Curiouser and Curiouser! on bureaucracy

Always say 'no' initially

Mon, 04 Jul 2005 10:09:39 +0100

The scene in Ghostbusters, where the three parapsychologists are fired by the university, is among my all-time favorites. Dan Ackroyd's character warns the other two:
I liked the University. They gave us money, they gave us the facilities, and we didn't have to produce anything! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results. You've never been out of college. You don't know what it's like out there.
The rule of survival in every bureaucracy is "Safety first." Corollaries are: "Don't make a mistake." "Keep your head down." "Do it by the book." "Don't make waves." But the central, unbreakable rule of a master bureaucrat is this one:
Always say no initially. It's a matter of leaving room to retreat. You can retreat from no to yes, and the person asking you to do something is happy. If you have to retreat from yes to no, you've made an enemy.
I remember that one clearly. It was the answer given to a reporter by the Washington bureaucrat with the longest tenure in 1976, upon her retirement. He had asked her how she had survived for so long.
The free market's law is to say yes initially. The salesman wants the commission. To the question, "Can I get it in blue?" the salesman answers: "Will you sign the contract if I can get it for you in blue?" After the contract is signed, the salesman puts the pressure on the company to deliver it in blue. [Academia and Paralysis by Gary North]

London Metropolitan University is a compete shambles

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 12:25:58 +0100

Today I received a letter from Robert Aylett the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of London Metropolitan University where I am studying for a postgraduate diploma in psychology. The contents of the latter are as follows:

I am writing to inform you of possible disruption to the publication of module results and the confirmation of awards as a result of industrial action by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE).

NATFHE has conducted a ballot, the outcome of which is that NATFHE members have voted in favour of action to boycott the assessment process. NATFHE has indicated that the action will take the form of withholding student marks and boycotting assessment boards. Teaching staff who belong to this trade union have be advised by the Union not to release marks and grades for items of assessed work.

The University regrets, therefore, that there might be significant disruption to the assessment process. In particular it might not be possible to confirm module outcomes for the affected modules. Also, it will not be possible to make any awards based on these modules. The University recognizes the inconvenience and disruption to students that this industrial action will cause and regrets that NATFHE members have choosen to take this action. The University is also in close contact with the Union and is seeking to engage in talks to resolve the dispute.

If action continues we will keep you informed by setting out the latest position on the following web site www.londonmet.ac.uk/admin/assessment/latest

Well now, what do we think about this?

First off the URL referred to doesn't work as of the time of writing. I spoke to Robert Aylett in reference to his letter and my impression was not positive. In full Sir Humphrey mode he deflected responsibility from the management, prerring to refer me to a prepared statement by the quislings at the Students Union (Did you know the University wrote their constitution for them? Think Iraqi government and you'd not be far off). What of a sincere apology for inconveniece? I would hold my breath.

Unfortunately I would have to say that this is par for the course for management at London Metrpolitan University. How does the saying go?

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, administrate.

So, what do I do? I really want to punish the University for being such a dreadful service provider. Although I have enjoyed the course for the most part that is despite the efforts of the University, rather than because of them.

My best advice to any prospective student is to think hard about whether to give your money to London Metropolitan University. Ask yourself what kind of academic environment you want to be in and carefully compare your alternatives. HE in the UK is not a rosy picture anywhere but I'm quite certain there are better places than this. I will be considering them myself although I will be hampered in doing so if I do not receive my last set of assessment results.

1984 is 21 years behinds schedule

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:37:57 +0000

It's typical of a government project to be vastly behind schedule and vastly over budget. So the governments current rampage through what used to be our civil liberties makes for a pretty typical government project.

As William Rees-Mogg writes in yesterdays Times:

The British are certainly less free than we were in 1997 or 2001.

The government is leading a charge against the very notion of privacy. It is using the fear of terrorism - a fear that it has conspired to manufacture - as a means of gaining public support for measures that a civilized society would reject outright.

Britain, if it ever was, is not such a society. Sure, I don't want to go live in Iran but don't tell me that we are on a path to Utopia!

And, worse yet, they're doing all this with money that they loot from our bank accounts through taxation.

The Government used to pretend they would cost £100 each; the London School of Economics estimates that the cost will be £500 a head, or £28 billion in all. I certainly don’t want to be compelled to spend £500 to give the Government a complete picture of my private existence.

I am not afraid of terrorism.

Sure, I don't want to be in a bus or tube train that gets blown up. But we have to ask ourselves, under what circumstances do organised groups of individuals take up arms against society in general?

The answer to our problems is not to screw the citizens further whilst conspiring with a bunch of asshats to rob and kill foreigners. If you look at the history of our actions abroad it seems clear to me that we face problems of our own making.

If you're in a hole. Stop digging!

And, to paraphrase Mike Rogers,

It’s not like the Saddam's troops were getting their rowboats out to invade the United Kingdom

If we hadn't conspired with Saddam for parochial advantage, and then with the first Bush administration to remove Saddam, and then with the Clinton administration to bomb Iraq further into the stone age, but had left him to his own devices it seems likely to me that, in time, his own people would have rejected him. Our best weapon in that cause was our liberal, open, societies and our rapidly improving standard of living.

Both of which this government seems intent on doing its level best to fuck up.

How to make a bad situation worse

Wed, 10 May 2006 17:47:35 +0100

William Lind covers a report on the worsening situation in Afghanistan where government (i.e. US, UK, and Afghan army) control is diminishing in the south. The report suggests that this is because of the dual objectives being persued (apparently in no particular order):

Stop the insurgents
Eradicate opium production

For farming families with no other means of survival opium is a life-line and the insurgents play to this by supporting the farmers against the government. The division of military resources between these conflicting goals means that neither policy can be effectively enforced.

It seems to me that the answer is to legalize opium production and consumption (in Afghanistan, the UK, and the US) and treat it like any other product that has potentially negative side-effects (e.g. alcohol, paracetamol, Sky One). Slap a warning on the side and let people get on with their lives and the consequences of their choices.

At a stroke the Afghan government could support the farmers and cut off the support base of the insurgents. The farmers could get a fair price for their produce on the open market. And opium/heroin users can get a better product without being unfairly criminalized for their choices.

But governments don't do this sort of stuff because it means less meddling in other peoples lives not more. The idea that people don't need every aspect of their existence dictated to them by central government seems to be anathema to the raving bureaucrats we are saddled with.

An English MEP, an Italian MEP, and a French MEP walk into a bar

Sat, 27 May 2006 23:22:57 +0100

From Tao of Mac I hear that some wag of a Euro MP has suggested wait a second, I need to catch my breath from laughing so hard to fund the EU by... no, really, I'll be alright in a second... by taxing every SMS and Email sent. What a marvellous sense of humour. Bravo!

Pardon me? Not a joke? You're not serious...

Chilling

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 10:15:57 +0100

I've been following William L. Anderson's reports of the Duke non-rape case and they certainly make for chilling reading if you have any interest in justice being done and being seen to be done:

...

Lest anyone be surprised that [state prosecutor] Nifong will follow this path, keep in mind that if a jury questions whether or not a rape occurred, his case is dead in the water. Therefore, he has no choice but to pursue this path if he hopes to win. Now, should he attempt to invoke rape shield laws in order to bamboozle a jury, one might give him points on audacity – or even dishonesty – but he will forfeit whatever integrity the man might have had. Any prosecutor who attempts to foist what he knows is a lie is someone who deserves whatever consequences befall him.

...

When you grow up on a diet of Hollywood movies and L.A. Law it can come as quite a shock to realise the depths that the U.S. legal system has sunk to:

...What we see here is that the federal system has become a legal system that exists of the prosecutors, by the prosecutors, and for the prosecutors. When Rudy Giuliani, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, remarked that the Crime Control Act of 1984 tilted the playing field in favor of prosecutors, he was not exaggerating. A legal system that at its founding was set up as a mechanism to ensure rights of the accused has become a system of guilty pleas and show trials, and is more akin to what Stalin enjoyed in the U.S.S.R. than what George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the great William Blackstone helped create more than 200 years ago. [cont...]http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1744()

Strangely I know more about the U.S. legal system than I do the U.K. system. Does anyone know of any libertarian legal bloggers in the UK?