You see, what really distinguishes American capitalism from most other countries’ is not that we don’t have C.E.O. crooks, but others do, or that we never have bogus accounting, bribery, corruption or other greedy excesses, but others do. No, we have all the same excesses that other capitalist nations have, because fear and greed are […]
Bureaucracy Quotes
The engineer breaks a large problem into many small problems, each of which he can solve. The bureaucrat takes many small problems and rolls them together to form a large problem that no one can solve.
Over-seriousness is a warning sign for mediocrity and bureaucratic thinking. People who are seriously committed to mastery and high performance are secure enough to lighten up.
It’s a poor bureaucrat who can’t stall a good idea until even its sponsor is relieved to see it dead and officially buried.
An official man is always an official man, and he has a wild belief in the value of reports.
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
Power attracts the corruptible. Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible. This is the danger of entrenched bureaucracy to its subject population. Even spoils systems are preferable because the tolerance level is lower and the corrupt can be thrown out occasionally. Entrenched bureaucracy can seldom be touched short of violence. Beware when Civil Service and Military […]
Bureaucrat, n.: A politician who has tenure.
A civil servant doesn’t make jokes.
In any bureaucracy, paper work increases as you spend more and more time reporting on the less and less you are doing.
