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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: capitalism vs. democracy???
Message-ID: <28200385@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Dec-85 02:29:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.28200385
Posted: Thu Dec 12 02:29:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 19:55:55 EST
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Dec 12 02:29:00 1985


[Discussion, started by Richard Carnes, about whether large  cor-
porations are undemocratic]

Large bureaucratic hierarchies, whether governmental or private,
function in similar ways, obeying laws discovered by Parkinson.

Civil service is subject, in principle, to remote democratic
control by elections.
Business executives are subject, in principle, to remote democratic
control by the market.
(In  both  democratic  mechanisms,  people  with  more  money  or
knowledge exercise more influence).
Being remote, the control is weak.

All types of managerial hierarchies cooperate and tend to  induce
a similar structure wherever their influence extends (e.g., among
their contractors or subcontractors). Just  obeying  governmental
rules  and  regulations  requires a large corporate staff - and a
staff composed of the kind of people who feel happy dealing  with
rules and regulations.

These they pass on to  subsidiaries  and  subcontractors,  adding
standards,  specifications,  schedules,  forms for reporting pro-
gress in implementing tools for monitoring progress in  follow-
ing rules, regulations, standards, specifications, schedules...
They are all very busy.

The process of bureaucratization is not  limited  to  governments
(of  all levels) and private companies - there are unions, chari-
ties, parties, professional organizations etc. It is a univer-
sal  process;  it  is  equally  prevalent  in the 1st, 2nd and 3d
world.

The growth of this form of organization is not due to  its  effi-
ciency  or  necessity but to politics and to Parkinsonian mechan-
isms.  Practical exigencies are what *limits* that growth.
They may yet *reverse* it.

These pyramids have a built-in informational bottleneck at the
top.  For  an individual bureaucrat, the bottleneck has the shape
of the boss's ear. And all levels of the hierarchy have a  built-
in  interest  in  exploiting the bottleneck by disinforming their
superiors. One level up, and reality looks quite different; three
levels up, and it is completely unrecognizable. In a bureaucracy,
understanding reality and power to influence it are inversely re-
lated.

Bureaucracies are dinosaurs, with a tiny head on a bloated  body.
With  informational  flows  gaining intensity, perhaps it is time
they went the way of the dinosaurs.

                Jan Wasilewsky