Entirely disanalogous situations. “Good organizations” of the kind you’re describing (private, for-profit, somewhat narrow-in-scope corporations), unlike governments, generally:
do not have to listen to, or pay, or politically empower those who fundamentally disagree with the corporation’s goals to the point where they take over and steer the corporation in a different direction.[1]
do not have to deal with racial, cultural, religious, ideological, etc. tensions that can boil over into outright rebellion or civil war if unresolved.
function within the sphere of a comprehensive legal framework designed by someone else (a government), which streamlines processes and coordination, ensures property and contractual rights, and peacefully resolves civil disputes through litigation instead of war. Note that when this is missing (i.e., in undeveloped or underdeveloped nations), the kinds of “good organizations” we’re considering don’t exist either.
do not have to organize extremely large-scale coordination across tens of millions of people and use scientific knowledge, economic thinking, compromise and persuasion and so many other things all at once to create comprehensive frameworks for education, drug approval, environmental protection, immigration, trade, etc.
“Good organizations” are playing on easy mode. A software engineer disagrees with the scope of your project and tries to sabotage it? Fire them![2]
Governments are playing on hard mode. A citizen disagrees with a policy enacted by the executive and organizes protests against it? Deport them! Oh, wait… you can’t deport them, because they have rights,[3] and it’s actually good they have rights and you can’t deport them because otherwise the entire enterprise falls apart and you get an authoritarian hell-on-Earth.
“If men were angels, there would be no need for government.”[4] The existence of strife and disagreement is the reason why government and bureaucracy require intelligent mechanism design and game theory ideas to function properly. In economic terms, exit costs are extremely high for individuals in their dealings with governments.[5] It’s why the Archipelago doesn’t work.
Mind you, this isn’t an argument that bureaucracies, as currently enacted, are good. But it does serve to explain why they face radically different challenges. Challenges that need to be considered individually to figure out ways of overcoming them.
Well, there might be… as a means of large-group coordination and to create public knowledge of important facts, at the very least. But it would be much more minarchist in nature.
Unlike in the case of the fired software engineer, who can usually find a job for another company rather quickly, setting up roots in a different country entirely can be a ridiculously daunting task.
The question is what happens when HOW contradicts WHAT. Would WHAT be prioritized or HOW or the other way round? In extremely volatile environments (war) there’s a reasonable argument that HOW should not even be specified, because it’s going to get obsolete, or even counterproductive, immediately (Moltke: “No plan survises the first contact with the enemy.”) but at the same time it will tempt the subordinates to follow it nonetheless.
In government HOW always wins. That’s why the famous joke that the most frightening words in the English language are “Hi I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
I think the manual just acknowledges the phenomenon and gives advice to the saboteurs to take advantage of it. I does not imply that it does not exist in the real world.
Sure. What I was trying to point at was that the manual acknowledges that this is actually bad and that things could be done differently. That’s a surprising level of lucidity that I wouldn’t expect to see these days in any government force.
Bezos is bezos forever. Democracy has to function with a different angry baby at the helm every 4 years (and the alternative where the populace isn’t allowed to install their gibbering id is worse.)
Nah. Good organizations impose both what and how. Look at Bezos imposing how meetings should be run.
Entirely disanalogous situations. “Good organizations” of the kind you’re describing (private, for-profit, somewhat narrow-in-scope corporations), unlike governments, generally:
do not have to listen to, or pay, or politically empower those who fundamentally disagree with the corporation’s goals to the point where they take over and steer the corporation in a different direction.[1]
do not have to deal with racial, cultural, religious, ideological, etc. tensions that can boil over into outright rebellion or civil war if unresolved.
function within the sphere of a comprehensive legal framework designed by someone else (a government), which streamlines processes and coordination, ensures property and contractual rights, and peacefully resolves civil disputes through litigation instead of war. Note that when this is missing (i.e., in undeveloped or underdeveloped nations), the kinds of “good organizations” we’re considering don’t exist either.
do not have to organize extremely large-scale coordination across tens of millions of people and use scientific knowledge, economic thinking, compromise and persuasion and so many other things all at once to create comprehensive frameworks for education, drug approval, environmental protection, immigration, trade, etc.
“Good organizations” are playing on easy mode. A software engineer disagrees with the scope of your project and tries to sabotage it? Fire them![2]
Governments are playing on hard mode. A citizen disagrees with a policy enacted by the executive and organizes protests against it? Deport them! Oh, wait… you can’t deport them, because they have rights,[3] and it’s actually good they have rights and you can’t deport them because otherwise the entire enterprise falls apart and you get an authoritarian hell-on-Earth.
“If men were angels, there would be no need for government.”[4] The existence of strife and disagreement is the reason why government and bureaucracy require intelligent mechanism design and game theory ideas to function properly. In economic terms, exit costs are extremely high for individuals in their dealings with governments.[5] It’s why the Archipelago doesn’t work.
Mind you, this isn’t an argument that bureaucracies, as currently enacted, are good. But it does serve to explain why they face radically different challenges. Challenges that need to be considered individually to figure out ways of overcoming them.
And when they do, the end results aren’t pretty and don’t follow a thoughtful “what + how” framework. See the OpenAI saga as an illustration.
Even better, such a person is unlikely to apply to a job for your corporation in the first place!
At least in the Western world
Well, there might be… as a means of large-group coordination and to create public knowledge of important facts, at the very least. But it would be much more minarchist in nature.
Unlike in the case of the fired software engineer, who can usually find a job for another company rather quickly, setting up roots in a different country entirely can be a ridiculously daunting task.
Agree with everything you’ve said, but note that both projects above are government projects. Neither is a commercial project.
Yeah, my comment is not directly applicable to the post-in-particular. It’s just a response to Samuel’s comment.
The question is what happens when HOW contradicts WHAT. Would WHAT be prioritized or HOW or the other way round? In extremely volatile environments (war) there’s a reasonable argument that HOW should not even be specified, because it’s going to get obsolete, or even counterproductive, immediately (Moltke: “No plan survises the first contact with the enemy.”) but at the same time it will tempt the subordinates to follow it nonetheless.
Well, of course, WHAT takes priority. And you need subordinates who have guts to do the right thing even if it contradicts the stated HOW.
I like the “learn the rules before you break them” approach.
In my organization, I tell people that they can break any rule / best practice they truly understand and truly mastered.
In government HOW always wins. That’s why the famous joke that the most frightening words in the English language are “Hi I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
I believe this wasn’t always the case. See the CIA sabotage manual from the WW2
I think the manual just acknowledges the phenomenon and gives advice to the saboteurs to take advantage of it. I does not imply that it does not exist in the real world.
Sure. What I was trying to point at was that the manual acknowledges that this is actually bad and that things could be done differently. That’s a surprising level of lucidity that I wouldn’t expect to see these days in any government force.
Bezos is bezos forever. Democracy has to function with a different angry baby at the helm every 4 years (and the alternative where the populace isn’t allowed to install their gibbering id is worse.)