purple motes

"Of all the millions of people, nine of ten hold no official position: how could all of them be High-minded Men?"

So observed Meng Lou, a scholar-recluse, quoted in the mid-seventh-century Chinese text, "Accounts of Reclusion and Disengagement."  In Chinese history, refusing to take up an official position in the government bureaucracy was celebrated as "an exuberant expression of individualistic endeavor and freedom from worldly taint and constraint."  These highly respected persons were known under a variety of names:

Hidden Men (yinshi; i.e., men-in-reclusion), Disengaged Persons (yimin), Disengaged Scholars (yishi), Overlooked Persons (yimin #2), Scholars-at-Home (chushi), High-minded Men (gaoshi), Lofty and Disengaged (gaoyi), Lofty Recluses (gaoyin), Remote Ones (youren), Hidden Ones (yinzhe), Hidden Princely Men (yin junzi), Men of the Cliffs and Caves (yanxue zhi shi), Sojourners Who Prize Escape (jiadun ke), Scholars Who Fly to Withdrawal (feidun zhi shi), or Summoned Scholars (zhengshi; i.e., men who receive an imperial summons to court but decline appointment).[*]

But John the covert bureaucrat understands the truth:

The wisdom of hermits isn’t austere. It is practical and rooted deeply in practice. A practice that is embedded in the Dharma but expressed in the daily working of a hard, cold and sometimes lonely life. In that way the practice of the hermits is not so far from our own practice at times.

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[*] Meng Lou quote from Jin shu, Yinyi zhuan, 94.2443, trans. in Berkowitz, Alan J. (2000), Patterns of disengagement: the practice and portrayal of reclusion in early medieval China (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press) pp. 1, 198.  The second and third quotations are from id., pp. xi, xii.

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Bureaucrats do not merely sit at their desks, calmly floating in an environment that outside energy supports.  Bureaucrats play an active role in generating their own support.  Scientists that levitated a frog insightfully explain:

As you might well know, all matter in the universe consists of small particles called atoms and each atom contains electrons that circle around a nucleus. This is how the world is made.

If one places an atom (or a large piece of a matter containing billions and billions of atoms) in a magnetic field, electrons doing their circles inside do not like this very much. They alter their motion in such a way as to oppose this external influence.

Incidentally, this is the most general principle of Nature: whenever one tries to change something settled and quiet, the reaction is always negative (you can easily check out that this principle also applies to the interaction between you and your parents). So, according to this principle, the disturbed electrons create their own magnetic field and as a result the atoms behave as little magnetic needles pointing in the direction opposite to the applied field. [footnotes omitted]

The result is levitation of the frog in the magnetic field.  Confronted with external energy directed toward change, bureaucrats also act according to this most general principle of Nature.  Each of the billions of atoms in each bureaucrat's body generates a counter-reaction.  Bureaucrats' active interaction with the energy around them not only generates support for bureaucrats, but actually enables bureaucrats to fly.

Other bureaucratic reports this month:

Suthichai Yoon reports that the Prime Minister of Thailand has formed a Coordination Committee to monitor Cabinet decisions.  Coordination ranks only behind editing documents in bureaucratic importance.

The babu blogger reports that three bureaucrats were selected for India's prestigious Padma Bhusan award on the eve of India's 61'st Republic Day.  One of these administrative leaders is PR Dubhashi, a 1953 batch Karnataka cadre IAS.  Mr. Dubhashi has an impressive record of bureaucratic service:

After being trained at Metcalfe House, he began his career as an SDO in Davangere and later became deputy commissioner in drought-prone Raichur in 1958-59. ... He also held some key posts like Establishment Officer (1978-80), additional secretary in ministry of agriculture (1980-81) and director of Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA).

He rose to the position of secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).  Mr. Dubhashi also wrote a book, Pursuing Idealism Through Civil Service: Memories Of An Administrator And A Trainer.   We join persons in India and around the world in celebrating Mr. Dubhashi's service.

Yoko Kubota reports that Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan has launched an initiative to encourage bureaucrats to go on dates on weeknights.   Ms. Kubota observes:

How exactly Kan plans to get the bureaucrats to go on dates is still unclear, though. In good bureaucratic fashion, he is setting up a team to come up with the details of the plan. ...

“If we can go home early, I’m sure I could go on dates more often,” one bureaucrat told me. “That is, if I can find someone to go with.”

This is a serious problem that deserves further study.

In England, Tamara Cohen reports  that Emma Chapelhow, age 13, is suing the U.K. Child Support Agency (CSA) over its determination to collect £43,000 in backdated payments from her father to her biological mother.   Emma has lived with her father since 2007.  Ignorant persons might question why these backdated payments from her father to her biological mother are called "child support".   The reason is simple: they are required by the Child Support Agency.   The child Emma complains in her suit that the Child Support Agency's enforcing of these payments will bankrupt her father and force her into poverty.  In addition:

the teenager claims that, four months ago, she was left in tears after bailiffs acting for the CSA allegedly threatened to take her pet pony Pringle to help meet the payments.

We regret the hardships that this girl faces, but the Child Support Agency is a major organization that transfers a huge amount of money from men to women under the force of law.  Sometimes a girl has to be sacrificed for the sake of the organization.

Everett Sizemore describes the regulation of chickens in Denver:

We can have chickens here, but must jump through some fairly asinine bureaucratic hoops and pay fees so high they make the whole exercise counterproductive. First you submit an application to Animal Control, which costs $50. Then they come out to inspect the site, never having actually provided any guidance on what standards you’re supposed to meet. If these people approve you (never mind the fact that they’re trained to deal with dogs and cats and most don’t even seem to realize a chicken doesn’t need a rooster to lay eggs) then you’re on to the zoning department. You will be required to contact the neighborhood organization and council member for your area, and post two notices at two different times in your front yard, informing any neighbors (not just next door, but from blocks away) of their right to object. Why they can object to you having a Nigerian Dwarf goat while you can have nothing to say about their five great danes has yet to be answered – but, providing they don’t object after 30 days, you can now purchase a permit for $100. This permit costs $70 for renewal every year. Keep in mind this is only for the chickens you had at the time. Should one of your hens die (and they only lay well for 2-3 years) you’re supposed to pay again for their replacements.

Here at the Carnival of Bureaucrats, we lack expertise in chickens.  However, a bureaucrat's cousin has a dove that laid an egg (sadly, like Mr. Sizemore's chickens, without the love, companionship,and freely given support of a male dove).   Apparently a pet dove can lay an egg without a permit.  Rather than bashing bureaucrats, we suggest that Mr. Sizemore rename his chickens to be doves.

Rob Roberts outrageously encourages Toronto residents to ignore impressive regulations that include a formal textual citation.   Around a pond in Toronto, which is far north in Canada, are signs that state: "Danger. Ice unsafe. Keep off. Municipal Code #608."   Mr. Roberts quibbles that the ambient temperature has been -10 degrees centigrade for at least a week.   However, regulations are not made for special cases such as Canadian winters.  He huffs that  playing hockey began on a pond in Canada.  That's logically no reason for it to continue on ponds in Canada.

That's all for this month's Carnival of Bureaucrats.  Enjoy previous bureaucratic carnivals here.  Nominations of posts to be considered for inclusion in next month's carnival should be submitted using Form 376: Application for Bureaucratic Recognition.

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Images courtesy of the High Field Magnet Laboratory, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

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After a hard day of bureaucratic work, you might enjoy a bed-time gothic thriller:

A crime has been committed.

The country has been robbed in one of the greatest ripoffs and dirty deals in modern industrial history.  And in the commission of the crime, the nation's largest and most socially minded corporation was defiled and destroyed.

A department of forensic accountants, sleeping soundly in a dark, clear night with crickets chirping vigorously all around in the bog in which they have camped after a long, fruitful day of team-building and sharing exercises, mysteriously begins to stir.  One accountant bolts upright in her sleeping bag and puts on her glasses.

So why was Ma Bell attacked?  Who is to blame for the rape of Ma Bell?  At whom can we point the finger?

"Something's just not right," she mutters to herself in the dark.  Listening carefully, she hears sounds of others moving.

A federal reguatory authority, usurping state powers, ignoring its mandate to protect the public interest.  ...

Some government lawyers who saw a chance to make a reputation.

A press that failed to inform the public.

A Bell System management that was derelict in mounting an effective public information program.

"I hate to wake up my co-workers," she reminds herself, "but this is an extraordinary situation.   Something's happening."

Uncontrolled connection of terminal equipment

Destruction of end-to-end responsibility

Disregarding of the National Academy of Sciences panel's warnings and recommendations

FCC's Computer II decision depriving customers of modern services and stalling technological progress

Destruction of the integrated network [*]

Groping, stumbling, blindly crawling in different directions, the department finally manages to come together for a meeting around a recently filled-in hole at the center of the damp ground where they set up camp.  A quiet tenseness hangs over them like a dense fog.

"Something's happening," she finally says quietly but firmly.  Dead silence.  "Are you sure?"  ultimately responds the Senior Accountant who has only 312 more days of work until retirement.

Then everyone starts talking at once.  "How do we know?"  "Everything will be ok."  "Don't get upset, don't get worried, don't get nervous.  My mobile is auto-dialing the police.  The second the fog lifts, the phone will get enough bars to connect.  Oh, I should have switched to a service provider with better coverage!"  "I use T-Mobile."  "Let's just go back to bed."  "Mind if I go to the bathroom?" "Not on my tent!"  "If we just stick together, we'll be all right."

And then, dear reader, you fell asleep.  Bureaucrats are impervious to attack and have no fear of change.

In other bureaucratic news, a true horror story from David Kassel at the Accountable Strategies blog:

Many terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and Hamas, have organizational structures that look like any bureaucracy, Helfstein says.  They are staffed with financial, operations, and strategy officers, and even public relations personnel.  Computers and hard drives seized by counterterrorism officials often contain bureaucratic forms outlining standard operating procedures.

If terrorists start acting like bureaucrats, they will be invincible.

Minoru Morita reports that government bureaucrats in Japan are scared.  He quotes a governnment bureaucrat saying:

Lately, when I meet government officials, they seem a little tense. They've been feeling this way ever since people starting realizing political change could occur, especially once the Democratic Party of Japan started talking about dismantling the bureaucracy and the mass media joined in the bureaucrat bashing. If the DPJ wins, it will join with the media to bash the bureaucrats even more.

The mass media cannot be serious about bureaucrat bashing.  Bureaucracy is the foundation of all civilizations.  It will endure as long as civilization endures.

Dave E. at Fish Fear Me observes that one must trust bureaucrats because laws are written incomprehensibly. Convoluted, obscure, and baroque laws form the basis for a meritocratic society.  Those who study laws the most thoroughly are the most successful.  Bureaucracy and meritocracy are thus closely related.

Aguanomics features an excellent discussion on bureaucrats.  Consider this insightful comment:

The term "bureaucrat", like "salesman" or "lawyer" carries a negative connotation these days; yet we rely on these people, and can be very very well served by them. I just returned from 3 days touring the Hetch Hetchy system in a group largely composed of what would be called bureaucrats. I came away very impressed with their dedication, pride, and professionalism. Theory dictates that monopoly agencies staffed with civil service employees should become stultified backwaters. Yet, many people in government or agency jobs really are driven by a commitment to lead a useful life, and to serve society.

This is a good example of the many intelligent and highly perceptive comments found on blogs, YouTube, Twitter, and many other fine internet sites.

That's all for this month's Carnival of Bureaucrats.  Nominations of posts to be considered for inclusion in next month's carnival should be submitted using Form 376: Application for Bureaucratic Recognition.

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[*] Above quotes from Constantine Raymond Kraus and Alfred W. Duerig (1988), The Rape of Ma Bell: The Criminal Wrecking of the Best Telephone System in the World (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart) pp. 12-3, 14, 187.

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Bureaucrats typically make whatever is done or said appear to result from tremendous effort and hours of discussion and deliberation.  This appearance of ponderousness, stiffness, toil, and seriousness is not an end in itself.  Merely subtracting from the attractiveness of life isn't rational.  Bureaucrats, who highly honor rationality, actually cultivate bureaucratic impressions in order to serve better their organizations' leaders.  The basic organizational problem was clearly recognized nearly a half-millennium ago:

they [organizational leaders] have the greatest lack of what they would most need in abundance -- I mean, someone to tell them the truth and make them mindful of what is right: because their enemies are not moved by love to perform these offices, but are well pleased to have them live wickedly and never correct themselves; and, on the other hand, their enemies do not dare to speak ill of them in public for fear of being punished.  Then among their friends there are few who have free access to them, and those few are wary of reprehending them for their faults as freely as they would private persons, and, in order to win grace and favor, often think of nothing save how to suggest things that can delight and please their fancy, although these things be evil and dishonorable; thus, from friends these men become flatterers, and, to gain profit from their close association, always speak and act in order to please, and for the most part make their way by dint of lies that beget ignorance in [the organizational leader's] mind....[1]

A bureaucrat use the apparent weight of his work and the size of his task forces and project teams to make palatable a better relationship with an organizational leader:

the aim of the perfect [bureaucrat]...is to win for herself, by means of the accomplishments ascribed to her...the favor and mind of the [organizational leader] whom she serves so that she may be able to tell her, and always will tell her, the truth about everything she needs to know, without fear or risk of displeasing her; and that when she sees the mind of her [organizational leader] inclined to a wrong action, she may dare to oppose her and in a gentle manner avail herself of the favor acquired by her good accomplishments, so as ... she sees to it that her [organizational leader] is deceived by no one, listens to no flatterers or slanderers or liars, and distinguishes good from evil....[2]

So the next time you condemn superficial impressions of superfluous bureaucracy, pause and strive to recognize the virtues of natural bureaucratic graces.

Other bureaucratic matters in the docket for this month:

Martin Westlake notes the beauty of a well-prepared meeting room.  You should, too.

The Traveling Chemist complains that a car rental employee followed regulations in requiring an insurance certificate for the rental car.  If more persons scrupulously observed regulations, the global financial markets would not have melted down.

Mark Carlton at An Honest Debate had a similar experience with a bureaucratic Treasurer in Kansas.  He concludes:

please understand my frustration and anger was not the Treasurer’s fault. She was just doing her job. Unfortunately for me, she insisted on do it right.

You can count on bureaucrats to do the job right.

Jolaides at Jordan Journals recently described a bureaucratic procedure at the Jordanian Ministry of Finance. Jolaides explains:

We get there and go from one counter to another and finally arrive at a point where a gentleman in front of a computer looked up the number and told us to go to the next desk. They said ok you have to wait for ten minutes so that the file can be brought up. The computer seems to be redundant! We wait for awhile, the file arrives. Then the guy looks at me and says we have to have a paper to prove you are alive!!! What????? I said here is my id and here I am, what more do you want?

Documentation. There must be a transfer of documents.

Ethan Zuckerman reports on Tim O’Reilly talking about government 2.0.  Mr O'Reilly highlighted the need to appreciate government failure:

The government tends to treat projects like the Apollo 11 rocket launch: “Failure is not an option.” It should be. We fail all the time, and we need to learn from it.

Government bureaucrats have very high performance standards, and almost all government bureaucrats receive an "above average" performance rating. Failure just isn't very frequent. I know of no failures that occurred last year when leading governments upgraded from government 2.0 to government 2.1.

Bex at Listening to Africa, on a two-year bike ride through Africa, describes getting a visa at the Mauritanian border:

The passport came back with a three day stamp in it. “You must extend the visa in Nouakchott [Mauritania's capital, in the south of the country] in the next three days.” But we need five days to cycle to Nouakchott – is there another possibility? “It is too hot to cycle in Mauritania. You must get the bus. It is better.”

This last sentence he said in the special tone taught at Bureaucrat Schools around the globe, where any words at all can be spoken and the meaning is always, unequivocally: “You will never win against the might of the bureaucratic machine, which, by the way, your country did so much to export to the world. If you insist on trying, your spirit will be crushed, your will will be broken and you will die a wretched death. And I will still be here, holding the stamp and the official looking bits of paper. Now go away.” So we went away.

Sadly, many bureaucrats never get the opportunity to attend Bureaucrat School.  More financial support for education would help to raise bureaucrats' status.  But at least bureaucrats can find inspiration every month right here at the Carnival of Bureaucrats.

That's all for this month's Carnival of Bureaucrats. Nominations of posts to be considered for inclusion in next month's carnival should be submitted using Form 376: Application for Bureaucratic Recognition.

Notes:

[1] Castiglione, Baldassare (1528) The Book of the Courtier [Il Cortegiano] trans. Charles S. Singleton (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959) Bk 4.6 (pp. 290-1).  In 1524, Castiglione began serving as a high bureaucratic official for the Vatican (Apostolic Nuncio to Spain).  The Book of the Courtier was an early modern best-seller.  From the original Italian, it was rapidly translated into Spanish, German, French, and English.  Between 1528 and 1616, 108 editions were published and its early-modern readership has been estimated as 300,000.  See Burke, Peter (1996) The Fortunes of the Courtier: the European reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano. Penn State series in the history of the book (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press) p. 153.

[2] Castigione (1528 [1959]) Bk 4.5 (pp. 289-90).  I have changed pronouns' gender in the quoted passage to make it more inclusively relate to modern bureaucracy.

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Ants are second only to humans in bureaucratic excellence. Study of ants thus potentially provides important insights into bureaucratic behavior. Recently scientists observed ant meetings with purported high-level ant management:

Clustering around the speaker, worker ants stay motionless in a hunched-over posture with antennae out and jaws slightly open. Like an honor guard around a human queen, worker ants will maintain that pose for hours.

Such behavior indicates well-trained bureaucrats. Unfortunately, the purported high-level management was an imposter, a complete fraud, in reality not a queen ant but actually a caterpillar. Through the misfortune of biological change, a species of butterflies has evolved the ability to exploit ants. The caterpillar stage of the butterfly makes noises ("Staff meeting! Staff meeting!") that induce the ants to carry the caterpillar into the ant nest and treat it like a queen.  Appalling exploitation results from the ants' dedicated bureaucratic service:

[the] interloper caterpillar gains most of its body mass while luxuriating in ant care, and then turns into a Maculinea rebeli butterfly.

This is similar to the revolving door phenomenon in high-level managerial positions in some human bureaucracies. To avoid exploitation, ant and human bureaucracies should avoid bringing in outsiders and should be suspicious of managers who appear to differ from previous managers.

StickSlip at Orbis criticizes Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem for containing "unremarkable clichès" and "prosaic platitudes".  Clichès and platitudes are prominent features of bureaucratic writing. They also make for commercially successful poetry.  We foresee a bright future for Ms. Alexander in the greeting card industry.

Victor Barrenceha at ArtLurker documents the problems of an artist who lacks sufficient respect for bureaucracy. A Miami code inspector issued code infractions to artist Clifton Childree for: "Weird mannequins with their heads chopped off in the garage, ... movie theatre with collapsed ceiling in the backyard, as well as piles of rotted wood, scattered furniture, and other debris." Bureaucracy is a higher art than art. Artists who want to be exhibited in a major art institution must learn to appreciate bureaucracy.

Andy at TinkerX offers a rousing defense of middle management. We agree completely on all points. Without middle management, the whole bureaucratic structure would collapse in upon itself.

Jim Sinclair at Jim Sinclair's mineset offers a brief explanation of economic stimulus payments. It's clearly far too brief for a bureaucratic to have actually written it.

Bureaucratic work requires intense concentration. While most bureaucrats are superhuman, some are merely human. This can lead to problems with young, sexy interns. Fortunately, European Commission officials have recognizes this problem and are organizing a study group to examine it. The Telegraph, continuing a tradition of sensational newspaper reporting, has crassly sensationalized this legitimate concern for bureaucratic concentration. Consider this quote from an anonymous source:

"I think men working here in boring jobs would love to believe that sexy women spies were after their bodies and their secrets. I personally think it is unlikely," said Petra, a 24-year old stagiare from a Baltic country.

Bureaucrats do not have boring jobs. In addition, sexy women spies are after their bodies. And if Petra (I believe the root of Petra is "rock") had more bureaucratic skill, she would produce a 25-page report on the subject rather than merely declare what she personally thinks.

That's all for this month's Carnival of Bureaucrats. Submit your blog article to the next edition using our carnival submission form. Submissions should conform to the Carnival's regulations. Past editions of the Carnival of Bureaucrats can be found on the Carnival's category page.

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Modern bureaucratic art is unjustly deprived of the spotlight it deserves in leading museums and galleries in Washington, D.C. The Hirshhorn's museum's ongoing exhibition, The Panza Collection, leads the way with a needed expansion of artistic appreciation. One work exhibited is Lawrence Weiner's REDUCED. The exhibition documentation explains:

Lawrence Weiner gained international recognition in the late 1960s when he began using text as his primary means of expression.

Bureaucrats have been using text as their primary means of expression since the invention of text in ancient Mesopotamia about 5000 years ago.

The modern artist who best exemplifies bureaucratic art unquestionably is Hanne Darboven. The Panza Collection includes her work 27K-No8-No26 (excerpt shown above). Technically, it consists of 149 pages of written numbers and some text. It has the feel of an accountant's working papers, but is somewhat more tightly structured. The work brilliantly captures the process of making and editing documents. Best of all, it represents the astonishing volume of work that dedicated bureaucrats produce.

Surprisingly, Darboven received highly academic training at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, but apparently has no significant on-the-job experience in a major bureaucracy. Yet, as a great artist, Darboven seems to have intuited the essence of the bureaucratic form. An art critic insightfully observed:

Over time, time has become the focus of Darboven's art. ... The calendar, which subsequently formed the foundation of Darboven's art practice, again offered a universal orientation, embodying a given, prefabricated, ready-made temporal system. Calibrated in her work in many ways over almost three decades, it has provided the basis of an arbitrary artistic system that has the appearance of objectivity. Conjoining a rigorous numerical process with free-associative roots, and tight rational thought with intellectual freedom, Darboven's capricious sense of time has resulted in diverse monumental works that may span a month, a year, even a century, all recorded day by day.

A focus on time, recorded day by day, is central to bureaucratic art. On any given day, leading artists can tell you how many more days remain before they can retire.

Will Willkinson at Fly Bottle considers Technocracy vs. Liberal Democracy. He reasons:

So bureaucrats in a technocracy will be motivated to explore ideas, while bureaucrats in a democracy will be motivated to signal and recruit fidelity to the coalition’s pre-assigned ideas.

Will needs to ponder 27K-No8-No26. Bureaucrats in all types of organizations and political systems mark time.

Leo Babauta at zenhabits offers 10 Steps to Take Action and Eliminate Bureaucracy. But if you eliminate bureaucracy, there will be no one to study what action to take. Taking action without reason is unenlightened.

Scott Erb at World in Motion recognizes the importance of bureaucrats. The success or failure of any government depends on bureaucrats.

Marco's Webdev Notepad considers the relationship between bureaucracy and agile software development. He declares that "bureaucracy is seen as inhibitor to software process improvement efforts and particularly to agile methodologies" and that a "cultural shift towards agile will make many ‘bureaucrats’ uncomfortable." That's absurd. As Moe convincingly shows, bureaucrats are extremely agile.

SengAun Ong at Tipskey submits Work Email Tips and remarks, "Bureaucrats at work like me can be efficient in email writing too!" Handling email more efficiently means that you can produce more documents in a given amount of time. Highly recommended.

Jay Wilkinson, writing on the blog of the Montclair State University sociology department, describes the Department of Motor Vehicles at the "epitome of bureaucracy." Most DMV's are outstanding bureaucracies. Nonetheless, only 20-30 localities have Top-10 bureaucracies.

That's all for this month's Carnival of Bureaucrats. Submit your blog article to the next edition using our carnival submission form. Submissions should conform to the Carnival's regulations. Past editions of the Carnival of Bureaucrats can be found on the Carnival's category page.

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Bureaucracy is always there. The paperwork never ages, it never changes, it never disappoints. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, you might as well love and cherish it because it will be with you until death. The final part your heirs are required to do for you.

Love bureaucracy. Work late. Marry your job. Let bureaucracy father your children and they will never know that they want.

The world sadly lacks love for bureaucrats. At the fascinating Parking Today's Blog, John Van Horn declares, "Bureaucrats just don’t get it." Of course not. How, after all, would they get it? As for the parking office that refused to accept 30,000 pennies in payment for parking tickets, the parking office made the correct decision. I suspect that this situation was not covered in the parking office's business operations manual. If a situation is not covered in the business operations manual, then it must be rejected.

In a post entitled The Exciting Life of Bureaucrats, David Boswell notes that he recently finished reading Life of a European Mandarin. Mr. Boswell states that he is interested in reading books "where people started looking to the government as a positive influence instead of something that worked poorly and should stay out of people’s way." We encourage everyone to follow Mr. Boswell's reading program.

Christopher Hayes, in a post entitled In Praise of Red Tape, observes:

At a time when the press failed to check a reactionary Administration, when the opposition party all too often chose timidity, it was the lowly and anonymous bureaucrats, clad in rumpled suits, ID badges dangling from their necks, who, in their own quiet, behind-the-scenes way, took to the ramparts to defend the integrity of the American system of government.

Lowly and anonymous bureaucrats are the heart and soul of a great country. Mr. Hayes should have developed this important point further. We regret his invoking of caricatures and calumnies, as well as mis-attributing a scurrilous quote to Cicero.

Norman Leahy at Tertium Quids ridicules Arlington County bureaucrats for riding tricycles. This is a typical superficial criticism of bureaucrats. Bicycles are an exceptionally good means of transportation. Moreover, that the county spent $490 for a "fully loaded" tricycle is a great deal. Most of the guys on my bike team have two-wheeled bikes that cost about ten times that amount. Tricycles handle much better than two-wheeled bikes in snow and ice conditions, so they are an excellent choice for year-round transportation.

Economist John Cochrane at the University of Chicago sharply criticizes the work of 101 bureaucrats in writing a letter. He declares, "As usual, academics need to waste two paragraphs before getting to the point..." The letter he criticizes has a total of five paragraphs. Projecting to the economy as a whole, Mr. Cochrane's proposed cuts would imply a 40% fall in output. Employment would probably fall by 15-20%. That's a major recession. Economist should assist bureaucrats in boosting output, not reducing it.

Winterspeak discusses the recent financial crisis. He observes:

Given that the financial system has revealed itself to be one enormous Government Sponsored Enterprise, I'm amused to hear that the solution is "more regulation". I assume that that's the solution to FEMA as well.

A new independent regulatory agency should be formed to regulate FEMA. That new agency might begin by setting out detailed time schedules for administering hurricane relief.

That's all for this month's Carnival of Bureaucrats. Submit your blog article to the next edition using our carnival submission form. Submissions should conform to the Carnival's regulations. Past editions of the Carnival of Bureaucrats can be found on the Carnival's category page.

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The economist:

the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. ... I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; ... soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil. ... Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.[1]

The bureaucrat:

A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community. He lives in the days that are past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstition. The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward. ... But in whatever degree poetry is cultivated, it must necessarily be to the neglect of some branch of useful study: and it is a lamentable spectacle to see minds, capable of better things, running to seed in the specious indolence of these empty aimless mockeries of intellectual exertion. Poetry was the mental rattle that awakened the attention of intellect in the infancy of civil society: but for the maturity of mind to make a serious business of the playthings of its childhood, is as absurd as for a full-grown man to rub his gums with coral, and cry to be charmed to sleep by the jingle of silver bells.[2]

The poet:

Whilst the mechanist abridges, and the political economist combines labor, let them beware that their speculations, for want of correspondence with those first principles which belong to the imagination, do not tend, as they have in modern England, to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and want. ... The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the State is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism. Such are the effects which must ever flow from an unmitigated exercise of the calculating faculty. ... Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.[3]

The bell rings, the curtain drops, the conference ends, so much say so. But what is truth?

Google provides the means for useful study. The table below shows the number of search results returned for various search strings. The column "Top Match" gives the rank of the first result that directly references the relevant quote above. Some facts:

• Poets far outdistance economists and bureaucrats in generating results. Poetry apparently is a common defense in human life. The relatively poor showing of bureaucrats suggests a need to increase public appreciation for bureaucrats.
• "Economists ideas power 'vested interests'" tops "poets legislators." This result indicates that economists' words have been more fecund than poets'.
• Poetry "useful study" shows few results, but that does not seem to be associated with results from "specious indolence."
• Persons seeking symbolic results should put the poor before the rich. "poor poorer rich richer" delivers about ten times as many results as "rich richer poor poorer." The poet, lacking the calculating facility, lacked this insight.

Notes:

[1] Keynes, John Maynard (1936), The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Chapter 24, Sec. 5. I have re-arranged the order of the quoted sentences.

[2] Peacock, Thomas Love (1820), "The Four Ages of Poetry," in Ollier's Literary Miscellany. Peacock worked for about 37 years as a clerk in the East India Company.

[3] Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1821), "Defense of Poetry," circulated in manuscript, but first published in 1840. Peacock and Shelley were close friends. Shelley's "Defense of Poetry" was a response to Peacocks "The Four Ages of Poetry."

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Featured this month as Bureaucrat-of-the-Month is Funtwo. That's not Fun2.0, but Funtwo. Bureaucrats have no need of superfluous precision.

You can see Mr. Funtwo working intensely in front of his desk in the video below (or here). With characteristic bureaucratic modesty, he appears faceless.

Mr. Fun continues in the tradition of bureaucrats that have made Korea a world broadband leader. I predict a great future for this young man in the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication.

The fruits of his work are for all to hear. Sweet child o' mine, purple haze envelopes purple motes, free bird flying on a stairway to heaven, all along the watchtower, watch this! Bureaucrats rock!!!

Other submissions:

The Obvious? laments:

As I get to see more and more organisations I sometimes get overwhelmed by a feeling I can only describe as melancholy at the number of clever, well meaning people in business who spend their working lives making it harder to get things done.

Cheer up, sir. That's called private-sector job creation.

Pope Benedict XVI offers St. Gregory the Great as a model for public administrators. But why aspire to be just a servant of the servants of the public? I've already achieved several bureaucratic levels lower than that! Additional insight for old media leaders: Gregory the Great, by reaching out to the so-called "Barbarian" peoples, fostered the development of a new civilization.

Generative Transformation reviews Henry David Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience. Thoreau's 1849 essay begins:

I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto,—"That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

Under Rule 6, submissions to the carnival of the bureaucrats may not include the phrase "'mindless bureaucrats,' or any other similar terms." The sentence "That government is best which governs not at all" does not directly use the phrase "mindless bureaucrats." However, it has connotations similar to that of "mindless bureaucrats" except if the former phrase is interpreted to mean that conscientious bureaucrats will do nothing. But that interpretation is not tenable, because most bureaucrats in fact work hard. Based on the preceding analysis, this particular submission is rejected by us as not meeting the requirements of the applicable regulations, which do not necessary preclude future submissions concerning civil disobedience, which we recognize has served the public interest in certain circumstances, which will not be described herein by us.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of the Bureaucrats. Submit your blog article to the next edition using our carnival submission form. Submissions should conform to the Carnival regulations. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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As an FCC bureaucrat, I'm intrigued by a recent discovery about the spineless gene. I'm trying to understand better the demand for communications services, particularly across sensory modes. A leading researcher on the spineless gene in fruit flies explained:

"Spineless plays a key role in the antenna and maxillary palp, the two major olfactory organs of the fly," said Ian Duncan. "It's also important in mechanosensory bristles and in the taste receptors of the legs, wings, and mouth parts. There has been a sensory theme to the gene, and now we learn from Claude's work that it plays a key role in color vision."

The spineless gene also produces certain random structures apparent in the eye:

"Nobody knew what controlled this random pattern," said Dianne Duncan. "Now we know it's spineless."

This discovery may provide an important insight into the evolution of the communications industry.

For more information and images of invertebrates, check out this month's Circus of the Spineless at Burning Silo.

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