Conversation

There’s a broader economic-philosophical point here. Lean is a natural expression of growthism, which is growth-for-the-sake-of-growth *as measured by money* because in a time-averaged sense, under low-uncertainty conditions, money is the most fungible asset *on average*
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Isn’t this what bureaucracy is for? Bureaucrats are like fat cells in this metaphor. They divert energy from more efficient flows and store it so it will be available later. Thinking of all the career government wonks that ran, eg. the CDC, FDA, etc. Michael Lewis 5th Risk types.
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Kinda but at macro-national scale for base commodities in huge amounts. I’m thinking we all need to become a bit more bureaucratic all the way down.
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Agreed! But there’s a knowledge equivalent too. Lewis tells the story of deep technical expertise stored in government agencies where it was not fully optimized and actually used to slow down optimization in order to hedge against risk.
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Yeah I include the knowledge in my definition. It’s linked to the soecif8c resource being stewarded. Maybe stewardship is a better term than bureaucracy. Bureaucracy too often ends up as robotic rules-knowledge, not appreciative understanding.
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Most actual middle+ bureaucrats I’ve met are either low ambition checked-out shallow proceduralists out for an easy life, or rules-autocrats on a power trip. The “dedicated, sacrificing public servant” is mostly a myth.
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I’ll admit I’m fairly contemptuous of that. Virtues without knowledge and skill reminds me of a line my dad likes: “he has to be good at heart because he’s good at nothing else.” Deeply compassionate, high-virtue incompetent stupidity is a thing. Moral genius, moron at all else.
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Not all proceduralists are shallow. My dad was a civil rights idealist who became a public defender. He defended murder cases for 30 years. Incredible effort and intelligence devoted to the Sisyphean task of holding the government accountable as it imprisons and executes people.
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I think that’s true of a lot more bureaucrats than people think. Social workers, planners, engineers, lawyers, teachers, public health administrators. “Doing your best within constraining rules” looks like (and encourages) proceduralism when the rules are sufficiently advanced.
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