Bureaucracy creates problems that only more bureaucracy seems to solve
Hook
Every rule starts as a fix for an old problem. Years later the problem is gone and only the rule is left. Who removes it?
Claim
Every structure built to fix a problem breeds new problems that look solvable only by more structure. Rules are scar tissue from past failures, and market reforms meant to cut red tape often add paperwork. Public and private bureaucracies have merged into one rule-heavy layer that people feel as a wall. At its worst, rules multiply until nobody can act and nobody can be blamed. Welfare institutions were once built by unions and co-ops, then absorbed and bureaucratised by the state.
Story
Graeber’s The Utopia of Rules (2015), as extracted by Petar: the Iron Law of Liberalism says market reform increases total rules and bureaucrats. Brave New Work adds policies as organisational scar tissue and organisational debt, like technical debt. Graeber describes an “age of total bureaucratisation” in which bureaucratic order does more harm than good. No single person yet; the nearest scene is the official who no longer knows what a rule was for.
Sources
- extraction of Petar’s book note, second-hand; book: The Utopia of Rules
- extraction, second-hand
- extraction, second-hand; book: Brave New Work
- Petar’s reading note with quotes, closest to the book
- Petar’s unpublished tweet draft
- The Utopia of Rules, Wikipedia
Check before posting
- Verify the “thousand times more paperwork” quote against the book.
- Graeber is a polemicist and the Wikipedia summary is thin. It does not develop the “stupidity” theme or the iron law.
- Keep it about selection and structure, never about named officials.
- Needs a person-level story.
Counterargument
Rules also protect people from arbitrary power, which is the thing the second pillar worries about. Where is the line between a rule that protects and a rule that excuses?
Post angles
Facebook (Croatian)
- Svaki novi propis nastane zbog starog problema. S vremenom ostane samo propis. Tko ga skida?
- Smanjivanje birokracije često je dodavanje birokracije pod drugim imenom. A pravila nas ipak štite od samovolje. Kad je pravilo zaštita, a kad izgovor?
LinkedIn (English)
- Every new rule exists because of an old problem. In time only the rule is left. Who takes it down?
- Cutting red tape is often adding red tape under another name. But rules also protect us from arbitrary power. When is a rule protection, and when is it an excuse?