It's pretty absurd to make a general statement like "bureaucracies are bad". As ruveyn said, any organization larger than a lemonade stand requires some bureaucracy.
zer0netgain wrote:
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I would say an efficient bureaucracy is an oxymoron, but I get the point you are making.
The very evil of a bureaucracy is that it's about delegating power to get things done. The inherent problem is that in such delegation, you have oversight, checks and balances, etc. which really means no one person has the power to do anything. He makes a call, it gets routed up a chain of people until someone sufficiently powerful enough gives the OK to do it.
So, rather than just the one person with the power to make the call being the first one you deal with, you go through a small army of lackeys who push paper and little more than that. This consumes resources and energy with people who can't get things done in an efficient manner.
The bridge joining Oakland and San Francisco was initially built by one man given all the authority he needed to get the job done. It was completed in a matter of months for an affordable cost. Now that bridge needs to be redone. Just the planning phase cost millions of dollars, took an army or people and 10 years to complete JUST THE PLANNING of the project because everyone had to have a say in the matter.
One man = results
Committee = delays and expense
Delegating someone (one person) authority over a specific area is one thing. To delegate power to a hundred people to inter-manage a department just leads to waste.
Who the hell was the "single man" who autocratically planned the bridge? Also, the idea for buiding the bridge had been around since the 1870s and work didn't start until 1933.
Quote:
Construction began on July 9, 1933.[15] The western span of the bridge between San Francisco and Yerba Buena Island presented an enormous engineering situation. The bay was up to 100 feet (30 m) deep in places and the soil required new foundation-laying techniques.[1] At the time of construction, suspension bridges could not be made with more than a pair of towers because of stability considerations, and a two-tower span would have been longer than was practical. The solution was to construct a massive concrete anchorage halfway between San Francisco and the island and to build two complete suspension bridges, one on either side of the middle anchorage.
The eastern span was a marvelous engineering feat as well. The crossing from Yerba Buena Island to Oakland was spanned by a 10,176-foot (3,102 m) combination of double cantilever, five long-span through-trusses, and a truss causeway, forming the longest bridge of its kind at the time, with the cantilever portion being the most massive one yet constructed.[1]
Much of the original eastern span is founded upon treated wood. Because of the very deep mud on the bay bottom it was not practical to reach bedrock, although the lower levels of the mud are quite firm. Long wooden pilings were crafted from entire old-growth Douglas fir trees which were driven through the soft mud to the firmer bottom layers.[16]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Franci ... Bay_Bridge
Without knowing the specifics that deeply, I can't help but think the longer time for renovations may be because, unlike in the 1930s, modern builders put a lot more emphasis on Earthquake protection.
Last edited by Master_Pedant on 10 Oct 2010, 12:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
10 Oct 2010, 2:28 am
