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Precisely as Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy predicts: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated

Precisely as Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy predicts: 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.

BurningFrog 4y ago
The only counter force I'm aware of is competition. Organization A that is 80% devoted to serve it's bureaucracy will be outcompeted by Organization B which is only at 40%, presumably because it's younger. That only works if they compete on productive end results, and I'm not sure how true that is for US universities.
- Ieghaehia9 4y ago
  Democracy combined with local units significantly valuing their autonomy also seems to work, e.g. the International Typographical Union example from Union Democracy.
- buitreVirtual 4y ago
  That's usually the problem. There is virtually no competition within a state university system. Even in open markets, incumbents are bloated with bureaucracy and politics but succeed by digging trenches around them to keep new players out.
  - bumby 4y ago
    Universities have already lost their stranglehold on access to information. Now they focus on their monopoly of credentialism. If they lose that too they might face real competition and adjust course. There may be both bottom-up and top-down approaches to eroding that current monopoly.
    - thebradbain 4y ago
      That’s why many institutions are focused on extra-academic investment: better amenities, better campuses, better sports teams, better housing, better “neighborhood outreach”, better marketing, etc. A school’s academics are, in a way, secondary to the school’s brand/influence (with built in networking effects in the alumni base) Imagine some crazy world where education-level is a protected class for employment and degree/school can’t be considered or explicitly asked about in job applications. The credential monopoly would be no more. Yet you would likely still see top colleges thrive for the same reason top fashion houses do: status signaling, brand loyalty, and a sense of belonging with patrons who subscribe to the same values
- analog31 4y ago
  But there's competition and competition. The US private health care system is supposedly competitive, but competes on the wrong things. I read a WSJ article purporting that cities with more health care competition had higher costs. College could be another case where competition drives up costs. Another option is to eliminate reasons to compete. Just standardize the offerings and the administrative structure required for a university. Students can choose the school that's closest to home, and go there with confidence.
- noobermin 4y ago
  Sorry but this never happens in practice, this is an example of just pure ideology. Every large (read stable) corporation has created it's own bureaucracy. The "scrappy start-ups" that become successful by becoming profitable in their own right (and are not merely bought up by the large corporations) eventually develop their own. There a serious lack of examples of successful large orgs where bureacracy is in fact minimal. Mark Fischer in Capitalist Realism made a good note of this, how the capitalist world of the west recreated the bureacratic culture in a host of in what are its institutions (which are obstensibly businesses) that existed in soviet russia, and in many ways surpassed those systems.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    > Every large (read stable) corporation has created it's own bureaucracy. The "scrappy start-ups" that become successful by becoming profitable in their own right (and are not merely bought up by the large corporations) eventually develop their own. Yes, that was even heavily implied in my post you're critiquing! This cycle of very bureaucratic orgs being outcompeted by lightly bureaucratic orgs, which then grow very bureaucratic, and are in turn outcompeted, results in a medium bureaucracy level on average in the long run.
    - woooooo 4y ago
      But how do you compete with Harvard? In practice, the bureaucracy has captured the brand and the brand is what students are buying. It's more likely that the entire western system is outcompeted than it is that the current set of elite schools are outcompeted within our system, imo.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  There are very few competitive industries. Most have consolidated in to 2-5 big companies that own most of the market. Often competitors are barred from entry due to regulations or other government force
  - astrange 4y ago
    3-5 companies is enough to be competitive. If there were lots of small ones it truly would be impossible to regulate; that’s why there when there’s a public utility, there’s only one of it.
xracy 4y ago
I disagree with Unions being included in the second group. Because their job is actually to make deals for the first group with the 2nd group. Their pay can only go up by negotiating better contracts for union card holders. I suspect if you got rid of them, teachers would get less of the pie than they currently hold.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  The unions end up forming their own bureaucracy, which grows according to the iron law. It's not the same instance of bureaucratic capture as happens to the school (or school district), but it does happen within the union itself.
  - layoric 4y ago
    And sadly union bureaucracies have taken the form of originally pro-worker political parties that no longer hold workers best interests ahead of their own. Example, Australian Labor Party, currently in power, and the first to proclaim its "pro-business" credentials.
- rablackburn 4y ago
  The issue is the Iron Law applies to the unions as well. Given enough time unions tend towards bureaucracies dedicated to serving the Union, not its members. Frankly I think saying the Iron Law is inevitable is a little too pessimistic for me, but it’s definitely something that needs to be consciously monitored/managed.
  - xracy 4y ago
    Right, but ultimately a union is still a democracy, and the bureaucracy has to stay in power. That seems a lot harder to do if you don't actually have your constituents interests at hand. I will grant that in a large enough union I could see bureaucracy being a problem, like that. But also the fact that unions have been gutted for power (in the US) means that union officials aren't nearly as bad as the equivalent groups in a more powerful institution. Also it means that they're still in the stage where most unions could stay vigilant to avoid it.
User23 4y ago
Originally it was Parkinson’s law, which, despite what Wikipedia would have you believe, is about the growth of bureaucracies and not the tendency of work to take as long as is available to do it.
fatneckbeardz 4y ago
in private companies this is solved naturally when they go bankrupt or the owner shuts it down. in the government this is solved when elections change power. (sort of) in universities... i think they might just be better off having the administrators elected by the... alumni.
astrange 4y ago
Never take life advice from boomers, science fiction authors, or science fiction author boomers. You’re just poisoning yourself with cynicism if you think Pournelle and Heinlein’s edgy society critiques have any value except as jokes for engineers to hang on their cubicles.
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
A link for ref:https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html I miss Byte magazine

BurningFrog 4y ago

The only counter force I'm aware of is competition. Organization A that is 80% devoted to serve it's bureaucracy will be outcompeted by Organization B which is only at 40%, presumably because it's younger. That only works if they compete on productive end results, and I'm not sure how true that is for US universities.

Ieghaehia9 4y ago
Democracy combined with local units significantly valuing their autonomy also seems to work, e.g. the International Typographical Union example from Union Democracy.
buitreVirtual 4y ago
That's usually the problem. There is virtually no competition within a state university system. Even in open markets, incumbents are bloated with bureaucracy and politics but succeed by digging trenches around them to keep new players out.
- bumby 4y ago
  Universities have already lost their stranglehold on access to information. Now they focus on their monopoly of credentialism. If they lose that too they might face real competition and adjust course. There may be both bottom-up and top-down approaches to eroding that current monopoly.
  - thebradbain 4y ago
    That’s why many institutions are focused on extra-academic investment: better amenities, better campuses, better sports teams, better housing, better “neighborhood outreach”, better marketing, etc. A school’s academics are, in a way, secondary to the school’s brand/influence (with built in networking effects in the alumni base) Imagine some crazy world where education-level is a protected class for employment and degree/school can’t be considered or explicitly asked about in job applications. The credential monopoly would be no more. Yet you would likely still see top colleges thrive for the same reason top fashion houses do: status signaling, brand loyalty, and a sense of belonging with patrons who subscribe to the same values
analog31 4y ago
But there's competition and competition. The US private health care system is supposedly competitive, but competes on the wrong things. I read a WSJ article purporting that cities with more health care competition had higher costs. College could be another case where competition drives up costs. Another option is to eliminate reasons to compete. Just standardize the offerings and the administrative structure required for a university. Students can choose the school that's closest to home, and go there with confidence.
noobermin 4y ago
Sorry but this never happens in practice, this is an example of just pure ideology. Every large (read stable) corporation has created it's own bureaucracy. The "scrappy start-ups" that become successful by becoming profitable in their own right (and are not merely bought up by the large corporations) eventually develop their own. There a serious lack of examples of successful large orgs where bureacracy is in fact minimal. Mark Fischer in Capitalist Realism made a good note of this, how the capitalist world of the west recreated the bureacratic culture in a host of in what are its institutions (which are obstensibly businesses) that existed in soviet russia, and in many ways surpassed those systems.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  > Every large (read stable) corporation has created it's own bureaucracy. The "scrappy start-ups" that become successful by becoming profitable in their own right (and are not merely bought up by the large corporations) eventually develop their own. Yes, that was even heavily implied in my post you're critiquing! This cycle of very bureaucratic orgs being outcompeted by lightly bureaucratic orgs, which then grow very bureaucratic, and are in turn outcompeted, results in a medium bureaucracy level on average in the long run.
  - woooooo 4y ago
    But how do you compete with Harvard? In practice, the bureaucracy has captured the brand and the brand is what students are buying. It's more likely that the entire western system is outcompeted than it is that the current set of elite schools are outcompeted within our system, imo.
rdtwo 4y ago
There are very few competitive industries. Most have consolidated in to 2-5 big companies that own most of the market. Often competitors are barred from entry due to regulations or other government force
- astrange 4y ago
  3-5 companies is enough to be competitive. If there were lots of small ones it truly would be impossible to regulate; that’s why there when there’s a public utility, there’s only one of it.

xracy 4y ago

I disagree with Unions being included in the second group. Because their job is actually to make deals for the first group with the 2nd group. Their pay can only go up by negotiating better contracts for union card holders. I suspect if you got rid of them, teachers would get less of the pie than they currently hold.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
The unions end up forming their own bureaucracy, which grows according to the iron law. It's not the same instance of bureaucratic capture as happens to the school (or school district), but it does happen within the union itself.
- layoric 4y ago
  And sadly union bureaucracies have taken the form of originally pro-worker political parties that no longer hold workers best interests ahead of their own. Example, Australian Labor Party, currently in power, and the first to proclaim its "pro-business" credentials.
rablackburn 4y ago
The issue is the Iron Law applies to the unions as well. Given enough time unions tend towards bureaucracies dedicated to serving the Union, not its members. Frankly I think saying the Iron Law is inevitable is a little too pessimistic for me, but it’s definitely something that needs to be consciously monitored/managed.
- xracy 4y ago
  Right, but ultimately a union is still a democracy, and the bureaucracy has to stay in power. That seems a lot harder to do if you don't actually have your constituents interests at hand. I will grant that in a large enough union I could see bureaucracy being a problem, like that. But also the fact that unions have been gutted for power (in the US) means that union officials aren't nearly as bad as the equivalent groups in a more powerful institution. Also it means that they're still in the stage where most unions could stay vigilant to avoid it.

User23 4y ago

Originally it was Parkinson’s law, which, despite what Wikipedia would have you believe, is about the growth of bureaucracies and not the tendency of work to take as long as is available to do it.

fatneckbeardz 4y ago

in private companies this is solved naturally when they go bankrupt or the owner shuts it down. in the government this is solved when elections change power. (sort of) in universities... i think they might just be better off having the administrators elected by the... alumni.

astrange 4y ago

Never take life advice from boomers, science fiction authors, or science fiction author boomers. You’re just poisoning yourself with cynicism if you think Pournelle and Heinlein’s edgy society critiques have any value except as jokes for engineers to hang on their cubicles.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

A link for ref:https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html I miss Byte magazine