
The Modern World’s Bureaucracy Problem
The Iron law states that any market reform or government initiative aimed at shrinking bureaucracy ends up expanding it.The modern world has a bureaucracy problem. We’ve known this since the post-Cold War years, as words like “paperwork” started popping up in media and conversation and a spate of anti-bureaucratic books like The Peter Principle, The Bureaucratization of the World, and Bureaucrats: How to Annoy Them hit bookshelves. In other words, we’ve recognized that bureaucracy is annoying, soul-killing, and worthy of scorn and derision for decades. Apparently, we just can’t do anything about it. The world is more bureaucratic today than ever. We’re going backwards. I’ll admit, I wasn’t planning on writing about bureaucracy. How boring. I try to, essentially, duck and cover. Hide from it. You need a spy-like furtive footprint, a feel for staying unentangled. Slip away sight unseen. No such luck. The Read More ›