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I think this is due to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerr
by triska 4y ago
I think this is due to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
"In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization."
- tomrod 4y agoYou just explained something I saw on many establishing subreddits!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TomSwirly 4y agoHere's the original author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
- sydbarrett74 4y ago
- ayngg 4y agoThanks for the link, I'll check it out.
- bumby 4y agoAs somebody with experience at NASA, this made me chortle. I would NOT characterize the average civil servant that I worked with as "devoted to the goals of the organization." That includes the lowest level field organizations. Unfortunately, for the average employee, it eventually gets treated like any other job. It's possible this dichotomy works in theory only. Being generous, it's possible they just disagree about the goals of the organization.
- avianlyric 4y agoThat’s the point. The second group, those who only care about the existence of the organisation, and the power/money it provides to them, have taken over at NASA. As a result only those who act to increase the power/wealth at the expense of all else, such as the original goals of the organisation, get promoted and hang around. The end result, an organisation that achieves very little, and consumes huge amounts of resources, full of people who really don’t care about the fundamental goals of the organisation.
- bumby 4y agoOk, I see your point and think you're right. The quote distinguished between scientists/technicians and management. I met many in the former group who cared little about the goals of the organization, but to your point, they had been within the organization a long time.
- shkkmo 4y agoI don't think the technician/management dichomoty is a good proxy. There are people from both groups who care about the goals more than the organization, but they not the people being given power.
- armchairhacker 4y agoNurses, teachers, charity workers, IEPs, game devs. These are all jobs where people sign up for the job. Whether it’s altruism or genuine passion. They’re willing to compromise and put up with less pay and harder working conditions. But because they’re willing to compromise, these people are pushed to their limit. With not only low pay and shit conditions, but higher-ups which actively exploit their altruism and passion. “If you don’t work, patients / children are going to suffer!” coming from the same beaurocracy which created the situation where a) they suffer or b) you work extra hours. They’re being pushed past the limit in fact, which is why there’s now a nursing and teaching shortage despite these actually being popular fields. A lot of people want to work these professions, they just don’t want the jobs.
- HWR_14 4y agoThis is the same reason why startups often phrase what they are trying to do as "change the world" and not "become filthy rich" to their employees.
- Aeolun 4y agoI think most startups (at least originally) did start out as ‘change the world’. When you find out that changing the world is kinda hard, ‘become filthy rich’ starts to sound like a good alternative.
- idontpost 4y agoYou're just falling for the propaganda.
- heavyset_go 4y agoThey'd be structured differently if they were truly about changing the world, instead of just being vehicles for wealth accumulation.
- salawat 4y agoAbsolutely. And you'd see much less hypergrowth mindset, and a willingness to go slow, steady, and do it right.
- TomSwirly 4y agoI had no idea that Pournelle was claiming credit for that! He nicked it from Robert Michels, who wrote about the Iron Law of Oligarchies in 1911: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy I was reading some old Analog magazines the other day, and man, Pournelle was one deranged man in his "non-fiction".
- wombatpm 4y agoPolitically he was somewhat to the far right of Atilla the Hun
- louky 4y agoThat wasn't as apparent when he was a BYTE columnist for many years but boy his website sure turned into "old man yells at clouds" although he did have serious health issues in his later years.
- michaelcampbell 4y agoLeo Laporte would have him on a variety of his TWIT podcasts from time to time. I considered once coming up with a drinking game where you'd drink every time Jerry would have a sentence that included, "..when I wrote about...", but I realized you'd kill yourself.
- scaramanga 4y agoAnyone who has visited planet earth and spent time here is well aware of that. The task is to prevent these people from taking and holding power. Note that the strict formulation of this law (ie. "in _every_ case..") is profoundly anti-democratic in that it assumes no democracy can ever exist or function. Of course, I hope your household provides a good counter example (if not, then you should seek outside support). Anyway, for those of us who still believe in democracy, it has long been recognised that the cost of it is that everyone has to be a adult who takes responsibility for basic things in life like maintaining the social fabric of the institutions you belong to in order to prevent them from being taken over by sociopaths. So the question is, will we support medical professionals in doing this? In the UK, before COVID, when junior doctors went on strike to try and remedy the situation, the media denounced them as enemies of the people and they were completely crushed by the state (with the help of their own professional organisations like the BMJ). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4902702/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4902702/
- dennis_jeeves1 4y ago>The task is to prevent these people from taking and holding power. And for that I completely blame the 'right' thinking, honest, hardworking nerd types - even when given the reins to power they will often not take it, because it is uninteresting work, compared the cool gadget/problem they are working on.
- MockObject 4y ago> in order to prevent them from being taken over by sociopaths. Every institution has already been taken over by sociopaths. That's why it's called an "iron law", and not a mere concern.
- leaflets2 4y ago> Every institution + "that is so large so there's a pyramid to climb and a bunch of sociopaths who start climbing". Smaller orgs can get away, can avoid the iron law. But a big country is a bit doomed
- codebolt 4y agoFunny you should mention unions. They seem like the only vehicle (imperfect as it may be) the first group has to keep the second group in check.
- mcv 4y agoThey definitely are, as long as the union itself isn't compromised by that second group.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIn a healthy marketplace, walking to another job works as well.
- hn_version_0023 4y agoDo we have a healthy marketplace? Specifically for nurses? I certainly doesn’t seem it.
- durgampudi 4y ago
- legacynl 4y agoThat's why you need unions