The 8 Laws of Bureaucracy

Managerial Bureaucracy operates under these 8 Laws:

1) Managerial bureaucracy has evolved into a class where bureaucrats will act to promote their class      interest and will always act to protect their jobs. If the regulatory powers or even the need for the          existence of a particular bureaucracy is questioned, said bureaucrats will exaggerate or even              fabricate an emergency that only they can address and are therefore necessary.

2) As a corollary to the first law: The chief bureaucrat will always lobby the legislature and the                  media to increase his budget and scope of regulatory powers with claims that whatever subject is        within the purview of that bureaucracy is a problem that is worse than everyone thought and is an        emergency that the public and the legislature must act upon at once by granting more money and        more powers to the said bureaucracy.

3) Once a bureaucracy is created to address a specific problem, it is never disbanded when its                 ostensible purpose if fulfilled. See the first and second laws.

4) Bureaucracies will expand in size and scope of regulatory power not because they need to but            because they can. There is both the perception of limitless funding from the taxpayers and the          precautionary principle with the undefined "public good" which means no limiting principle is                ever articulated to curb their growth or power.

5) The chief bureaucrat must ensure that the entirety of his allocated budget is fully spent as proof of       his ability to accurately predict operational expenses. He will therefore near the end of the                   budgetary period expend unused monies on unnecessary projects to accomplish this. Otherwise,         rather than be rewarded for efficiency and cost savings the chief bureaucrat will face criticism               from legislators for poor budgetary prediction and the bureaucracy's budget will be cut as                     punishment.

6) If a bureaucracy in a certain event fails in its purpose, new bureaucracies are created to better             cover the reasons for the failure keeping the original bureaucracy in place and unchanged. See           the first law.

7) As a result of the first four laws, there will always be examples of bureaucracies duplicating each        other's function. The first law second sentence is invoked if this duplication is noticed and                    questioned.

8) All bureaucrats must be smarter and more competent than their subordinates and from the top            down must be seen micro-managing their subordinates as proof of such and to ensure regulatory        and ideological compliance. Actual relative intelligence or competence between ranks not                    withstanding. Further, the chain of command is inviolate no matter how inefficient or prone to                failure    it may be. Success is not an option and all violators who circumvent the rules without              authorization or circumvent higher ranking bureaucrats will be ruthlessly hunted down and                    destroyed.


Donald Cavaioli