The Snail! My post on Burke's Law provoked some interesting responses, including two that hit the funny bone. Ben Hyde links to a report on ossification at the Beeb: The snail! The snail! How can we possibly escape!. Hilarious, and right on point. Because the corollary of Burke's Law that really does the damage is this:
"Organizations dump excess wealth in the form of structure."
It's true from small non-profits to corporations to governments. Non-profit donors will eventually rebel at the overhead, and shrinking net margins and the business cycle will clear out the clutter at a for-profit. But the accumulation at a governmental entity seems to have little limit. Making this coinage also humorously on point: Who is John Gall?. (And if you don't know, you should, so I'll repeat my previous link.)
One on the way up, the other on the way down. 'Paper Cuts' indeed!. Using the new media to document the demise of the old: A Google Maps interface to layoffs in the newspaper biz. Add 125 more at the SF Chron today. Meanwhile, Google itself contemplates entering the corporate venture capital world. I tend to share Fred Wilson's caution about corporates: Their strategic goals are often unclear, their needs for exit may not coincide with those of professional investors, and they tend to abandon the market in downturns. My best advice to Google would be to emulate (of all folks) In-Q-Tel and the CIA who never place an investment unless there's also a project underway with the target company. Google-money = distraction. Google-money + Google-deal = company making potential.
That's gonna leave a mark. Never mind the Nobel, or the money on the table, we'll be shunned at cocktail parties! A University of Chicago economics prof lays a smack down on leftist colleagues kvetching about the establishment of a Milton Friedman Institute in memory of the great man. What ever would we say to our friends? (But, we'd like to get our hands on some of the funds lined up to support it.) Never let it be said that economists can't write polemic - too bad this one is necessary. Via Megan McArdle, who contributes her own a propos summation:
"Why aren't there hordes of economists studying meaningful alternatives to market capitalism? Because we've been experimenting with various other systems--both localism and extreme centralization--for over a century, and the experiment produces the same damn result every single time: human lives that are nasty, brutish, and short. "
Indeed.