Hierarchical Authority System is the first of Weber’s key points to a bureaucracy, and this can definitely lead to the ‘Red Tape’ pathology. Having such an intricate flow of power and regulations and rules between each portion inevitably leads us to the ‘maze’ of rules and regulations defined as ‘Red Tape’. The next point to a bureaucracy is the task specialization. This aspect of our bureaucracy should not lead to any of the pathologies. If everyone did their assigned job accordingly there shouldn’t be any duplication or waste or any of the other common issues described by the pathologies. Extensive rules is the next piece of the bureaucracy and I find this one to be similar to the first, as it leads to the ‘Red Tape’ issue. Having clear goals should not lead to any issues, just as task specialization should not. If everyone followed their directive and did as they were supposed to, in theory it would work flawlessly. The Merit Principle should lead us to have bureaucracy full of hardworking and well-qualified people. If this were they case we should be able to avoid all 6 pathologies. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen all the time and can lead us to the pathology of a lack of accountability, as people get free-passes because of their connections. The final point is impersonality, which should not lead to any of the pathologies. Overall, I feel that in certain cases pathologies are inherent because of the nature of government, but not in all.
i understand your point of the merit system supposedly working as the best way of gaining well-qualified people and it does. However, the point I do not agree with is that if everyone simply followed the rules there would be efficiency and less issues. A point i found interesting that was made in the Democracy in America video is how Congress gave the EPA tasks, but these tasks were nearly impossible, therefore dooming the agency before it even truly began. This was because the congressmen couldn't go back to their constituents and say they were against the improvement of the economy, so they voted for it, but reformed it in a way that would prevent certain successes. The EPA would've been much more efficient without these roadblocks given by the government. Therefore, my point is even if the agencies followed the rules or tried to be as strict to the maze of regulations as possible i do not believe they'd be much more successful in having less issues.
The nature of government is the gray areas that create a foggy path and end goal. Weber's description of the bureaucracy is very black and white. All the people in it are parts of a well oiled machine. Weber does not take into account human nature. The nature of any given government is defined as the people that make it up. Human nature accounts for error and lack of productivity. There is a certain amount of delf interest that presses people to achieve more and if that interest is absent than there's nothing pressing them to do better. There is nothing pressing the employees of the bureaucracy to achieve greatness, in fact, by showing innitiative they can make their job harder on themselves. it isn't the "nature of government' that creates inefficiency becuase government is just a concvept created by those with in. It is human nature that causes the gunk in Weber's well oiled machine because humans are not perfect and non of the systems that are made up of humans will be prefect either.
I agree with the points both Zach and Amber brought up, and ultimately believe that most pathologies are inherent because of the nature of government. I strongly agree that government has many grey areas that Weber does not address. One of these grey areas is connections. If a citizen cares enough about the government to want to be a part of it, they will most likely know enough information to pass the needed test for the merit system. Another citizen could also pass the test, with a better score, more representative and bring new ideas into the government, but the citizen that barely passed will get the job because he is good friends with an official. The merit system has ensured that the people being put into positions know enough information to do a passing job, but more could be done. Theoretically Weber describes a perfect system that always runs smoothy, but when it is put into action something seems to go wrong. This is because Weber's system is very fragile, and when a human error occurs the system is thrown off. Of coarse one error won't ruin the entire system, but when enough human errors occur after a long enough time the system seems broken and inefficient. Overall, bureaucratic pathologies are inherent because of the “nature of government”, since the nature of government has become "okay" qualified people performing tasks designed for extremely qualified people, allow plenty of room for error.
I agree with the statement made and do believe that pathologies in the bureaucracy are inherent due to the nature of government. If you look at Weber's theory of how an idealistic bureaucracy should run side by side with our own bureaucracy you will see key similarities. Our bureaucracy is set up hierarchically, there are many departments that each performed a specialized task, there are extensive rules and regulations, clear goals are set for each level of bureaucracy, employees are hired based on the merit principle, and the jobs are based on productivity. After comparing these two subjects, one might be confused about why our bureaucracy seems to have so many pathologies if it matches the definition of an ideal bureaucracy. This is due to the nature of government. Similarly to what Carrigan said, in a perfect would our bureaucracy would never run into any issues, but Weber did not calculate human error into the theory. This is very similar to a scientist calculating how far a car will roll down a hill using a formula involving gravity and the car's mass. If you calculate it out, you will get an answer that is only possible in an ideal world. Just as this scientist needs to factor in friction, Weber would have needed to factor in human behavior in order for his theory to more accurately represent how a bureaucracy works. One example we looked at in class was government credit cards being used by past employees for purposes not related to the department of agriculture in any way. If we lived in an ideal world, humans would be honest and return the credit cards to avoid any wasted money being spent by the government. Instead, due to the nature of the government patholgies cannot be avoided in bureaucracy.
The nature of government is to function as those within it allow it to. As Kayla pointed out, human error is unavoidable and will impact how the government functions. Since people are naturally self-interested, this can become a downfall since the institution of government itself is not one that was set up to offer incentive - rather, as an institution, it was designed to work in an ideal world in which people worked not for themselves, but for the good of others. . Naturally, then, problems arise due to the loss of functionality that is created from these contrasting interests. The government's ability to function properly begins to weaken, not through its own fault, but because of the people in it. Even in a system put together as well as Weber's, in which it would seem it could allow for order and organization, pathologies will still arise, because of the elasticity and ability to be shaped by humans that the government exhibits, coupled with the nature of the people in it. For example, Weber's bureaucracy calls for extensive rules followed by all. Certainly, this would create an efficient, problem-free government, but due to human nature, this would never actually occur, and so pathologies inevitably arise. This human impact can be applied to every aspect of bureaucracy, and it is the very ability of the government to adapt to the people's ways that will always allow problems to arise.
I somewhat agree with the statement. However, when it says the "nature of Government" I do agree with Lauren and Kayla in that there should be a certain calculation about people that needs to be factored into that equation. I would dare to say that in this government run by the people, bureaucratic pathologies would be inherent because of the nature of the people in some cases (but not all cases). The nature of the people is to want more power, which is dangerous. Since people that work in the bureaucracy appear to have more power than people that don't work in it, they may become more corrupt with their power the higher they are in the hierarchy. This can also lead to conflict between agencies because the people in different agencies will want all the power and little in another agency. Also, since they can't really be accounted for by the people, it makes it easier for pathologies like waste and red tape to appear. However, there is a certain degree where the pathologies do appear due to the nature of governments. The nature of governments is to grow. By growing however, the result can be unchecked growth and by growing too much, the government can make duplication and waste. It is for these reasons that I will somewhat agree with the statement, but I believe that the people in the bureaucracy need to be calculated into this statement.
I agree with my peers and the statement that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent in government. Because of the "nature" or just the way that government is, there are always going to be pitfalls and problems that will be inevitable. In accordance with what Kayla and Zach said about the hierarchical structure of government, the flow of power impacts how there is such a huge amount of rules and regulations which flow from the branches with legislation into the bureaucracy who have to execute on the policy. Therefore, the way that our government is leads to the pathologies like "red tape". Also, like Kayla said there is always going to be human error in government and bureaucracy is no exception to that. Another pathology that is inherent is the inefficiency of the bureaucracy because this is inevitable.
Bureaucratic pathologies are caused from the nature of government. Government was established to create structure and formation in a chaotic society. While creating a stable structure, one must have key parts. These key parts are what Weber talks about. A thriving government will work together and like a "well oiled machine". Just like Weber's second point of task specialization, each person has their own job and responsibility. This nature of government of to step back from being a human with natural human error creates bureaucratic pathologies. Weber's sixth point he mentioned was impersonality, job performance is judged by productivity. This is just an example of how it creates these pathologies because it does not judge the job performance by the people/customers. The people who work in government remove themselves from the human nature of mistakes and weakness. They must create a strong attitude that will be able to be continuous and strong enough to carry out their individual responsibility. This transformation of attitude and adaption of government nature creates the bureaucratic pathologies.
I agree with Lauren that even with Weber’s hypothetically perfect system he created, it will still have inherent pathologies because of the people working in it. This idea correlates with the theme of the nature of government. Yea sure, the government is made to help the people and provide necessary things for us but in reality especially after taking this class we all know that that is simply just not the case at hand. Although the government does provide its citizens with many things it usually has underlying incentives that effect decisions. For example, Republicans could make it seem like they want to help feed the poor by giving tax cuts to restaurants for donating not used food but the real reason is to find more possible tax cuts for businesses. So therefore since the nature of government is so political, full of self interested people and corrupt and also inefficient at times (Congress) all of these pathologies will naturally transfer over to the bureaucracy. The major problem I see is that in order to fix the bureaucracy, where I think we can at least vastly improve, we need the government to make changes. Going back to all the unfortunate pathologies stated with the government, how the government can possibly start to make all of these changes to the bureaucracy without changing itself is beyond me. There would have to be some incentive for the government to want to do so. Moral of the story, since the government shares a lot of the pathologies the bureaucracy does as a whole, what makes anyone think that the bureaucracy, a stem from the government, wouldn’t also share them?
I agree that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent, due to the nature of government. Truthfully, our government (Congress) is naturally comprised of self-interested, unproductive snobs, who care for winning the next election, not for the well being of the people they serve. Our government is naturally sneaky and works in somewhat corrupt ways, as Julia pointed out with the EPA being set up for failure. With a government composed of people who aim to appear like they're doing good instead of actually doing good, inefficiency in the bureaucracy is imminent. If Congress doesn't take responsibility, and doesn't work effectively, despite having an elected position meant to serve its constituencies, a bureaucracy made of unelected workers obviously aren't going to work diligently to be effective and efficient. Bureaucratic workers do not have an incentive to be productive, so pathologies will always exist. Congress has "dealt" with bureaucratic problems by making several departments that do the same thing and providing either mass or insufficient funding for certain departments. The current nature of our government is to be lazy, so if the government doesn't change, these pathologies will always be present.
I agree with Amber. Weber didn't take into account the nature of humans of work their faults into his plans at all. Most pathologies are in bureaucracies but some are more present than others. The Hierarchical Authority Structure can lead to a bunch of "Red Tape" in the sense that nowadays people share a lot of power that are high up, so someone may make a command only to have it checked by another person in authority. Task specialization kind of stays out of this whole mix. The only problem that would tie in with this would be duplication. extensive rules definitely leads to "Red Tape" and conflict. Many agencies have a lot of regulations to try and make it so that there are no loopholes but that creates confused employees and overlapping rules that make everything conflict. Clear goals, again, shouldn't really cause any problems as it is good to have goals. The Merit System sounds good but today the bureaucracy still suffers with unqualified workers because of human flaws. This leads to lack of accountability as people start blaming each other and agencies start doing the same. I believe that many of the pathologies are inherent because human error and plain human emotion has caused all of these problems.
I agree that the "nature of the government" can play a role in the pathologies that are created from it. Human error was never a thought when government was being created which in turn led to many problems. Congressmen always want to get re-elected and that is all they care about. Yes, they do work for their constituents but it is mostly done from their perspective and how they think it will flow through the system. The actions of humans and how we view things and have different perspectives on things will lead to more pathologies because we can never make a simple decision. The way that members of Congress get their jobs should be determined on how well they know the rules of the government and if they will be able to fully serve the needs of the people because that it what it comes down to. If they want to keep their seats then they should start to fulfill the needs of the people.
Because of the nature of the government, I definitely believe that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent. There is always going to be human error in the system. With all of the pathologies throughout the bureaucracy, there are the ways that bureaucrats think and go after their own wants and needs and this sort of influences the system. I agree with Hannah in what she states about the selection of members of Congress. They should be chosen on their knowledge and their ability to fully function effectively in Congress without the influences of others or without the influences of human nature as much as possible.
I agree with Joe that Weber didn't think about human error. It's like Jenga, if one piece of the chain doesn't work, the whole chain of command just falls apart. Each individual link on the chain has to work. I don't agree with the merit system because the people with the most merit are not always the best option for the job at hand. Ideally, the merit system is the best way to do things, but everything cannot be perfect and eventually something will slip up and then the whole chain falls. Also, his idea of the well oiled machine is just an utopian idea, it would require everyone to do everything required of them with task specialization and if it is not, others would have to pick up the slack no matter how big or small the task they would have to pick up was. Congress also doesn't help the bureaucracy because they stockpile items on their agendas upon the bureaucracy by creating things that show to their constituents that they have done things for that would get them votes in the upcoming election, but they know the chances of this getting done are slim, but they can say we tried it and it didn't work.
It seems as though many are arguing that "human error" is not accounted for and is what causes many of the pathologies of the bureaucracy. This would imply that the people in the system are the cause of the problems when I would argue that it is the system that creates the problem. Some of the problems of our bureaucracy are due to "The Nature of a Democracy". I use this phrase instead because the inherent patologies of a bureaucracy in a dictatorship or a monarchy are not the same as in a democracy. In a democracy waste will always be an issue. This stems from a lack of a clear hierarchical structure. Our bureaucracy is accountable to 536 people which causes the competition for funding because decisions are spread over a variety of sources with different interests. Each various agency may need those funds in the future so they spend all of it on things that may not be needed so they are guaranteed to have it again next year. This lack of clear leadership also causes confusion such as with the VA and their backlog. The incompatible computer systems and the fact they aren't really accountable is because the leadership on the issues is disorganized because of the issue's public attention. Public attention in a democracy will cause an issue to be debated in some way, shape, or form(even if it's just how important the issue is). This in turn causes unclear direction and leadership. However if an issue or function isn't necessarily in the spotlight of the public there will be more clear leadership and therefore less issues, as was and generally still is with the NSA.
I for one general agree with this statement, because unlike a business, a government agency, such as the EPA has no competitors. This means that employees are not held to as high of a standard as they would be in the private industry, and brings productivity down. Think of a work environment such as wall street where you have to make a move before your competing investors to get the better deal for your clients. Now think of the DMV where after a ling day of dealing with upset people you are 30 minutes from quitting time and your boss has no expectations of you to step up to the plate because there is no incentive, almost like a communistic environment. One problem that John Stewart's clips pointed out was the lack of communication between the different agencies in areas where oversight could have been shared between the VistA and ALHTA platforms for claims that had no compatibility. This is often a problem we see in government that I believe could be solved if the US population cared more.
I agree with Joe. Some pathologies are more present than others. I also agree with the statment that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent. All of them really are because of the nature of the government. Like Zach pointed out Weber's Hierarchical Authority System could defintely lead to "Red Tape". Like many others pointed out too, the Merit system is the best way to find qualified workers, but human error will always play a part. A person can seem extremely qualified on paper and have all the means to be the perfect fit for the job, then still not complete the job. It all depends on how the person feels emotionslly about completing the job. They could be qualified but still have a low work ethic after reciecving the job. It is impossible to prevent certain pathologies because humans will always reach conflict. Human error causes all of these pathologies. Because of this, I definitely believe that these pathologies are inherent and will always be a part of government.
I agree with this statement completely because the nature of government inherently cause bureaucratic pathologies. Like Kayla and many others said, that Weber did not take in to consideration that there could be human error in our system of hierarchical authority which almost tells me automatically that his theory does not suit our bureaucracy. Although we have changed to the merit system in order to hire our bureaucrats we still have a system in which people would look out for their self interests most of the time and not for the good of the people which causes corruption and bureaucratic pathologies.
I agree with Brian in that human error was not thought of when creating the government. Weber's theory doesn't work with our bureaucracy. His idea of the government working like a well-oiled machine is dreamlike, and everything would have to operate perfectly all the time. Sometimes things happen that we can't control that would effect things working flawlessly. By changing to the merit system, we have created a fairer selection of people who are qualified for the job. However people still care about their own interests before the people they are providing for which creates some corruption within the bureaucracy.
Bureaucratic pathologies are inherent because there has been no changes made to the way the system works and there is nobody out there that is working to even try to fix these problems. The government should make another committee just to focus on the pathologies. I agree with what Emily and Brian said that the people who work for the government look out for themselves and that is a huge problem when there job is to look out for the "better of the people." All in all the bureaucratic agency of this country is always going to be a problem because of the people who work for it and that nobody is trying to fix the problems to make it less corrupt.
Hierarchical Authority System is the first of Weber’s key points to a bureaucracy, and this can definitely lead to the ‘Red Tape’ pathology. Having such an intricate flow of power and regulations and rules between each portion inevitably leads us to the ‘maze’ of rules and regulations defined as ‘Red Tape’. The next point to a bureaucracy is the task specialization. This aspect of our bureaucracy should not lead to any of the pathologies. If everyone did their assigned job accordingly there shouldn’t be any duplication or waste or any of the other common issues described by the pathologies. Extensive rules is the next piece of the bureaucracy and I find this one to be similar to the first, as it leads to the ‘Red Tape’ issue. Having clear goals should not lead to any issues, just as task specialization should not. If everyone followed their directive and did as they were supposed to, in theory it would work flawlessly. The Merit Principle should lead us to have bureaucracy full of hardworking and well-qualified people. If this were they case we should be able to avoid all 6 pathologies. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen all the time and can lead us to the pathology of a lack of accountability, as people get free-passes because of their connections. The final point is impersonality, which should not lead to any of the pathologies. Overall, I feel that in certain cases pathologies are inherent because of the nature of government, but not in all.
ReplyDeletei understand your point of the merit system supposedly working as the best way of gaining well-qualified people and it does. However, the point I do not agree with is that if everyone simply followed the rules there would be efficiency and less issues. A point i found interesting that was made in the Democracy in America video is how Congress gave the EPA tasks, but these tasks were nearly impossible, therefore dooming the agency before it even truly began. This was because the congressmen couldn't go back to their constituents and say they were against the improvement of the economy, so they voted for it, but reformed it in a way that would prevent certain successes. The EPA would've been much more efficient without these roadblocks given by the government. Therefore, my point is even if the agencies followed the rules or tried to be as strict to the maze of regulations as possible i do not believe they'd be much more successful in having less issues.
DeleteThe nature of government is the gray areas that create a foggy path and end goal. Weber's description of the bureaucracy is very black and white. All the people in it are parts of a well oiled machine. Weber does not take into account human nature. The nature of any given government is defined as the people that make it up. Human nature accounts for error and lack of productivity. There is a certain amount of delf interest that presses people to achieve more and if that interest is absent than there's nothing pressing them to do better. There is nothing pressing the employees of the bureaucracy to achieve greatness, in fact, by showing innitiative they can make their job harder on themselves. it isn't the "nature of government' that creates inefficiency becuase government is just a concvept created by those with in. It is human nature that causes the gunk in Weber's well oiled machine because humans are not perfect and non of the systems that are made up of humans will be prefect either.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the points both Zach and Amber brought up, and ultimately believe that most pathologies are inherent because of the nature of government. I strongly agree that government has many grey areas that Weber does not address. One of these grey areas is connections. If a citizen cares enough about the government to want to be a part of it, they will most likely know enough information to pass the needed test for the merit system. Another citizen could also pass the test, with a better score, more representative and bring new ideas into the government, but the citizen that barely passed will get the job because he is good friends with an official. The merit system has ensured that the people being put into positions know enough information to do a passing job, but more could be done. Theoretically Weber describes a perfect system that always runs smoothy, but when it is put into action something seems to go wrong. This is because Weber's system is very fragile, and when a human error occurs the system is thrown off. Of coarse one error won't ruin the entire system, but when enough human errors occur after a long enough time the system seems broken and inefficient. Overall, bureaucratic pathologies are inherent because of the “nature of government”, since the nature of government has become "okay" qualified people performing tasks designed for extremely qualified people, allow plenty of room for error.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the statement made and do believe that pathologies in the bureaucracy are inherent due to the nature of government. If you look at Weber's theory of how an idealistic bureaucracy should run side by side with our own bureaucracy you will see key similarities. Our bureaucracy is set up hierarchically, there are many departments that each performed a specialized task, there are extensive rules and regulations, clear goals are set for each level of bureaucracy, employees are hired based on the merit principle, and the jobs are based on productivity. After comparing these two subjects, one might be confused about why our bureaucracy seems to have so many pathologies if it matches the definition of an ideal bureaucracy. This is due to the nature of government. Similarly to what Carrigan said, in a perfect would our bureaucracy would never run into any issues, but Weber did not calculate human error into the theory. This is very similar to a scientist calculating how far a car will roll down a hill using a formula involving gravity and the car's mass. If you calculate it out, you will get an answer that is only possible in an ideal world. Just as this scientist needs to factor in friction, Weber would have needed to factor in human behavior in order for his theory to more accurately represent how a bureaucracy works. One example we looked at in class was government credit cards being used by past employees for purposes not related to the department of agriculture in any way. If we lived in an ideal world, humans would be honest and return the credit cards to avoid any wasted money being spent by the government. Instead, due to the nature of the government patholgies cannot be avoided in bureaucracy.
ReplyDeleteThe nature of government is to function as those within it allow it to. As Kayla pointed out, human error is unavoidable and will impact how the government functions. Since people are naturally self-interested, this can become a downfall since the institution of government itself is not one that was set up to offer incentive - rather, as an institution, it was designed to work in an ideal world in which people worked not for themselves, but for the good of others. . Naturally, then, problems arise due to the loss of functionality that is created from these contrasting interests. The government's ability to function properly begins to weaken, not through its own fault, but because of the people in it. Even in a system put together as well as Weber's, in which it would seem it could allow for order and organization, pathologies will still arise, because of the elasticity and ability to be shaped by humans that the government exhibits, coupled with the nature of the people in it. For example, Weber's bureaucracy calls for extensive rules followed by all. Certainly, this would create an efficient, problem-free government, but due to human nature, this would never actually occur, and so pathologies inevitably arise. This human impact can be applied to every aspect of bureaucracy, and it is the very ability of the government to adapt to the people's ways that will always allow problems to arise.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI somewhat agree with the statement. However, when it says the "nature of Government" I do agree with Lauren and Kayla in that there should be a certain calculation about people that needs to be factored into that equation. I would dare to say that in this government run by the people, bureaucratic pathologies would be inherent because of the nature of the people in some cases (but not all cases). The nature of the people is to want more power, which is dangerous. Since people that work in the bureaucracy appear to have more power than people that don't work in it, they may become more corrupt with their power the higher they are in the hierarchy. This can also lead to conflict between agencies because the people in different agencies will want all the power and little in another agency. Also, since they can't really be accounted for by the people, it makes it easier for pathologies like waste and red tape to appear. However, there is a certain degree where the pathologies do appear due to the nature of governments. The nature of governments is to grow. By growing however, the result can be unchecked growth and by growing too much, the government can make duplication and waste. It is for these reasons that I will somewhat agree with the statement, but I believe that the people in the bureaucracy need to be calculated into this statement.
ReplyDeleteI agree with my peers and the statement that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent in government. Because of the "nature" or just the way that government is, there are always going to be pitfalls and problems that will be inevitable. In accordance with what Kayla and Zach said about the hierarchical structure of government, the flow of power impacts how there is such a huge amount of rules and regulations which flow from the branches with legislation into the bureaucracy who have to execute on the policy. Therefore, the way that our government is leads to the pathologies like "red tape". Also, like Kayla said there is always going to be human error in government and bureaucracy is no exception to that. Another pathology that is inherent is the inefficiency of the bureaucracy because this is inevitable.
ReplyDeleteBureaucratic pathologies are caused from the nature of government. Government was established to create structure and formation in a chaotic society. While creating a stable structure, one must have key parts. These key parts are what Weber talks about. A thriving government will work together and like a "well oiled machine". Just like Weber's second point of task specialization, each person has their own job and responsibility. This nature of government of to step back from being a human with natural human error creates bureaucratic pathologies. Weber's sixth point he mentioned was impersonality, job performance is judged by productivity. This is just an example of how it creates these pathologies because it does not judge the job performance by the people/customers. The people who work in government remove themselves from the human nature of mistakes and weakness. They must create a strong attitude that will be able to be continuous and strong enough to carry out their individual responsibility. This transformation of attitude and adaption of government nature creates the bureaucratic pathologies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lauren that even with Weber’s hypothetically perfect system he created, it will still have inherent pathologies because of the people working in it. This idea correlates with the theme of the nature of government. Yea sure, the government is made to help the people and provide necessary things for us but in reality especially after taking this class we all know that that is simply just not the case at hand. Although the government does provide its citizens with many things it usually has underlying incentives that effect decisions. For example, Republicans could make it seem like they want to help feed the poor by giving tax cuts to restaurants for donating not used food but the real reason is to find more possible tax cuts for businesses. So therefore since the nature of government is so political, full of self interested people and corrupt and also inefficient at times (Congress) all of these pathologies will naturally transfer over to the bureaucracy. The major problem I see is that in order to fix the bureaucracy, where I think we can at least vastly improve, we need the government to make changes. Going back to all the unfortunate pathologies stated with the government, how the government can possibly start to make all of these changes to the bureaucracy without changing itself is beyond me. There would have to be some incentive for the government to want to do so. Moral of the story, since the government shares a lot of the pathologies the bureaucracy does as a whole, what makes anyone think that the bureaucracy, a stem from the government, wouldn’t also share them?
ReplyDeleteI agree that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent, due to the nature of government. Truthfully, our government (Congress) is naturally comprised of self-interested, unproductive snobs, who care for winning the next election, not for the well being of the people they serve. Our government is naturally sneaky and works in somewhat corrupt ways, as Julia pointed out with the EPA being set up for failure. With a government composed of people who aim to appear like they're doing good instead of actually doing good, inefficiency in the bureaucracy is imminent. If Congress doesn't take responsibility, and doesn't work effectively, despite having an elected position meant to serve its constituencies, a bureaucracy made of unelected workers obviously aren't going to work diligently to be effective and efficient. Bureaucratic workers do not have an incentive to be productive, so pathologies will always exist. Congress has "dealt" with bureaucratic problems by making several departments that do the same thing and providing either mass or insufficient funding for certain departments. The current nature of our government is to be lazy, so if the government doesn't change, these pathologies will always be present.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amber. Weber didn't take into account the nature of humans of work their faults into his plans at all. Most pathologies are in bureaucracies but some are more present than others. The Hierarchical Authority Structure can lead to a bunch of "Red Tape" in the sense that nowadays people share a lot of power that are high up, so someone may make a command only to have it checked by another person in authority. Task specialization kind of stays out of this whole mix. The only problem that would tie in with this would be duplication. extensive rules definitely leads to "Red Tape" and conflict. Many agencies have a lot of regulations to try and make it so that there are no loopholes but that creates confused employees and overlapping rules that make everything conflict. Clear goals, again, shouldn't really cause any problems as it is good to have goals. The Merit System sounds good but today the bureaucracy still suffers with unqualified workers because of human flaws. This leads to lack of accountability as people start blaming each other and agencies start doing the same. I believe that many of the pathologies are inherent because human error and plain human emotion has caused all of these problems.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the "nature of the government" can play a role in the pathologies that are created from it. Human error was never a thought when government was being created which in turn led to many problems. Congressmen always want to get re-elected and that is all they care about. Yes, they do work for their constituents but it is mostly done from their perspective and how they think it will flow through the system. The actions of humans and how we view things and have different perspectives on things will lead to more pathologies because we can never make a simple decision. The way that members of Congress get their jobs should be determined on how well they know the rules of the government and if they will be able to fully serve the needs of the people because that it what it comes down to. If they want to keep their seats then they should start to fulfill the needs of the people.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the nature of the government, I definitely believe that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent. There is always going to be human error in the system. With all of the pathologies throughout the bureaucracy, there are the ways that bureaucrats think and go after their own wants and needs and this sort of influences the system. I agree with Hannah in what she states about the selection of members of Congress. They should be chosen on their knowledge and their ability to fully function effectively in Congress without the influences of others or without the influences of human nature as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe that Weber didn't think about human error. It's like Jenga, if one piece of the chain doesn't work, the whole chain of command just falls apart. Each individual link on the chain has to work. I don't agree with the merit system because the people with the most merit are not always the best option for the job at hand. Ideally, the merit system is the best way to do things, but everything cannot be perfect and eventually something will slip up and then the whole chain falls. Also, his idea of the well oiled machine is just an utopian idea, it would require everyone to do everything required of them with task specialization and if it is not, others would have to pick up the slack no matter how big or small the task they would have to pick up was. Congress also doesn't help the bureaucracy because they stockpile items on their agendas upon the bureaucracy by creating things that show to their constituents that they have done things for that would get them votes in the upcoming election, but they know the chances of this getting done are slim, but they can say we tried it and it didn't work.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though many are arguing that "human error" is not accounted for and is what causes many of the pathologies of the bureaucracy. This would imply that the people in the system are the cause of the problems when I would argue that it is the system that creates the problem. Some of the problems of our bureaucracy are due to "The Nature of a Democracy". I use this phrase instead because the inherent patologies of a bureaucracy in a dictatorship or a monarchy are not the same as in a democracy. In a democracy waste will always be an issue. This stems from a lack of a clear hierarchical structure. Our bureaucracy is accountable to 536 people which causes the competition for funding because decisions are spread over a variety of sources with different interests. Each various agency may need those funds in the future so they spend all of it on things that may not be needed so they are guaranteed to have it again next year. This lack of clear leadership also causes confusion such as with the VA and their backlog. The incompatible computer systems and the fact they aren't really accountable is because the leadership on the issues is disorganized because of the issue's public attention. Public attention in a democracy will cause an issue to be debated in some way, shape, or form(even if it's just how important the issue is). This in turn causes unclear direction and leadership. However if an issue or function isn't necessarily in the spotlight of the public there will be more clear leadership and therefore less issues, as was and generally still is with the NSA.
ReplyDeleteI for one general agree with this statement, because unlike a business, a government agency, such as the EPA has no competitors. This means that employees are not held to as high of a standard as they would be in the private industry, and brings productivity down. Think of a work environment such as wall street where you have to make a move before your competing investors to get the better deal for your clients. Now think of the DMV where after a ling day of dealing with upset people you are 30 minutes from quitting time and your boss has no expectations of you to step up to the plate because there is no incentive, almost like a communistic environment. One problem that John Stewart's clips pointed out was the lack of communication between the different agencies in areas where oversight could have been shared between the VistA and ALHTA platforms for claims that had no compatibility. This is often a problem we see in government that I believe could be solved if the US population cared more.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe. Some pathologies are more present than others. I also agree with the statment that bureaucratic pathologies are inherent. All of them really are because of the nature of the government. Like Zach pointed out Weber's Hierarchical Authority System could defintely lead to "Red Tape". Like many others pointed out too, the Merit system is the best way to find qualified workers, but human error will always play a part. A person can seem extremely qualified on paper and have all the means to be the perfect fit for the job, then still not complete the job. It all depends on how the person feels emotionslly about completing the job. They could be qualified but still have a low work ethic after reciecving the job. It is impossible to prevent certain pathologies because humans will always reach conflict. Human error causes all of these pathologies. Because of this, I definitely believe that these pathologies are inherent and will always be a part of government.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this statement completely because the nature of government inherently cause bureaucratic pathologies. Like Kayla and many others said, that Weber did not take in to consideration that there could be human error in our system of hierarchical authority which almost tells me automatically that his theory does not suit our bureaucracy. Although we have changed to the merit system in order to hire our bureaucrats we still have a system in which people would look out for their self interests most of the time and not for the good of the people which causes corruption and bureaucratic pathologies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brian in that human error was not thought of when creating the government. Weber's theory doesn't work with our bureaucracy. His idea of the government working like a well-oiled machine is dreamlike, and everything would have to operate perfectly all the time. Sometimes things happen that we can't control that would effect things working flawlessly. By changing to the merit system, we have created a fairer selection of people who are qualified for the job. However people still care about their own interests before the people they are providing for which creates some corruption within the bureaucracy.
ReplyDeleteBureaucratic pathologies are inherent because there has been no changes made to the way the system works and there is nobody out there that is working to even try to fix these problems. The government should make another committee just to focus on the pathologies. I agree with what Emily and Brian said that the people who work for the government look out for themselves and that is a huge problem when there job is to look out for the "better of the people." All in all the bureaucratic agency of this country is always going to be a problem because of the people who work for it and that nobody is trying to fix the problems to make it less corrupt.
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