Mind you, this could be a good thing on those occasions where the ministers are reckless or idiotic. (Mike "heckuva job" Brown comes to mind, as does Alberto "I don't recall if I'm even wearing pants today" Gonzales.)
It's been long said that the harmful effect of the rule by bureaucrat. Bureaucrats have been chosen in test, those who only passed the test have formed a pyramid of this power apparatus. They were very elite when the nation starts. But current problem is that these elites are no more only elites. We can find excellent elites in private sector as well as public sector. This is the problem.
In America too? I am amazed to hear that. 100 years ago many excellent students became bureaucrats, few excellent students went to private company. Nation was run by anyway excellent brains. Now excellent brains are found in private sector as well as in public sector. Furthermore the brains in private sector have been surpassing because they- private sector employees -live in an extremely competitive society, instead the world of bureaucrats is stable. Stable water tends to be lukewarm. Is it alright for us to be led by lukewarm water? I don't know.
Illusory? As in, there exists no instance of a single excellent bureaucrat? No, I don't agree. Odds are that such a person does exist.
Rare? Yeah, that's true. But excellent people are rare in the general population, too, simply because excellence is rare by definition.
If an organization - any organization, public or private - does not value, reward, and actively select for excellence, then excellence will be rare in that organization. Government is not very different in this regard than private industry.
Many years ago people tend to believe bureaucrats or civil servants are 'excellent', smarter than them, because they know almost all civil servants are elites, chosen passed through very competitive test. Once I had a chance to see a test of civil servants. I was unable to answer any questions at all, all questions were academic, or even pedantic, far from our common knowledge at all, plain description and many questions, superficial, that doesn't require deeper knowledge. Apparently those who intend to be a civil servant are not required to read many books. All they have to do is to know the name of author, what book they wrote and simple description of the contents of what they wrote. They are forbidden to think anything deeper. Instead they are required to transact bureaucratically and that's why I am afraid they might be going to mislead us. What they lack is vision and perspective. They are short-sighted.
It's that way every where that bureaucracies exist.
ReplyDeleteMind you, this could be a good thing on those occasions where the ministers are reckless or idiotic. (Mike "heckuva job" Brown comes to mind, as does Alberto "I don't recall if I'm even wearing pants today" Gonzales.)
ReplyDeleteThe only things unchanged is the change itself.
ReplyDeleteHe he he... I know that's not fit with what you mean.
It's been long said that the harmful effect of the rule by bureaucrat. Bureaucrats have been chosen in test, those who only passed the test have formed a pyramid of this power apparatus. They were very elite when the nation starts. But current problem is that these elites are no more only elites. We can find excellent elites in private sector as well as public sector. This is the problem.
ReplyDeleteIn America too? I am amazed to hear that. 100 years ago many excellent students became bureaucrats, few excellent students went to private company. Nation was run by anyway excellent brains. Now excellent brains are found in private sector as well as in public sector. Furthermore the brains in private sector have been surpassing because they- private sector employees -live in an extremely competitive society, instead the world of bureaucrats is stable. Stable water tends to be lukewarm. Is it alright for us to be led by lukewarm water? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI must also add that 'excellent' bureaucrat is illusory.
ReplyDeleteIllusory? As in, there exists no instance of a single excellent bureaucrat? No, I don't agree. Odds are that such a person does exist.
ReplyDeleteRare? Yeah, that's true. But excellent people are rare in the general population, too, simply because excellence is rare by definition.
If an organization - any organization, public or private - does not value, reward, and actively select for excellence, then excellence will be rare in that organization. Government is not very different in this regard than private industry.
Many years ago people tend to believe bureaucrats or civil servants are 'excellent', smarter than them, because they know almost all civil servants are elites, chosen passed through very competitive test. Once I had a chance to see a test of civil servants. I was unable to answer any questions at all, all questions were academic, or even pedantic, far from our common knowledge at all, plain description and many questions, superficial, that doesn't require deeper knowledge. Apparently those who intend to be a civil servant are not required to read many books. All they have to do is to know the name of author, what book they wrote and simple description of the contents of what they wrote. They are forbidden to think anything deeper. Instead they are required to transact bureaucratically and that's why I am afraid they might be going to mislead us. What they lack is vision and perspective. They are short-sighted.
ReplyDelete