Quotes About Bureaucracy

Civil servants take forever to do anything.

It's one thing to make financial aid available to students so they can attend college. It's another thing to design forms that students can actually fill out.

Washington can be a frustrating place.

Monarchies have some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and parasitic nature of the management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions when necessary. They fit an ancient human demand for a parental (tribal/feudal) hierarchy where every person knows his place. It is valuable to know your place, even if that place is temporary. It is galling to be held in place against your will. This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way—by example.

Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it's that patterns are repeated.

Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity.

Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power.

A good bureaucracy is the best tool of oppression ever invented.

In their passion for sameness, the tyrants made themselves more and more powerful. All others grew correspondingly weaker and weaker. New bureaus and directorates, odd ministries, leaped into existence for the most improbable purposes. These became the citadels of a new aristocracy, rulers who kept the giant wheel of government careening along, spreading destruction, violence, and chaos wherever they touched.

Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity." Odrade explaining. "The young must be damped down. Never let them know how good they can be. That brings change. Spend lots of committee time talking about how to deal with exceptional students. Don't spend any time dealing with how the conventional teacher feels threatened by emerging talents and squelches them because of a deep-seated desire to feel superior and safe in a safe environment.

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 levels of tolerance are lower and the corrupt can be thrown out periodically. Entrenched bureaucracy seldom can be touched short of violence. Beware when Civil Service and Military join hands!

Power attracts the corruptible. Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible. This is the danger of entrenched bureaucracy to its subject population.

I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies.

Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power... Ministers of this, Great Honored Matres of that, a powerful few at the top and many functionaries below. They already are full of adolescent hungers. Like voracious predators, they never consider how they exterminate their prey. A tight relationship: Reduce the numbers of those upon whom you feed and you bring your own structure crashing down.

They have no room to maneuver because that's the way their superiors grow fat. If you don't see the difference between regulation and law, both have the force of law.

Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies.

Bureaucracy elevates conformity, make that 'elevates fatal stupidity', to the status of religion.

La burocrazia distrugge l'iniziativa. Poche sono le cose che i burocrati odiano più delle innovazioni, specialmente quelle innovazioni che producano risultati migliori delle vecchie abitudini. I miglioramenti fanno sempre sembrare inetti quelli che sono in cima al mucchio. A chi piace sentirsi inetto?

Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments.

aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class—whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. —POLITICS AS REPEAT PHENOMENON: BENE GESSERIT TRAINING MANUAL

The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority," Odrade called it, her voice exultant. "Downfall of democracy. Either overthrown by its own excesses or eaten away by bureaucracy.

It is naive to expect any bureaucracy to take brilliant innovations and put them to good use. Bureaucracies ask different questions.

bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power.

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept? —A GUIDE TO TRIAL AND ERROR IN GOVERNMENT, BENE GESSERIT ARCHIVES