Republican Principles or Democrats Light?
15th November 2008
Jerry Pournelle has been thinking about politics longer than I’ve been alive.
The Republican Party has fallen victim to Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy. The Iron Law states that in every organization there will be two factions. One will be dedicated to the goals of the organization> Examples are dedicated class room teachers in teacher unions, the Old Guard members of the Sierra Club from the days when you could not join the Sierra Club unless you had been backpacking in the High Sierra, etc.; we all know such people. The other faction will be dedicated to the organization itself without any regard to the organization’s actual reason for existence. Examples are teacher’s union officials, many administrators, the current management of the Sierra Club, etc..; we all know those people, too. Pournelle’s Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization.