Bureaucracy

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> CB: There first dictionary defintion you gave, which did not
> mention private corporate bureaucracy ( you had to add it) is
> an accurate representation of the conventional usage of
> "bureaucracy". Even the COMPTON passage is much heavier on
> the government than the private socalled bureaucracy. It only
> mentions the inclusion of private corps once, and then goes
> on to only discuss goverments as examples.

The point of the COMPTON'S quote was to distinguish between bureaucracy and
hierarchy in general. It did that well.

^^^^^

CB: My point is that it had exactly the false stereotype that government is "bureaucratic" and corporations are not. Therefore it may have done what you say, but it failed on the issue I raised in starting this thread. It is part of "privatization" propaganda: private enterprise is more efficient than government enterprise. In part , because government has "bureaucracy" and private enterprise doesn't , allegedly.

^^^^


What all this says to me is that (1) we have to oppose bureaucracy unless it
is a tool of democracy; and (2) oppose the common view that bureaucracy is
only associated with government, whether it's capitalist or USSR-type
government.

^^^^^^^^

CB: Yes, I agree. However, how does bureaucracy become a tool of democracy, by government/bureaucracy getting SMALLER ( the cry is usually against the "Bigness" of the bureaucracy) ?  Seems to me that to democratize the "bureaucracy" , one would aim to make it bigger, not smaller. Democracy means more, not less, people making decisions.

^^^^^^^^


The identification of government with bureaucracy seems to reflect the
liberal world view, in which all centralization is bad, confusing
centralization with top-down rule, implicitly assuming that a centralized
organization such as the government cannot be subordinated to the democratic
will.

^^^^^^^^

CB: Agree.