wiki/content/20220507130634-pournelle_s_iron_law_of_bureaucracy.md

28 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters

This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

---
date: 2022-05-07
id: ed6d0fa4-364d-4408-b139-b81542ff5f15
title: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
---
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy[^1] states that in any bureaucratic
organization there will be two kinds of people":
> First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the
> organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an
> educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians
> and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors
> in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
>
> Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself.
> Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many
> professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the
> NASA headquarters staff, etc. [Jerry
> Pournelle](20220507131154-jerry_pournelle)
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and
keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control
promotions within the organization.
# Footnotes
[^1]: <https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html>