Government Efficiency and Network Theory

Science News reports on a study relating (in a loose way) the efficiency of a national government with the size of its cabinet. Researchers in Vienna found that the development level of countries, as a proxy for the efficiency of their governments, is in general lower for countries with more members in the national cabinets. They then went on to model cabinet members as nodes in a network and found support for the observed correlation. There was even specific evidence for the decades-old observation of English historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson that decision-making is severely impaired in committees of more than 20 people. The US is getting close to Parkinson's cutoff, at 17.

Comments

Well, that explains...

[Anonymous Coward]

There was even specific evidence for the decades-old observation of English historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson that decision-making is severely impaired in committees of more than 20 people.

Well that explains the ISO.

Oh, and the corruption of course.

Re:Well, that explains...

[ShieldW0lf]

Slavery is a good deal more efficient than negotiating with unions. An Emperor is a good deal more efficient than Democracy. Do we want to live in a perfectly efficient world? No. We do not. 99% of the foolish, arrogant ideas held by those in positions of authority should be prevented from ever being pursued in a serious fashion.

Efficiency, ultra-violence, ultra-realism and secret prison camps. Gee, where does this all lead?

Government inefficiency is good.

[WK2]

Government inefficiency is a good thing. Bureaucracies (attempt to) keep the government slow and sane. The extreme alternative is a dictatorship, which is much more efficient.

Re:Government inefficiency is good.

[RiotingPacifist]

You have to consider that there were 4 countries that got trashed in the war:
france, germany -> both given lots of money to rebuild
japan -> given even more money because somebody made them glow
russia -> not given any money, in fact some historians think that America wanted to stay out of WWII as long as possible as they liked the fact that Russia was getting crushed.

Russia was almost ruined by the end of WWII to turn it round and become a supper power isnt easy (irrespective of their failures as a supper power).

Re:Government inefficiency is good.

[Stradivarius]

I disagree on several counts:

1. I don't believe the alternative to poor government (inefficiency) need be worse government (such as dictatorship). Also, dictatorships traditionally have not been terribly efficient at much other than enriching the dictator and his friends.

2. While well-considered policies take time to figure out, I see little evidence that the slowness that bureaucracies promote has had any corresponding positive effect on quality or sanity. On the contrary - these bloated organizations seem both slow and stupid. This is hardly what we should be striving for.

3. An inefficient government wastes huge sums of money, which means it taxes citizens more heavily to do things that are not only wasteful but can actually be worse than doing nothing.

4. There are some things which only the government can do (e.g. national defense and certain other public infrastructure). Inefficiency at these things is dangerous because there is no feasible alternative mechanism to get necessary tasks done.

Thus government inefficiency is absolutely NOT a good thing. It's not even the least of the available evils - we would be better off with less government than inefficient government. Either way the problems don't get solved, but at least in the "less government" case we're not spending money in the process.

Yes but it's confounded.

[red_crayon]

We don't have a randomized experiment here, with cabinet size
being manipulated... countries get the cabinets they choose
(sort of).

More complex problems (to begin with) -?-> larger cabinet.

Re:Power shift

[arth1]

In addition to Parkinson's, the law of recursive bureaucracy also comes into play.
Simplified, for every two or three productive persons, you need an additional non-productive person for bureaucratic purposes. This is also true for the bureaucrats themselves, so the more the bureaucracy grows, the more bureaucracy is needed to govern it.

This rule also appears to apply to efficiency, because efficiency will drop with added bureaucracy.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[Anonymous Coward]

Does a separate, cabinet level post really need to exist for homeland security?

No. The department itself should not exist at all, nor the rest of the alphabet soup it finds itself in. "Home Security" as it should be done is provided for in the Second Amendment with local training programs for handling, markmanship, gunsmithing and martial arts would be as much "organizing" as needed and that by the members of the local community.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
Thomas Jefferson

And for those who actually believe such a thing as our alphabet soup morass of false security should exist, Jefferson had remarks that described them well too.

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
Thomas Jefferson

There is the excellent Franklin quote that applies here well too, but I think most here at least know the words even if they don't always think and live that way. Let's not destroy or allow to die what so many have fought and died for.

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
Thomas Jefferson

I, for one, welcome our new Libertarian overlords

[Alex Belits]

Oh, wait, I did that already -- in Russia in early 90's. And all they did was giving up control of everything government had and everything government didn't have, to domestic and foreign "businesses" that proceeded to loot the country...

I have an idea. Can I be the looting businessman this time, and you all will be cheerleading Libertarians?

Pretty please?

With sugar on top?