This weeks featured discussion: Why is it easier to build a bureaucracy then it is to tear it down? What factors have motivated the growth of both federal and state bureaucracy in this country?
We will also be highlighting one organization every 2 weeks that has made an impact on social change around the world. If you would like to nominate a group feel free to post a comment including their wedsite address. Check our blogroll for a quick link.
This weeks organizational spotlight: Surfrider foundation
Just for fun: every week we will be uploading a portrait od a famous philospher, social scientist, political scientist, leader, teacher, economist, or psychologist in the author’s avatar section. See if you can be the first to identify the picture. Please post your response in the comment section. Good Luck!
Mystery woman? Congratulations Victoria!! this is Marie Curie, famous scientist.
On receiving the Nobel Prize, Marie and Pierre Curie became very famous. Marie was a brilliant scientist. Her husband Pierre was given a professorhip and was able to start his own labratory while Marie was made the Director of Research at the Sorborne. Marie Curie intentionally refrained from patenting her work on the radium isolation process so that the scientific community could continue research unhindered. Since Pierre and Maire were unaware of the deterious effects of radiation exposure and their chronic unprotected work with radioactive substances, they had no idea what price they were paying for their research.
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Bureaucracy: Bigger then Ever. The day we all work for the Government.
This weeks featured discussion:
Why is it easier to build a bureaucracy then it is to tear it down? What factors have motivated the growth of both federal and state bureaucracy in this country? Based on your understanding of bureaucracy please explain why it is neccessary and what are the pitfalls of letting a bureacracy get to big. Also explain, how we should go about addressing this issue in terms of legislation?
As a side note please let us know if you are in favour of big government or small government and why?
Congrtulations our Governement/Economics cite has accumulated over 3000 hits!!! Influencing the world 1 hit at a time ;D
The mystery woman is Marie Curie! =)
Correct Victoria!!!!! 5 points for you…..
On receiving the Nobel Prize, Marie and Pierre Curie became very famous. The Sorbonne gave Pierre a professorship and permitted him to establish his own laboratory, in which Marie became director of research. In an unusual decision, Marie Curie intentionally refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process so that the scientific community could do research unhindered. Since they were unaware of the deleterious effects of radiation exposure attendant on their chronic unprotected work with radioactive substances, Marie and Pierre had no idea what price they were paying for their research. (wikipedia)
Its easier to build a bureacracy because building it requires skill, perserverance, and hard work. When you incoorporate those elements in building things its hard to bring down. I think that building a large government would be motivated to grow because it would be more powerful and more undestructable. Although, a smaller government would have some pros, because then it would be more involved with the poeple influenced by it and it would be able to focus on more problems. well, Bureaucracy is the structure and set of regulations in place to control activity, usually in large organizations. So it is necessary to have order and so the people you are governing will be under control. The downfalls of getting to big is that the leaders could get so consumed with the power and abuse it. Also, the government won’t be able to give better attention to the needs of their cititzens. The way we should adress this issue, is with realistic thinking, becasue we don’t want to have such a BIG power source , because it could result in some sort of dictatorship.
Bureaucracies, being governments, are easier to build than tear down because if you remove something, people are going to expect something to be put in its place. Take for example, Saddam’s government being removed. Everyone expected some other form of government to be put in its place, right? To tear down a bureaucracy, a new system must be ready to take its place, increasing the effort required.
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Here’s a good way to get people’s votes: Give them money. Politicians want votes, it’s a given. Say you’re the Governor of Hawaii now. Mr. Soandso donated a lot of money and is the reason your campaign succeeded. To get his support, you promised a favor for him, in return. This favor was employment, and not just any regular job, a high paying, low stress job. Well, this was the same case for many of your other supporters, so now you have to make extra jobs within the bureaucracy. Now you have representatives, spokesmen, secretaries, and a coffee boy. Congratulations, you have office and your supporters have superfluous jobs.
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Bureaucracies are important because it keeps people immediately accountable. Some fear the God, everyone fears the gun (be it in a different form such as the electric chair). Bureaucracies will also monitor what is being done to stop any illegal activities before they happen.
The problem is that when a bureaucracy becomes too large, work is done inefficiently and ends up more expensive than it needs to be. Say it would take me two days to read through and authorize the planting of trees in a park. In a BIG bureaucracy, I would need to:
1. send these papers to this guy, who would authorize them-
2. -to be sent to another guy, who would read it over and-
3. -send it to this other guy, who would then stamp his approval and-
4. -send it back to me for me to sign
THEN
5. I send it to another guy who begins to auction off the contract to a landscaping company. One company wins the bid. So now….
6. the papers come back to me, and I read them over to approve them to be approved-
7. -by another guy who was hired just to authorize my authorization.
So in the end, something that would have taken me two days, now took a month.
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I don’t have any ideas to address this issue in legislation
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I’m in favor of a medium-small-not so big-but-not so little-and-kinda-simple government. Work needs to be spread out, but not so thin that someone’s job is to make sure this one person gets the job done. One person should be supervising several, not several supervising one.
hmmm….Research a little on the challenges a bureaucracy offers. Big government costs alot of money…the bigger the government the higher the taxes. Address the issue of government spending, why does it cost the government so much to run systems that are run by far less in private industry?
example: It costs public schools or in other words the tax payer 12,000 dollars per student in order to run the DOE system, and most of the time students have to leave their text books at school, not to mention the social ills that bombard them every day. That’s only 3000 less then some of the most prestigious private schools on the island yet they don’t get anywhere near that quality of education. Lanakila is close to 6000 less then 50% of the public school budget. Why?
Hmmm, well i’m not quite sure how to address this question, but here goes nothing. OK well personally i can see how bureaucracy can be a good thing, and also how it has its flaws(like anything else). OK i’ll start with the flaws i can see, first off because of the way a bureaucracy works as soon as one is established people tend to just follow whatever the decision makers say, and kind of take themselves out of the equation. Secondly, with a bureaucracy, the wealthy can make “donations” to the bureaucracy in return of favors, which leads to the wealthy getting special priveleges over the rest of us. Now the things i like about bureaucracy are, first off, the fact that in a bureaucracy there is a stable form of management, so the government or whatever has lots of rules that help give them an edge in keeping everything together, secondly, bureaucracies spread the location of power throughout the whole rather than focusing it all in one point.
Alright for the second question, I think the reason that government costs more than a private industry is because of the fact that in a private industry they only have to think about themselves, their own little group, whereas in a government it has to think about all the people represented in it. So for your example of private schools and public schools, the reason private schools can get so much more done with so much less is because they can focus it on what they need. Public schools have to share their money and the needs are all assessed by bureaucrats, so they decide what they need, and what they don’t.
That’s my opinion on this anyway, i hope i answered this right.
Why is this topic so hard?!
Why is it easier to build a bureaucracy than it is to tear it down?
–It is easier to build a bureaucracy because if a bureaucracy gets torn down, people will lose jobs, crime might increase due to the lack of supervision, other bureaucracies might rise resulting in new changes, and as Matthew said, people will start looking for another form of system.
What factors have motivated the growth of both federal and state bureaucracy in this country?
–Probably the fact that people need some kind of higher power ruling them…like that one fable from Aesop…the frogs that wanted a King. and the king ate them =/
–To prevent increase in crime.
–Favors. Favors motivate the growth of a bureaucracy. Support them and they give you a job.
–A need for new administration amidst senior executives? “Move forward.” New ideas dont hurt?
–Being a government official has its perks? And its opportunistic
Based on your understanding of bureaucracy please explain why it is neccessary and what are the pitfalls of letting a bureacracy get to big.
–Pitfalls…umm in terms of political bureaucracies, like I said earlier…favors. Get support, give something back. For example, the president may appoint a totally incompetent, BUT rich bureaucrat as head of a department. Not very good. Bureaucrats also have their own selves to think about. How to increase their prominence by bribery and this can result in much discord because what they want isn’t necessarily what others want, but what can you do when theyre in cahoots with the government?
Also explain, how we should go about addressing this issue in terms of legislation?
–Limit the powers of the president and other high ranking officials from appointing their patrons as department heads!
As a side note please let us know if you are in favour of big government or small government and why?
–I am in favor of a Clare government. Jk. Umm idk small government kinda screams…WEAAAAAAK yet big governments would mean my income would be lessened…..erm….in the middle I guess.
a bureaucracy is hard to tear down because it gradully gets bigger and bigger until its one huge system and many people are working for it and im sure the all wont go down with out some sort of fight. they oversee us and regulate to the extreme some times to sustain oder in times of anarchy so in a way we need them
A bureaucracy is hard to tear down because it expands the number of people working for it, usually these are organizations and governments. One’s they doing the right thing for the people it’s hard to tear down since the people support the systems of the bureaucracy. The more the stronger, the less the weak.
Whoops i didnt even answer the main question at all. OK well i think the reason a bureaucracy is hard to tear down is because they are so ingrained in whatever they are involved in. They have so many rules and regulations that keep them functioning well that in order to bring them down you would have to find a way to break up their base nature. Just to reiterate my past statement, i think that basically bureaucracies are a good thing, i mean sure they can be corrupted, but without them the way we function would be completely different, they regulate the world…i guess you could say.
Tearing down a large bureaucracy is difficult because once power is given to a specific person or group it’s hard to take them back. As it was said earlier, it also causes job loss and a power vacuum that people will try to fill with something else.
Bureaucracies can get bigger for various reasons, such as: national security issues, economic issues, etc. I think cronieism is also a contributing factor to the expanding of bureaucracies. People who are already in power to create new appointments may appoint their friends/cronies to new positions to give them a high paying job and support their cause.
A couple of downfalls to a large bureaucracy are increased taxes and unnecessary leadership positions that have responsibilities that another person/group already in power should be responsible for.
I think one way of addressing the issue is to create some form of guidelines/qualifications of when it is okay to create new positions and organizations.
I’m also in favor of a more “medium” sized government. Both small and big governments have their cons. too small can be too weak, and too big can lead to too much unnecessary power.
okay..lets see
i think it is harder to tear down a bureaucracy than to build one, because after a while, it grows and expands and almost becomes a way of life that people are used to. Yes, there may be some people who want to tear it all apart and are against it and all that. but i think it taked a lot more to tear it apart than to build it because yeahh,, it grows and people get used to it and its sometimes hard to make a change.
A bureaucracy is easier to build than to tear down because of the fact that you put so much effort into building such a large and expensive government that no one would let it to fall to pieces without conflict. The bureaucracy would be held up by the people anyways and since so much people would be working for it, it would be nearly impossible to just stop everything and just let everyone lose their jobs.
A bureaucracy is so expensive because the more people that are apart of it the money becomes more strained. When it comes to government spending, we need to stop wasting our tax payers money and start using it for things we actually need.
Also, in that school example, the public schools dont get that quality education that the richer private schools get because of their size. Some of these public schools dont even have enough books to go around because the number of students is insane. Lanakila can survive on a much smaller budget because we have a fairly small number of students attending the school.
Personally, i would lean more towards a larger government, becuase to me, just like clare said a smaller government just seems so weak. I think that a smaller government would make us more susceptible to being picked on by other countries or even within our own country. People would want to try and take control over everything. Although, a bigger government would mean a smaller income, i think id be willing to take my chances.
Why is it easier to build a bureaucracy then it is to tear it down?
The answers simple its hard to tear it down because of the foundation of the bureaucracy. If the bureaucracy is very large and powerful it will definately be hard to tear it down and vice versa.
As a side note please let us know if you are in favour of big government or small government and why?
I favour a medium sized government because if its too small it can become over powered and be over throwed by a higher power and if it is too big then it will become expensive and very hard to upkeep but if its medium sized it can balance itself out and become an ideal sized government.
Bureaucracy: government by many bureaus, administrators, and petty officials.
Notice the adjective “petty”. Bureaucracies have unnecessary amounts of people working for them. It’s so easy for a person to hire someone to do the lame jobs they don’t want to do. Everybody wants to be in charge of someone so that they can make them do the things that they themselves don’t want to do. That’s why it’s so easy to build a bureaucracy. It’s hard to tear it down because nobody wants to fire their sidekick who does the junk work.
I favor bigger governments. I don’t mind the large bureaucracies with loads of unnecessary employees (is that bad?). Maybe because they just don’t exactly affect me directly. But, I think that a larger government, like Chelsey/Clare said, seems mroe secure and capable of protecting us from being picked on by bigger governments.
a bureaucracy is a more stonger and more boss kind of thing. they tell the stupid people wat to do and make them do all the hard work while the boss and cruz in his office. i wouldnt mind being that guy, i dont wanna be the person doin all the hard work but get payed less. more people think tat way, so thats why it harder to break down an bureaucracy than building one. everyone wats the easy way out.
Hoo…. Everyone did their tonight, huh? haha
One thing I want to comment on… Why do we need to have a big government to seem strong? Unless I’m mistaken and the armed forces are apart of the bureaucracy, does the size of a government matter when militias start firing?
i finished my president paper,,,its 1230 am…im tired..i love u coach<3
Bureaucracy: the body of officials and administrators, esp. of a government or government department. a Bureaucracy is hard to take down because if you bulid somthing its alot easier because if you tear it down its hard to because you been working on it for along time.
Bureaucracy do not accept donations from the wealthy if they do its called corruption remember the bureaucracy is not an elected official it is people who work for the state or federal government within the specific agencies that they have been hired.
Anyone want to comment on the taxation issue and incompetency of government spending? Why is the government so inefficient?
explain why a school needs 12,000 per student just because its big.
If a school has 1000 students that’s a budget of 12 million dollars and if another school has 100 students thats a budget of 1.2 million how does this effect the quality of education and should it? it seems that each school should be able to operate efficiently with each student receiving their fair share of the 12,000 alotted to them in the budget.
Explain how bureaucracies can directly affect us as citizens of this country? what do they require of us?
I did some figure searching about why a public school can’t give the same quality that private schools do. According to the figures I received, Makaha Elementary School, because of the No Child Left Behind policy, only received about $11 per student after electric, water, and misc. bills. After buying Xerox paper for all the worksheets mandated by the lesson plan, each kid would end up with an extra $2. Decorations for the classroom (also mandatory) would have to come out of that extra $2 or the teacher’s wallet. Fun, huh?
hmmm…
12,000 dollars to 11 dollars that must be some huge miscellaneous fees..possibly the hidden bureaucratic waste lining peoples pockets and not the students.
The big question Matt if you could look into it..why did the children only receive 11 dollars per student? how did The No Child Left Behind Act take their money? and where did the money go? obviously it cant be paper, electricity and water. Don’t private schools pay for these things too? and still have ample resources.
The mystery of the missing money…help us Matt you’re our only hope.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Stupid Adobe Reader made me lose everything! I had typed up my math and reasonings and everything… then BAM! Update to Adobe 9 today! ARAAAAAAA!!!! I won’t have my numbers up tonight… Sorry about that…
Ok, yes i definitely want to change part of my answers from last week XD
hahaha.
anyways, instead of a big bureaucracy, id like a small one much better because that means less taxes, etc.
we can reap the benefits
“The bigger you get, the more you start to rely on procedures. The more you start to say things like “no” and “can’t” and “we’ll have to charge you extra for that”. The harder it becomes for the people at the top of your organization to stay in direct contact with their customers. That’s bad.”
This kind of woke me up to the fact that big bureaucracies arent such a great idea lol.
In this case, theyre talking about a business but this could be translated to our government. btw, i found that on another blog & i thought it was rather relevant to our topic.
One thing that i still agrree with from what i said last week was that a big bureaucracy is difficult to tear down.
thats all
lol
much amorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-chels
good work Chelsey..You are correct it is very difficult to downsize government once you’ve allowed for increase, that is why we must be very careful what programs we approve and how much we increase taxation.
no worries Matt get the numbers up when you have the time.
The problem with the $12,000 figure is that it was made by dividing the total amount by the number of students, before subtracting the wages for everyone in the DoE.
According to Perry and Price, over half the budget went to just paying the regular employees of the DoE. That means that before the money even gets near the kids, the bureaucrats get their first pick. 60% goes to regular employees…
12,000 x 0.4 = 4,800
And 25% of the remainder for substitutes and retirement funds
4,800 x .25 = 1200
We can now say that the money sent to each school is 1,200x, where x is the number of students attending.
There’s your bureaucracy.
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Now for the many miscellaneous fees that just end up costing a lot of money:
The monthly bill for running a school in Makaha is significantly higher than cooler locations like Manoa or Nuuanu. The A/Cs and fans are on constantly because of the heat. Because of this, the electric bill easily soars above cooler climates. The average school uses approximately $700 worth of electricity per student, per year.
1,200x – 700x =500x
Rain in Makaha is rarer than Ewa, and because regulations demand that the school’s floral life must be kept in good condition the water usage is significantly higher. Because of harsher conditions, a “one sum pays all” policy doesn’t meet the needs of a more needy school. The average student will use $112 worth of water per year.
500x – 112x = 388x
DoE regulation also mandates that all schools along the Leeward Coast must hire Night Patrol Officers that they have approved, to guard the campuses at night. This sounds like a good idea, and it is; except it doesn’t work. Vandalism at public schools has become so common place that the media doesn’t even make a big ruckus about it. The schools are being forced to pay money for a service that isn’t even competent. Worse yet, the school also must pay for removal and replacement of damaged property.
388x – N (Night security) – V (Vandalism cleanup)
Both are variables because I could find no information as to the contract that was decided upon for night patrol, and Vandalism happens sporadically.
Finally, after all those reductions, the school can calculate how much money they can spend on the kids. If something breaks, the only source of cash they can draw from is the money to be used for the children’s benefit. At the end of Makaha Elementary School’s 2007-2008 school year, the total sum of money actually spent on each student was $11. Everything else went towards Janitorial supplies, building and furniture repair, and non-negotiable items for every classroom as mandated by America’s Choice. Hooray America’s Choice, giving students posters instead of books.
And 25% of the remainder for substitutes and retirement funds
Correction: And 25% of the remainder after substitutes and retirement funds
I know it’s worded awkwardly… I meant that 75% of the 40% of the 12,000 went to substitutes and retired workers’ paychecks.
good work Matt….so now here’s the question we all have to think about: Is it up to the media to blow the whistle on this waste? or should we as voters call our representatives and say enough is enough get the kids the money. I hope you all become pro-active in your approach to public service and hopefully this generation can address the issues behind our broken bureaucracy.
Last but not least I hope you have received an understanding of what a bureaucracy is and how important proper fiscal (financial) and employee management is on the state level.