> The only evidence that bureaucracy is increasing that is given is … a Twitter poll? If the thing you are talking about is bloody obvious people are often wil

> The only evidence that bureaucracy is increasing that is given is … a Twitter poll? If the thing you are talking about is bloody obvious people are often willing to take it on faith or to use low quality evidence as gesturing towards an idea. Bureaucracy has been increasing on a long run trend since the invention of writing. Record keeping, procedures and laws are among the earliest uses of writing. More humans both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population than ever before are literate, i.e. capable of productively taking part in a bureaucracy. Universal schooling makes people more obedient to orders, more accepting of ranking and less creative, less likely to fuck up standard procedure. Non-state non-religious bureaucratic organizations basically started with the Dutch East India Company. In 1900 most people even in the Netherlands lived on farms. Now most people work for companies and companies are made of bureaucracy. Perhaps 30% of the employee are in some sense knowledge workers. They all interface with bureaucracy regularly. Everybody fills out forms or at least knows what that means. In 1870 most French people didn’t speak standard French. Standardization of language is a consequence of bureaucracy. Growing bureaucracy; it’s bloody obvious.