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The phenomenon you describe is not constrained to the 60s. It happens during a collapse of the imperial order...usually when "the common folk" no longer experie

The phenomenon you describe is not constrained to the 60s. It happens during a collapse of the imperial order...usually when "the common folk" no longer experience the benefits of maintaining an imperial buercracy. When the military rebels against the court Eunichs in late Han China...with the French Revolution & the disparity written by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables almost a century later. When Charles Dickens describes the conditions of the poor. When many Hebrews rebelled against Roman authority. Your work is about making companies more successful in this system & I'm sure you are quite effective at your job. However, many are left out with their wealth & agency transferred to these organizations. The innovator creates a tide that rises all boats. That improves the quality of life for society at large. The bureaucrat administers the existing order. Order is a service that saves many lives but can become very expensive to maintain...eventually costing more than it's benefits, or the cost/benefits of an alternate system. Some systems are more effective than others in maintaining an empire or civilization. The feedback of growing antagonistim toward counterproductive beucracies should be an indicator or the health of an empire or society. Sometimes it's better to cut the Gordian knot of complexity & let the innovators reform the system, through buecratic innovations, tech innovations, & social innovations.

lkrubner 3y ago
"It happens during a collapse of the imperial order.....with the French Revolution" That is also ahistorical. In 1789 the court of King Louis XVI of France was struggling to find the money to pay for a bureaucracy of 500 people, but just 5 years later, in 1794, a revolutionary France had a bureaucracy of 5,000 people. The bureaucracy grew by a factor of 10 in just 5 years, thanks to the Revolution, which seized the property of the Church and sold it or taxed it, thus generating revenue that the King could never have dreamed of. The dramatic expansion of the bureaucracy almost allowed the French to catch up with the fast growing bureaucracy of Britain. Likewise, the Communist Revolution in Russia, after 1917, brought in a complex system of committees vastly more convoluted than anything the Tsar could have ever dreamed of. See here for some speculations on this theme: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/is-communism-inevitable https://demodexio.substack.com/p/is-communism-inevitable
- briantakita 3y ago
  > That is also ahistorical. I don't see how. The downstream evolution may have been the growth of bureaucracy, but was the impulse for the revolution caused by a desire to grow bureaucracy? I'm sure it has something to do with the over-production of elites who wanted a piece of the pie...but many of the "common folk" also went along. I doubt their intention was to have more bureaucrats. The sentiment was expressed as liberté, égalité, fraternité,. So, I think my point still stands. Also, the OP broadens the scope of bureaucracy, so I think he would also include the aristocrats & clergy in the ranks of the bureaucracy...in addition to the civil employees. > which seized the property of the Church and sold it or taxed it, thus generating revenue that the King could never have dreamed of I think this supports my point. When there is an influx of wealth, through honest or ill-gotten means (such as looting the Church...another bureaucracy), there is little scrutiny for having a large bureaucracy. When the ruling order is facing stress, then a bureaucracy is held under more scrutiny. The Chinese have a term, "the mandate of heaven", which is used to judge the ruling order. The moral is if the peoples' quality of life diminishes, the ruling order will lose it's legs to stand on. Let's be honest here, the bureaucracy enforces the rules of the ruling order/ruler. The bureaucracy can take a life of it's own & can even become the ruling order. This happen with the court eunics in the late Han dynasty. Either way, the bureaucracy is a representation of the ruling order. When the ruling order loses the mandate of heaven, then the representations of the ruling order will face more scorn. Btw, the eunics were scorned long before the dynasty collapsed...they just had enough power to punish the critics. Granted, there are many more complexities than having a monolithic bureaucratic bloc. There are different actors with different motivations. The eunics where a subset of the court bureaucracy who gained power through internal conflict. My criticism of the OP is that the author treats the bureaucracy as a single entity. It may be in effect to outsiders, but inside, many actors & factions compete for control...and I think bureaucratic innovation occurs.

lkrubner 3y ago

"It happens during a collapse of the imperial order.....with the French Revolution" That is also ahistorical. In 1789 the court of King Louis XVI of France was struggling to find the money to pay for a bureaucracy of 500 people, but just 5 years later, in 1794, a revolutionary France had a bureaucracy of 5,000 people. The bureaucracy grew by a factor of 10 in just 5 years, thanks to the Revolution, which seized the property of the Church and sold it or taxed it, thus generating revenue that the King could never have dreamed of. The dramatic expansion of the bureaucracy almost allowed the French to catch up with the fast growing bureaucracy of Britain. Likewise, the Communist Revolution in Russia, after 1917, brought in a complex system of committees vastly more convoluted than anything the Tsar could have ever dreamed of. See here for some speculations on this theme: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/is-communism-inevitable https://demodexio.substack.com/p/is-communism-inevitable

briantakita 3y ago
> That is also ahistorical. I don't see how. The downstream evolution may have been the growth of bureaucracy, but was the impulse for the revolution caused by a desire to grow bureaucracy? I'm sure it has something to do with the over-production of elites who wanted a piece of the pie...but many of the "common folk" also went along. I doubt their intention was to have more bureaucrats. The sentiment was expressed as liberté, égalité, fraternité,. So, I think my point still stands. Also, the OP broadens the scope of bureaucracy, so I think he would also include the aristocrats & clergy in the ranks of the bureaucracy...in addition to the civil employees. > which seized the property of the Church and sold it or taxed it, thus generating revenue that the King could never have dreamed of I think this supports my point. When there is an influx of wealth, through honest or ill-gotten means (such as looting the Church...another bureaucracy), there is little scrutiny for having a large bureaucracy. When the ruling order is facing stress, then a bureaucracy is held under more scrutiny. The Chinese have a term, "the mandate of heaven", which is used to judge the ruling order. The moral is if the peoples' quality of life diminishes, the ruling order will lose it's legs to stand on. Let's be honest here, the bureaucracy enforces the rules of the ruling order/ruler. The bureaucracy can take a life of it's own & can even become the ruling order. This happen with the court eunics in the late Han dynasty. Either way, the bureaucracy is a representation of the ruling order. When the ruling order loses the mandate of heaven, then the representations of the ruling order will face more scorn. Btw, the eunics were scorned long before the dynasty collapsed...they just had enough power to punish the critics. Granted, there are many more complexities than having a monolithic bureaucratic bloc. There are different actors with different motivations. The eunics where a subset of the court bureaucracy who gained power through internal conflict. My criticism of the OP is that the author treats the bureaucracy as a single entity. It may be in effect to outsiders, but inside, many actors & factions compete for control...and I think bureaucratic innovation occurs.