It was arguably the invention of the printing press that - in the Early Modern period -doomed countless powerful and wealthy monasteries whose primary economic function had been the manual transcription of books.
The inflation of the generally unproductive, unable to make decisions, middle management level policy analysts extends to all levels of government. At the same time you would be hard pressed to find any significant increase in frontline/blue collar staff who actually deal with people and problems.
Most of these people have been sucked into a system where executive status (ED/DG) positions are rewarded by the number of other directors and managers who report to them. And they, as Poly Sci, Soc et al grads, likely now with MPAs or MBAs paid for by government, look to hire people who reflect their own educational paths.
The frontline, blue collar, technical staff are rarely consulted or promoted to management and the analyst class is unwilling to work with the technical folks for fear of not knowing what most employees think their managers and their advisors should know.
As such the goal for the managers isn't the best program or best public service but rather what is the best policy decision that will support the careers and political aspirations of their senior appointed staff and their Minister.
As such more and more people are employed, fewer and fewer of which deliver services; therefore, less and less gets done.
I would suggest that no one outside the government organization would notice the elimination of 50% of the policy analysts and their managers?
We need a comment of the day award. This is the one.
The only thing I might add is the corruption of how management (middle and exec-level) define success. Following the prescribed process or framework, ensuring all decisions were made via obtaining consensus, saying "collaboration!" endlessly, and patting everyone on the head regardless of contribution or level of involvement now trumps "are we actually delivering value for taxpayers".
Carter's article is exceptional, though its verbosity helps defend against the risk of being read to the end by most people.
To be fair, I think the American and Canadian contexts are not symmetrical, but similar enough that most of the theses put forward are least partly applicable here.
I definitely enjoyed the article - and made it through to the end. But - even after reading the linked piece by David Graeber - I'm still not sure I understand the evidence that private sector businesses have been overhiring analysts and managers.
I read Carter's piece to which you so generously provided a link. My question is simple: what happened to those monks et al who lost out when the monasteries, convents, etc. closed? The point of this question is, yes, they were offered a pension according to Carter but, knowing governments those pensions would have been minuscule (very unlike now where the pensions are extraordinarily good) and there would have been no social assistance such as we know it. So, where did those people go?
The reason that this is pertinent is if we are in a similar situation, where are our surplus "workers" [note the quotation marks] to go? This is not a facetious question but one that is very serious. Perhaps we can re-train them for the "green economy" much as the Face Painter and his ilk said that they would re-train energy industry workers - but never did.
David, as usual, you ask provocative questions. Of course, the more provocative the question, the less obvious the answer(s). And, sensibly, you offer NO answers; no one can.
Actually, King Henry made sure that as many as possible of those monks ended up dead. And that (not coincidentally) helped keep the pension costs down. Although I'm not sure I'd recommend similar considerations for our situation.
The inflation of the generally unproductive, unable to make decisions, middle management level policy analysts extends to all levels of government. At the same time you would be hard pressed to find any significant increase in frontline/blue collar staff who actually deal with people and problems.
Most of these people have been sucked into a system where executive status (ED/DG) positions are rewarded by the number of other directors and managers who report to them. And they, as Poly Sci, Soc et al grads, likely now with MPAs or MBAs paid for by government, look to hire people who reflect their own educational paths.
The frontline, blue collar, technical staff are rarely consulted or promoted to management and the analyst class is unwilling to work with the technical folks for fear of not knowing what most employees think their managers and their advisors should know.
As such the goal for the managers isn't the best program or best public service but rather what is the best policy decision that will support the careers and political aspirations of their senior appointed staff and their Minister.
As such more and more people are employed, fewer and fewer of which deliver services; therefore, less and less gets done.
I would suggest that no one outside the government organization would notice the elimination of 50% of the policy analysts and their managers?
I added your comment to the article itself - this is something more people should see.
We need a comment of the day award. This is the one.
The only thing I might add is the corruption of how management (middle and exec-level) define success. Following the prescribed process or framework, ensuring all decisions were made via obtaining consensus, saying "collaboration!" endlessly, and patting everyone on the head regardless of contribution or level of involvement now trumps "are we actually delivering value for taxpayers".
Carter's article is exceptional, though its verbosity helps defend against the risk of being read to the end by most people.
To be fair, I think the American and Canadian contexts are not symmetrical, but similar enough that most of the theses put forward are least partly applicable here.
I definitely enjoyed the article - and made it through to the end. But - even after reading the linked piece by David Graeber - I'm still not sure I understand the evidence that private sector businesses have been overhiring analysts and managers.
I read Carter's piece to which you so generously provided a link. My question is simple: what happened to those monks et al who lost out when the monasteries, convents, etc. closed? The point of this question is, yes, they were offered a pension according to Carter but, knowing governments those pensions would have been minuscule (very unlike now where the pensions are extraordinarily good) and there would have been no social assistance such as we know it. So, where did those people go?
The reason that this is pertinent is if we are in a similar situation, where are our surplus "workers" [note the quotation marks] to go? This is not a facetious question but one that is very serious. Perhaps we can re-train them for the "green economy" much as the Face Painter and his ilk said that they would re-train energy industry workers - but never did.
David, as usual, you ask provocative questions. Of course, the more provocative the question, the less obvious the answer(s). And, sensibly, you offer NO answers; no one can.
Actually, King Henry made sure that as many as possible of those monks ended up dead. And that (not coincidentally) helped keep the pension costs down. Although I'm not sure I'd recommend similar considerations for our situation.
But it IS an option.......