Nearly every parent on earth operates on the assumption that character matters a lot to the life outcomes of their children. Nearly every government antipoverty program operates on the assumption that it doesn’t.

Devil take you? That, in fact, can be done!” And—bang!

Human nature turns out to be more complicated than the idea that people will get along if only the rules are clear enough. Uncertainty, the ultimate evil that modern law seeks to eradicate, generally fosters...

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

rivals in the bureaucracy, both inferior and superior to him.

Business is boss, politics is servant.

We know a great deal of the bureaucracy was occupied in overseeing tribute labor for the state, so I suspect a large percentage of the quipu had to do with labor.

Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines,...

It occurred to Susan that men were always waiting for something cataclysmic–love or war or a giant asteroid. Every man wanted to be a hot-headed Bruce Willis character, fighting against the evil foreign enemy while...

The basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all. When there is enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever...

By exiling human judgment in the last few decades, modern law changed role from useful tool to brainless tyrant. This legal regime will never be up to the job, any more than the Soviet system...

Wie es im Zeitalter der Könige naiv gewesen wäre zu glauben, dass der erstgeborene Königssohn der zum Herrschen Geeignetste wäre, so ist es in unserer zeit naiv zu glauben, dass der demokratisch gewählte Machthaber der...

The idealized market was supposed to deliver ‘friction free’ exchanges, in which the desires of consumers would be met directly, without the need for intervention or mediation by regulatory agencies. Yet the drive to assess...

Bureaucrats and Politicians are different people, work of Bureaucrats makes us hate Politicians.

One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one...

She knew the power of bureaucracy well enough to be aware she had to sit and be admonished until this stranger felt she had expressed sufficient disappointment in a girl she would never have to...

Wananchi wanapokosa huduma za muhimu za kijamii (kama vile afya, elimu, chakula, malazi, na ulinzi) ilhali wanalipa kodi, na wameajiri serikali kuwaendeshea nchi kwa kiapo cha uaminifu wa vitabu vitakatifu, watakosa imani na serikali yao!...

A healthy agency does not require relevance to the national agenda so much as the APPEARANCE of relevance to the national agenda,” Humphrey explained. “It is perhaps the second-most important tool in ensuring continued funding.””And...

But in Africa bureaucrats are usually too proud to accept a bribe, something I admire when I’m not the one being arrested.

Den Staat kümmert nicht, ob der Bürger lebt oder stirbt. Wichtig für den Staat und sein Archiv ist, ob der Bürger am Leben oder tot ist.

For if there were a list of cosmic things that unite us, reader and writer, visible as it scrolled up into the distance, like the introduction to some epic science-fiction film, then shining brightly on...

It seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds...

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who...

How can you make sense of a place if it won’t hold still to be counted and even its colors aren’t fast? Their job was to imagine, never to know. The truth, as generations of...

Serikali inayodhulumu wananchi wake ni hatari kuliko simba.

People and institutions that refuse to admit error eventually discredit themselves.

Nobody likes having a problem, but having a convoluted, bureaucratic one is even more galling.

I believe the best service to the child is the service closest to the child, and children who are victims of neglect, abuse, or abandonment must not also be victims of bureaucracy. They deserve our...

Just three words? Nothing about his physical health? His equipment? His supplies?”You got me,’ she said. ‘He left a detailed status report. I just decided to lie for no reason.”Funny,’ Venkat said. ‘Be a smart-ass...

We . . . go out into the Waste Land of Experts, each knowing so much about so little that he can neither be contradicted nor is worth contradicting.

Let’s form a committee tasked with exploring why committees are so ineffective. Then we’ll stand-back and watch it argue and self-destruct.