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> Which could be taken to heart by people insisting that government should go back to some imagined simpler past. Those old processes are obsolete; there's no g

> Which could be taken to heart by people insisting that government should go back to some imagined simpler past. Those old processes are obsolete; there's no going back. But that's another tale. It isn't imagined, and there's no reason government ever needed to turn into a giant, bloated bureaucracy that's more interested in sustaining its own existence and growing ever-larger. In the United States, for example, the federal government alone is the largest employer in the entire world. Yes, bigger than the governments of countries that have three times as many people. Loved the rest of your comment though :)

JoeAltmaier 2y ago
A giant country needs more governing. Dreaming about 'going back' is fantasy. Sure there's plenty of things to improve. Just don't break everything before fixing it; people's lives depend on it.
Terr_ 2y ago
> a giant, bloated bureaucracy [...] In the United States, for example, the federal government alone is the largest employer in the entire world. That's misleading: You are asserting "lots of pencil-pushing bureaucrats", but the numbers you're touting instead rest upon "lots of gun-holding soldiers." Depending on how you crunch the numbers, India or China may have taken the #1 spot by now.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  P.S.: In contrast, consider the OECD stats for "Employment in general government as a percentage of total employment" [0], where the USA ranked somewhere like *squints* ~22nd in 2019, below the OECD average. [0] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/75f92d89-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?i... , graph 3.1
zamadatix 2y ago
The supermajority of employees of the federal government are from military/defense growth explosion sustained since WWII. The US is also not top of the list these days, India's department of defense has taken the crown. I.e. being a top employer is and has been mostly due to having a massive military, not bureaucratic growth, even outside the US. It's also worth noting federal employment numbers peaked 30 years ago, when there were 25% less people living in the country, so it's by no means been continuously growing ever larger. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-f...
- brianleb 2y ago
  A super majority is a specified proportion that is in excess of a simple majority (e.g., where a simple majority would be 51%, a super majority might be defined as 60%). Per your link (which is admittedly interesting), military/defense only accounts for about for 770k of 2.2M full time federal employees. That is not a super majority, that is a plurality (the single largest group but not a majority).
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    The supermajority is in reference to both military/defense, though I could see how that could be very confusing wording with the "military-defense" category also on that site. The difference being non-military level defense numbers were not included in your calculation of the pularality. Non military defense also at least includes Department of Homeland Security, for example. Between those two you've already left plurality for majority. To get to the supermajority you need to bring in the department of veterans affairs. Note these 3 compose the top 3 offices in terms of employment. Now I suppose you could argue the latter as bureaucracy as it's not direct defense but even then it's sole purpose is to provide lifelong healthcare support and benefits for the military personnel figure, not just random bureaucratic growth. Since that site didn't actually categorize the types of office, this reference includes similar defense categories as I listed above (though it also includes the Department of Justice, so gets a slightly higher percentage than my mind at the low 60% area): pdf warning https://ourpublicservice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FedFigures_FY18-Workforce-1.pdf https://ourpublicservice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FedF...

JoeAltmaier 2y ago

A giant country needs more governing. Dreaming about 'going back' is fantasy. Sure there's plenty of things to improve. Just don't break everything before fixing it; people's lives depend on it.

Terr_ 2y ago

> a giant, bloated bureaucracy [...] In the United States, for example, the federal government alone is the largest employer in the entire world. That's misleading: You are asserting "lots of pencil-pushing bureaucrats", but the numbers you're touting instead rest upon "lots of gun-holding soldiers." Depending on how you crunch the numbers, India or China may have taken the #1 spot by now.

Terr_ 2y ago
P.S.: In contrast, consider the OECD stats for "Employment in general government as a percentage of total employment" [0], where the USA ranked somewhere like *squints* ~22nd in 2019, below the OECD average. [0] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/75f92d89-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?i... , graph 3.1

zamadatix 2y ago

The supermajority of employees of the federal government are from military/defense growth explosion sustained since WWII. The US is also not top of the list these days, India's department of defense has taken the crown. I.e. being a top employer is and has been mostly due to having a massive military, not bureaucratic growth, even outside the US. It's also worth noting federal employment numbers peaked 30 years ago, when there were 25% less people living in the country, so it's by no means been continuously growing ever larger. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-f...

brianleb 2y ago
A super majority is a specified proportion that is in excess of a simple majority (e.g., where a simple majority would be 51%, a super majority might be defined as 60%). Per your link (which is admittedly interesting), military/defense only accounts for about for 770k of 2.2M full time federal employees. That is not a super majority, that is a plurality (the single largest group but not a majority).
- zamadatix 2y ago
  The supermajority is in reference to both military/defense, though I could see how that could be very confusing wording with the "military-defense" category also on that site. The difference being non-military level defense numbers were not included in your calculation of the pularality. Non military defense also at least includes Department of Homeland Security, for example. Between those two you've already left plurality for majority. To get to the supermajority you need to bring in the department of veterans affairs. Note these 3 compose the top 3 offices in terms of employment. Now I suppose you could argue the latter as bureaucracy as it's not direct defense but even then it's sole purpose is to provide lifelong healthcare support and benefits for the military personnel figure, not just random bureaucratic growth. Since that site didn't actually categorize the types of office, this reference includes similar defense categories as I listed above (though it also includes the Department of Justice, so gets a slightly higher percentage than my mind at the low 60% area): pdf warning https://ourpublicservice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FedFigures_FY18-Workforce-1.pdf https://ourpublicservice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FedF...