say a lot but say nothing. Reading your comment, maybe what the world needs is more administrators who are hired for educational outreach - hopefully with enough of these modern cancers on society we will live in a world with less drivel of the likes you are spouting.

fineIllregister 5y ago

I've worked at a hospital, and that video really confused me. The tasks that "administrators" covered seemed quite reasonable. The first example ("contingencies") rang in my ears due the pandemic. There was no specific department for this, but having a pandemic plan was the responsibility of administrators. Leaving it to the staff would have been a horror show. Another "contingency" from my experience is having a facilities department that maintained separate power generation. If you were on the the operating table and the power went down, what would you expect? That the surgeon would take care of it? Another example is "finance". Do you think this function shouldn't be performed? The hospital wouldn't function. Or do you think we should pay doctors (rather than the "scourage" of administrators) to do it? Imagine how expensive health care would be then. Same with "purchasing", "technical", etc. Are you suggesting we have less qualified doctors and nurses perform these tasks at a higher price or that the hospital just dosen't purchase stuff? "Administrative bloat", as you call it, seems more a result of increasing standards we have for organizations. Everything we expect has to be someone's job to build, fix, monitor, report, etc. We can get rid of administrators, but the final result is significantly worse outcomes.