Saturday, September 17, 2005
Bureaucracy by Mises
"Those who criticize bureaucracy make the mistake of directing their attacks againsta symptom only and not against the seat of the evil. It makes no difference whether the innumerable decrees regimenting every aspect of the citizen's economic activities are issued directly by a law.... What people are really complaining about is the fact that the government has embarked upon such totalitarian policies, not the technical procedures applied in their establishment."
"Whoever in this antagonism [between socialism and capitalism] sides with capitalism must do it frankly and directly. He must give positive support to private property and free enterprise. It is vain to content oneself with attacks on some measures designed to pave the way for socialism. It is useless to fight mere attendant phenomena and not the tendency toward totalitarianism as such. It is idle to dwell on a criticism of bureaucratism only."
"This book will try to demonstrate to no profit-seeking enterprise, no matter how large, is liable to beome bureaucratic provided the hands of its management are not tied by government interference. The trend toward bureaucratic rigidity is not inherent in the evolution of business. It is a result of the policies designed to eliminate the profit motive from its role in the framework of society's economic organization."
"In what does the position of ... a provincial governor differ from that of the manager of a business branch? The manager of the whole concern hands over an aggregate to the newly appointed branch manager and gives him one diretive only: Make profits. This order, the observance of which is continuously checked by the accounts, is sufficient to make the branch a subservient part of the whole concern and to give its manager's action the direction aimed at by the central manager. But if the despot, for whom his own arbitrary decision is the only principle of government, appoints a governor and says to him: "Be my deputy in this province," he makes the deputy's arbitrariness supreme in this province."
"The Nazis have succeeded in entirely eliminating the profit motive from the conduct of business. In Nazi Germany there is no longer any quiestion of free enterprise. There are no more entrepreneurs. THe former entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of Betriebsfuhrer (shop manager). They are not free in their operation; they are bound to obey unconditionally the orders issued by the Central Board of Production Management...."
"The police officer and the fireman have no better claim to the public's gratitude than the doctors, the railroad engineers,the welders, the sailors, or the manufacturers of any useful commodity....."
"Regimentation spells the doom of initiative. The young man has no illusions about his future..... He wil enjoy security. But this security will be rather of the kind that the convict enjoys within the prison walls. He will never be free to make decisions and to shape his own fate.... The chiefs of the youth movement were mentally unbalanced neurotics.... But the bulk of their followers were quite different. They had one aim only: to get a job as soon as possible with the government."
"It is evident that youth is the first victim of the trned toward bureaucratization. The young men are deprived of any opportunity to shape their own fate. For them there is no chance left.... The slogan: Mankind has reached the stage of maturity, is their undoing."
"Plato's ideal of elite rule has been converted into fact by the Catholic Church. The Roman Church, under the Tridentine organization as it emerged from the Counter-Reformation, is a perfect bureacracy.... It is to this marvelous instance that the authors of all modern socialist utopias refer as an example... However, the reference to the Church is fallacious. The realm of Chrisitainity which the Pope and the other Bishops administer is not subject to any change. It is built upon a perennial and immutable doctrine."
"Propaganda is one of the worst evils of bureaucracy and socialism. Propaganda is always the propaganda of lies, fallacies, and superstitions. Truth does not need any propaganda; it holds its own. The characteristic mark of truth is that it is the correct representative of reality, i.e., of a state of affairs that is and works whether or not anybody recognizes it."
* * *
Can degree of bureacratic management as versus profit management in a firm be measured? If so, cannot this stand as a proxy for a measure of whether a firm is effectively part of the state, or part of civil society?
Good book.
Link
"Whoever in this antagonism [between socialism and capitalism] sides with capitalism must do it frankly and directly. He must give positive support to private property and free enterprise. It is vain to content oneself with attacks on some measures designed to pave the way for socialism. It is useless to fight mere attendant phenomena and not the tendency toward totalitarianism as such. It is idle to dwell on a criticism of bureaucratism only."
"This book will try to demonstrate to no profit-seeking enterprise, no matter how large, is liable to beome bureaucratic provided the hands of its management are not tied by government interference. The trend toward bureaucratic rigidity is not inherent in the evolution of business. It is a result of the policies designed to eliminate the profit motive from its role in the framework of society's economic organization."
"In what does the position of ... a provincial governor differ from that of the manager of a business branch? The manager of the whole concern hands over an aggregate to the newly appointed branch manager and gives him one diretive only: Make profits. This order, the observance of which is continuously checked by the accounts, is sufficient to make the branch a subservient part of the whole concern and to give its manager's action the direction aimed at by the central manager. But if the despot, for whom his own arbitrary decision is the only principle of government, appoints a governor and says to him: "Be my deputy in this province," he makes the deputy's arbitrariness supreme in this province."
"The Nazis have succeeded in entirely eliminating the profit motive from the conduct of business. In Nazi Germany there is no longer any quiestion of free enterprise. There are no more entrepreneurs. THe former entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of Betriebsfuhrer (shop manager). They are not free in their operation; they are bound to obey unconditionally the orders issued by the Central Board of Production Management...."
"The police officer and the fireman have no better claim to the public's gratitude than the doctors, the railroad engineers,the welders, the sailors, or the manufacturers of any useful commodity....."
"Regimentation spells the doom of initiative. The young man has no illusions about his future..... He wil enjoy security. But this security will be rather of the kind that the convict enjoys within the prison walls. He will never be free to make decisions and to shape his own fate.... The chiefs of the youth movement were mentally unbalanced neurotics.... But the bulk of their followers were quite different. They had one aim only: to get a job as soon as possible with the government."
"It is evident that youth is the first victim of the trned toward bureaucratization. The young men are deprived of any opportunity to shape their own fate. For them there is no chance left.... The slogan: Mankind has reached the stage of maturity, is their undoing."
"Plato's ideal of elite rule has been converted into fact by the Catholic Church. The Roman Church, under the Tridentine organization as it emerged from the Counter-Reformation, is a perfect bureacracy.... It is to this marvelous instance that the authors of all modern socialist utopias refer as an example... However, the reference to the Church is fallacious. The realm of Chrisitainity which the Pope and the other Bishops administer is not subject to any change. It is built upon a perennial and immutable doctrine."
"Propaganda is one of the worst evils of bureaucracy and socialism. Propaganda is always the propaganda of lies, fallacies, and superstitions. Truth does not need any propaganda; it holds its own. The characteristic mark of truth is that it is the correct representative of reality, i.e., of a state of affairs that is and works whether or not anybody recognizes it."
* * *
Can degree of bureacratic management as versus profit management in a firm be measured? If so, cannot this stand as a proxy for a measure of whether a firm is effectively part of the state, or part of civil society?
Good book.
Comments:
Post a Comment
