Of Red Tape and Paper Pushers

Recent events in the news and in my life started me thinking about bureaucracies. I realize that as organizations grow they need to have a structure of some sort with levels of specializations in order to be efficient. Unfortunately, it seems bureaucracies tend to forget their original purpose for being created and become intent on their self-perpetuation and growth for growth’s sake, often eventually undermining the very cause they were initially created for.

If terms such as pencil-pusher, paper-pusher and red tape, didn’t originate because of bureaucracies, they have gained their status and are continually used because of them. At their worse, the people within these organizations become depersonalized cogs in the organizational mechanics.

Bureaucracies set themselves up quite well for satire. Here are some of my favorite books and movies that include bureaucratic elements as part of the story:

Joseph Keller’s Catch 22 was published in 1961, and made into a movie in 1970, and set the standard for lampooning the military bureaucracy. The very phrase “catch 22” is now synonymous with rules and regulations bureaucracies tend to create. After reading it I challenge you to forget characters like Captain John Yossarian and Major Major Major Major.

Keith Laumer wrote a dozen or so books and an assorted number of short stories about Jame Retief, a lower level member of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne (CDT) who manages to solve galactic issues in spite of the diplomatic bureaucracy. His superiors always take credit leaving him in the same position. The first book was Envoy to New Worlds (1963) with the last being Retief and the Rascals (1993). Some stories are better and funnier than others, and you can read them in any order.

Douglas Adams published the first book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in series 1978. From what I remember, while commercial and governmental bureaucracy runs throughout all of the books in the Guide itself, the first three (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978), The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), and Life, the Universe and Everything (1982)) deal with it more directly.

In 1985, Monty-Python alum Terry Gilliam (the animator and only American in the troupe) released Brazil. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, with Jonathon Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins and fellow Python Michael Palin. This 1984-ish world has innumerable stabs at bureaucracy gone wrong from the ever-present ducts (and the required process to get them fixed), to mistakes made and unclaimed by departments more concerned with their own jobs, to the dehumanizing and dream-killing effects of the system, to paper shuttling tubes, to crowds of yes-men following management, to underlings fighting over office supplies and space, to one an unforgettable ending. (Make sure you don’t get the version with the TV ending if you haven’t seen it yet.)

The Keys of the Kingdom series by Garth Nix, has the main character thrust into the politics of the House (basically the center of the Universe). The first six of seven books have already been published (Mister Monday (2003), Grim Tuesday (2004), Drowned Wednesday (2005), Sir Thursday (2006), Lady Friday (2007), Superior Saturday (2008), and Lord Sunday (2009)). Within these stories, you will encounter characters with titles like “Thesaurus Minimus Second Grade,” and “Primary Paper Pusher on the Extremely Grand Canal,” and “Master Foiler in the Foil Mill of the Guild of Gilding and Illumination.” Every citizen of the House knows exactly what position they fill in rank from the Architect by number. The series started off with a bang, but in subsequent books it sometimes felt like Nix was being weird and clever just for the sake of being weird and clever, but things really started picking up in the last couple of books. The sixth book has some great bureaucratic moments including cubicle-bound sorcerers attacking another who is promoted as her cubicle is physically moved.

As I was looking for any other stories I might have forgotten about, I discovered that science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle created the following "law", which he calls 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.

It is also stated 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 representative 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.

(You can read about this Law on several pages on Pournelle’s site, including this one.)

Well, on that note, let me know your thoughts on bureaucracy and your life or our current state of affairs, and if you have read any other books, or seen any television shows or movies that deal with the ridiculousness of organizations that have achieved this level of efficient inefficiency.