The OSHA example
I mentioned OSHA yesterday. Made me think. OSHA is a dramatic exception to Parkinson's laws.

Most agencies, and most cause-based NGOs, obey Parkinson perfectly. They continue to grow and increase their tyranny for several decades after their original mission was accomplished or obsolete. EPA, Dept of Defense, CDC, feminism, NAACP, March of Dimes .... Thousands of examples from every conceivable goal and topic.

OSHA went the other way. When it started out in the '70s it was feared and ridiculed. I remember seeing and helping to circulate a Xeroxed** cartoon showing the "OSHA-approved bicycle", an unridable contraption of cushions, belts, pads, helmets, and flashing lights.

Everyone assumed, rationally enough, that OSHA would expand to control every aspect of life, prohibiting all normal activity.

But it didn't. It stayed within originally assigned boundaries, applying sensible rules that save actual lives in industrial workplaces.

If we could figure out why, maybe we could prevent the next tyranny.

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** For a couple decades, digital image handling eliminated the cumulative degradation of passing along Xeroxed cartoons. Now we're back to cumulative degradation, thanks to iPhones that make it easier to take a screenshot or a camera pic than to locate and transfer a file.

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Out of curiosity I looked at the overall Fed workforce. Surprisingly no Parkinson overall, which means that the Parkinsonian rogue agencies like EPA and TSA were growing at the expense of non-Park agencies like OSHA.

Chart starts at 1962. Violet is military, blue is civilian. Numbers x 1000, meaning that all of these numbers are in the range of 1.5 to 3.5 million. Excel here. When you consider that US population has multiplied by 1.7 since '62, these nearly flat lines become a powerful downward trend on a per capita basis.



The story in simple terms: LBJ expanded both civilian and military hugely, Nixon contracted both, Reagan expanded civilian only [STOP AND THINK ABOUT THAT!!!], Clinton contracted both. Other presidents had little effect. Food for thought: What happens to presidents who fire lots of bureaucrats and generals?

Later and more complete Parkinson thought here.
  ¶ 4:57 AM