Well, finally a point from Lorenzo where I find myself in disagreement.
"Greater scale means more capacity for accountability to be evaded by feedback dilution and for mechanisms to degrade accountability to emerge."
Avoidance of accountability is central to bureaucratic behavior, and this does not require scale to be problematic. Bureaucracy dilutes responsibility for decision-making - deliberately - because the cost of a bad decision is never a corrective feedback, just as the benefit of a good decision (rare as they are) is not a measure of success. Insularity of the bureaucracy is paramount, from the seed to the mature tree. I have seen this demonstrated in small organizations as well as large ones. Scale can certainly magnify cost, US Departments of Education and Defense coming prominently to mind, but the behavior itself is not dependent on scale. It is intrinsic to human organization and it takes great effort to overcome this natural tendency.
I would modify Robert Michels' formulation of "whoever says organization, says oligarchy" to include "also says bureaucracy".
I don't see the disconnect that you are raising. You are saying bureaucracy is bad for accountability. He is simply saying a larger bureaucracy is worse.
The core question becomes are there (or can there even be) mechanisms that make a bureaucracy less bureaucratic and more accountable?
One idea that I think should receive wider attention is rotating staff among different groups.
Especially for middle management so they get exposure to other elements of the larger organization that they aspire to one day lead. It provides the transferees with new challenges and opportunities to learn, helping to reduce burn out, along with the benefits of having multiple experiences as contributing to true diversity. It can also reduce their allegiance to "their" agency at the expense of the overall organizational mission directed to the customer/ taxpayer/ citizen base.
Another thought: the enabling legislation setting up the agency or bureaucracy should have sunset or renewal review steps/ stages every so many years, so their performance and accountability can be periodically reassessed (possibly mitigating rice bowl holders influence?)
If the agency employees know that their agency might just go away if it has accomplished its mission or failed to accomplish its mission, they would probably want to be able to claim they helped meet all goals and thus they are valuable persons for their next assignment.
Another rice bowl we have to watch for is the Congressional committees responsible for a given agency's oversight, as they might not like losing their authority or role if/when that agency goes away.
The question is can an accountability mechanism be enforced on the members (leaders in particular) within a bureaucracy. In business the answer tends toward yes, because profit is an accountability mechanism for the entire organization.
In other organizations the answer isn't anything nearly that easy. All organizations will behave bureaucratically, and pathologically so in the absence of accountability. Government agencies are merely one form of organization that behave bureaucratically. I have seen non-profit organizations that though small - displayed all the dysfunction of the Department of Defense.
I think you’re both right in that all structures avoid accountability where possible - from the family to the state. The point that Lorenzo makes, I think, is that modern government and bureaucracy encourage this behaviour. Britain is at last coming to terms with its Post Office Scandal - which has been running for 20 years without a single person ‘in charge’ being held to account.
All I can say is thank God the Roman Curia is only 500 people. It’s got to be one of the worlds smallest bureaucracy that governs a population of 1.1 billion and a micro-state and it is… Italian. Still very Italian in-spite of the the best efforts of non-Italians.
Nice work - the immediate thrust of this audacious foray is delivered with elan, and the reader gains some strong insight as a result. But, speaking as an aging native of the lesser precincts of LAla Land - aka suburban Southern California - I do feel compelled to contribute to the feedback loop and muddy the water a bit, particularly since the immigration issue is featured from the outset. As US readers are probably aware, my ‘hood has often served as ground zero for the immigration policy debate. As they may not know, there is a significant but veiled inner conflict within conservative ranks over the issue. The failure of immigration policy and border security enforcement (since the effects of Reagan-era reform have diminished), has, in fact, been of direct economic benefit to the class of small business owners who employ non-union labor. The substantial drag on lower-end wage growth that a reliably ample pool of eager, unskilled and legally vulnerable labor exerts is undeniable. It’s been that way for the better part of 30 years. Meanwhile the beneficiaries have tended to bemoan the cultural dilution even as they rub shoulders with their dusky brethren, develop a taste for hot salsa and intermarry with non-whites - all perfectly unobjectionable outcomes. And thus the core local supporters of the GOP accommodate a wee bit of cognitive dissonance in their own inimitable style.
Their historical aversion to occupations not centered on their own material obsessions has, over that same 30+ year period, contributed significantly to the utter dominance of academia by the left and its fringe-iest members. Most American conservatives abandoned that playing field long ago, so their objections ring hollow. Now that even their most cherished local institution of higher learning- The University of Southern California, one of the preeminent football factories in all of these United States - has shown signs of succumbing to wokery, they’re getting a bit miffed. Imagine that.
The optimal migration might be one of a slave class according to your analysis.
In the UK it is far more obvious that the migration issue is one of class. This is a small island with limited resources so it is obvious that massively increasing the population with poor people from overseas will undermine the provision for the local poor and physically reduce the land and property resource available to them. The rich are happy because they get cheap labour and rising property prices and the voice of the poor is broken.
All the rich, who control the media, need to do is focus on the victim status of the incomers (even though most are legal migrants) and suppress the victim status of the local poor. The electorate then either support migration or consider it a minor issue.
The academy is doing exactly what the governing class desires. This is why the far left has been allowed to recruit the far left in universities without corrective action by government. See
I hate to say that the changes of the past 50 years are the result of feminisation. Take a look at the table in the article linked below that shows the degree of difference between male and female voters on the issue of free speech.
PS: the attitudes of woke supporters remind me forcibly of the way my sisters used to argue when I was a child. Truth was my truthmaker but for them it was whether mother would believe them or me or which choice upset them the most. In those days we used to simply write this down to females being emotional and manipulative - you'd probably be arrested for this nowadays. :)
"Narratives are not about facts, they’re about making meaning. However, if they’re to continue to make meaning, they have to be protected from facts."
That's a rather pessimistic statement. It's only true if the narratives are contrary to fact.
While some narratives are indeed counterfactual, the bigger issue is that narratives contain opinion that may not fit the audiences preconceptions. An example would be an oppressor/oppressed narrative that conflicts with someone's more strongly held civilization/barbarian viewpoint.
I don't follow. I'd think narratives to reinforce shared opinions are more common than narratives to reject fact, not that narratives can't be a little of both.
"... Watergate brought down a popular and effective President—one who’d won a landslide victory—because it was true. ..."
I think what you say in this paragraph is interesting and mostly true. It is also interesting to think about the outcome if a Watergate event happened in 2016. Would that President step down? Assuredly not. Would the likely impeachment result in a conviction? That's rather uncertain but I'd guess no.
"There’s also a certain delicious pleasure to be had in indulging one’s hatred and cruelty behind a mask of morality and ostentatious kindness."
What you get when you combine ressentiment and jouissance.
Well, finally a point from Lorenzo where I find myself in disagreement.
"Greater scale means more capacity for accountability to be evaded by feedback dilution and for mechanisms to degrade accountability to emerge."
Avoidance of accountability is central to bureaucratic behavior, and this does not require scale to be problematic. Bureaucracy dilutes responsibility for decision-making - deliberately - because the cost of a bad decision is never a corrective feedback, just as the benefit of a good decision (rare as they are) is not a measure of success. Insularity of the bureaucracy is paramount, from the seed to the mature tree. I have seen this demonstrated in small organizations as well as large ones. Scale can certainly magnify cost, US Departments of Education and Defense coming prominently to mind, but the behavior itself is not dependent on scale. It is intrinsic to human organization and it takes great effort to overcome this natural tendency.
I would modify Robert Michels' formulation of "whoever says organization, says oligarchy" to include "also says bureaucracy".
I don't see the disconnect that you are raising. You are saying bureaucracy is bad for accountability. He is simply saying a larger bureaucracy is worse.
The core question becomes are there (or can there even be) mechanisms that make a bureaucracy less bureaucratic and more accountable?
One idea that I think should receive wider attention is rotating staff among different groups.
Especially for middle management so they get exposure to other elements of the larger organization that they aspire to one day lead. It provides the transferees with new challenges and opportunities to learn, helping to reduce burn out, along with the benefits of having multiple experiences as contributing to true diversity. It can also reduce their allegiance to "their" agency at the expense of the overall organizational mission directed to the customer/ taxpayer/ citizen base.
Another thought: the enabling legislation setting up the agency or bureaucracy should have sunset or renewal review steps/ stages every so many years, so their performance and accountability can be periodically reassessed (possibly mitigating rice bowl holders influence?)
If the agency employees know that their agency might just go away if it has accomplished its mission or failed to accomplish its mission, they would probably want to be able to claim they helped meet all goals and thus they are valuable persons for their next assignment.
Another rice bowl we have to watch for is the Congressional committees responsible for a given agency's oversight, as they might not like losing their authority or role if/when that agency goes away.
The question is can an accountability mechanism be enforced on the members (leaders in particular) within a bureaucracy. In business the answer tends toward yes, because profit is an accountability mechanism for the entire organization.
In other organizations the answer isn't anything nearly that easy. All organizations will behave bureaucratically, and pathologically so in the absence of accountability. Government agencies are merely one form of organization that behave bureaucratically. I have seen non-profit organizations that though small - displayed all the dysfunction of the Department of Defense.
I think you’re both right in that all structures avoid accountability where possible - from the family to the state. The point that Lorenzo makes, I think, is that modern government and bureaucracy encourage this behaviour. Britain is at last coming to terms with its Post Office Scandal - which has been running for 20 years without a single person ‘in charge’ being held to account.
The effect is not created by scale, but is aggravated by it.
Dash. I took it as emerging from the scale.
All I can say is thank God the Roman Curia is only 500 people. It’s got to be one of the worlds smallest bureaucracy that governs a population of 1.1 billion and a micro-state and it is… Italian. Still very Italian in-spite of the the best efforts of non-Italians.
Yes.
Too bad they couldn’t run a bath.
Nice work - the immediate thrust of this audacious foray is delivered with elan, and the reader gains some strong insight as a result. But, speaking as an aging native of the lesser precincts of LAla Land - aka suburban Southern California - I do feel compelled to contribute to the feedback loop and muddy the water a bit, particularly since the immigration issue is featured from the outset. As US readers are probably aware, my ‘hood has often served as ground zero for the immigration policy debate. As they may not know, there is a significant but veiled inner conflict within conservative ranks over the issue. The failure of immigration policy and border security enforcement (since the effects of Reagan-era reform have diminished), has, in fact, been of direct economic benefit to the class of small business owners who employ non-union labor. The substantial drag on lower-end wage growth that a reliably ample pool of eager, unskilled and legally vulnerable labor exerts is undeniable. It’s been that way for the better part of 30 years. Meanwhile the beneficiaries have tended to bemoan the cultural dilution even as they rub shoulders with their dusky brethren, develop a taste for hot salsa and intermarry with non-whites - all perfectly unobjectionable outcomes. And thus the core local supporters of the GOP accommodate a wee bit of cognitive dissonance in their own inimitable style.
Their historical aversion to occupations not centered on their own material obsessions has, over that same 30+ year period, contributed significantly to the utter dominance of academia by the left and its fringe-iest members. Most American conservatives abandoned that playing field long ago, so their objections ring hollow. Now that even their most cherished local institution of higher learning- The University of Southern California, one of the preeminent football factories in all of these United States - has shown signs of succumbing to wokery, they’re getting a bit miffed. Imagine that.
The optimal migration might be one of a slave class according to your analysis.
In the UK it is far more obvious that the migration issue is one of class. This is a small island with limited resources so it is obvious that massively increasing the population with poor people from overseas will undermine the provision for the local poor and physically reduce the land and property resource available to them. The rich are happy because they get cheap labour and rising property prices and the voice of the poor is broken.
All the rich, who control the media, need to do is focus on the victim status of the incomers (even though most are legal migrants) and suppress the victim status of the local poor. The electorate then either support migration or consider it a minor issue.
The academy is doing exactly what the governing class desires. This is why the far left has been allowed to recruit the far left in universities without corrective action by government. See
https://therenwhere.substack.com/p/the-globalist-threat
I hate to say that the changes of the past 50 years are the result of feminisation. Take a look at the table in the article linked below that shows the degree of difference between male and female voters on the issue of free speech.
https://therenwhere.substack.com/p/women-changed-the-world-2
PS: the attitudes of woke supporters remind me forcibly of the way my sisters used to argue when I was a child. Truth was my truthmaker but for them it was whether mother would believe them or me or which choice upset them the most. In those days we used to simply write this down to females being emotional and manipulative - you'd probably be arrested for this nowadays. :)
"Narratives are not about facts, they’re about making meaning. However, if they’re to continue to make meaning, they have to be protected from facts."
That's a rather pessimistic statement. It's only true if the narratives are contrary to fact.
While some narratives are indeed counterfactual, the bigger issue is that narratives contain opinion that may not fit the audiences preconceptions. An example would be an oppressor/oppressed narrative that conflicts with someone's more strongly held civilization/barbarian viewpoint.
The latter is not necessarily a narrative.
I don't follow. I'd think narratives to reinforce shared opinions are more common than narratives to reject fact, not that narratives can't be a little of both.
“…protected from adverse facts” perhaps.
"... Watergate brought down a popular and effective President—one who’d won a landslide victory—because it was true. ..."
I think what you say in this paragraph is interesting and mostly true. It is also interesting to think about the outcome if a Watergate event happened in 2016. Would that President step down? Assuredly not. Would the likely impeachment result in a conviction? That's rather uncertain but I'd guess no.
And what about the Iran Contra affair?
President Nixon resigned because it was clear he was going to be impeached on the evidence. The Iran Contra affair never got to that level.
Absolutely. But that's not a difference of truth and fake. They are both true.
There have been many Presidential scandals and precisely one Presidential resignation. Russiagate was fake is the point.
“Anyone who dissents from key narratives then gets “right-coded”, especially if they appear in “right” media or publications.”
We could have fun with this; catch woke intellectuals saying or writing something reasonable and praise them for it
Bad man. I love it.
There’s just one tiny problem with my evil plan: finding woke intellectuals who make reasonable statements.
There is that :)