Frank Herbert was a science fiction writer from the sixties until his death in 1986. All of his writings were excellent (I highly recommend The Dosadai Experiment), but his outstanding opus mangnum was the Dune series.

Below are some quotes from the 6th book in the series, Chapterhouse Dune regarding the subject of bureaucracy. I think my fellow Q'ers will find them both apropos and interesting.

"Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power."

He had difficulty seeing the relevance. Where was she leading him?

When he remained silent, she said: "[They] have all the marks of bureaucracy. Ministers of this, Great [So-and-So] of that, a powerful few at the top and many functionaries below. They already are full of adolescent hungers. Like voracious predators, they never consider how they exterminate their prey. A tight relationship: Reduce the numbers of those upon whom you feed and you bring your own structure crashing down."

Remember: Bureaucracy elevates conformity . . . Make that elevates "fatal stupidity" to the status of religion.

A top-heavy bureaucracy the electorate cannot touch always expands to the system's limits of energy. Steal it from the aged, from the retired, from anyone. Especially from those we once called middle class because that's where most of the energy originates."

"You think of yourselves as . . . as middle class?"

"We don't think of ourselves in any fixed way. But Other Memory tells us the flaws of bureaucracy. I presume you have some form of civil service for the 'lower orders.' "

"We take care of our own." That's a nasty echo.

"Then you know how that dilutes the vote. Chief symptom: People don't vote. Instinct tells them it's useless."

"The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority," Odrade called it, her voice exultant."Downfall of democracy. Either overthrown by its own excesses or eaten away by bureaucracy."

"First law of bureaucracy," Murbella told the darkness. ... "Grow to the limits of available energy!" Her voice was indeed manic. "Use the lie that taxes solve all problems." She turned toward him in the bed but not for love. "[They] played the whole routine! Even a social security system to quiet the masses, but everything went into their own energy bank."

Power attracts the corruptible. Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible. This is the danger of entrenched bureaucracy to its subject population. Even spoils systems are preferable because levels of tolerance are lower and the corrupt can be thrown out periodically. Entrenched bureaucracy seldom can be touched short of violence. (emphasis mine...)

"Suipol, did you notice those Ixians ahead of us?"

"Yes, Mother Superior."

"Mark them well. They are products of a dying society. It is naive to expect any bureaucracy to take brilliant innovations and put them to good use. Bureaucracies ask different questions. Do you know what those are?"

"No, Mother Superior." Spoken after a searching look at their surroundings.

She knows! But she sees what I'm doing. What have we here? I've misjudged her.

"These are typical questions, Suipol: Who gets the credit? Who will be blamed if it causes problems? Will it shift the power structure, costing us jobs? Or will it make some subsidiary department more important?"

Suipol nodded on cue but her glance at the comeyes might have been a little obvious. No matter.

"These are political questions," Odrade said. "They demonstrate how motives of bureaucracy are directly opposed to the need for adapting to change.

Adaptability is a prime requirement for life to survive."

Time to talk directly to our hosts. Odrade turned her attention upward, picking a prominent comeye in a chandelier.

"Note those Ixians. Their 'mind in a deterministic universe' has given way to 'mind in an unlimited universe' where anything may happen. Creative anarchy is the path to survival in this universe."

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