Iron Law of Bureaucracy
Pournelle has suggested several "laws". His first use of the term "Pournelle's law" appears to be for the expression "one user, one CPU." He has also used "Pournelle's law" to apply to the importance of checking cables connections when diagnosing computer problems. His best-known "law" is "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy":
- In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
He has restated it as:
- ...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
This can be compared to the Iron Law of Oligarchy. His blog, "The View from Chaos Manor", often references apparent examples of the law.
Some of Pournelle's standard themes that recur in the stories are: Welfare States become self-perpetuating, building a technological society requires a strong defense and the rule of law, and "Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it."
Read more about this topic: Jerry Pournelle, Politics
Famous quotes containing the words iron, law and/or bureaucracy:
“However, there is a locked room up there
with an iron door that can’t be opened.
It has all your bad dreams in it.
It is hell.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“If you’re going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy; God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won’t.”
—Hyman G. Rickover (1900–1986)