I have rarely met anyone who has enjoyed or appreciated bureaucracy. Maybe the people who are entrenched in it or contribute to it. There are problems of efficiency (a whole other post) that are nearly universally recognized but we cannot seem to improve. Looking at the rich history of our people (everyone) it seems like many systems today are perpetuated out of a misplaced sense of respect for the past. An unbroken stagnation that has come to life. A sentience of paperworks, forms, processes, rules, regulations.

Are there science-fiction stories that postulate a world in which a single global government takes on a Vogon-like bureaucratic mess, developing and growing a system for management riddled with forms, cross-checking, and delayed process? Perhaps this system would come to life and become our benevolent overlord, drowning us all in a kind of ISO 9000 process.

Like many things in life, taking a step back, asking questions I’m forced to wonder the purpose of the system. It took a friend a quick check on Wikipedia on automotive registration for us to determine the reasons to necessitate the annual registration. The answer, of course, was unsatisfying. Justified, maybe. But only barely.

It makes me wonder if the proponents of “small government” are thinking too small. And makes me ask more questions about the world I live in that instill seeds of depression.