Details bij Organisatie, sterke interactie: Parkinsons Law
Hier een voorbeeld van de wetten van de groei bij het samenstellen van grote
gehelen uit losse elementen, wanneer die elementen onderling sterk
interacteren. Hier voor mensen en een mensengroep.
De sterkte van de
interactie wordt onder ander bepaald door de tijd en de manier waarop ze met
elkaar communiceren. Aangezicht-aan-aangezicht, zoals hier het geval is, kan
gedefinieerd worden, in menselijke context, als "sterke interactie".
Het proces dat beschreven wordt is dat als het aantal elementen toeneemt,
het proces van aangezicht-aan-aangezicht steeds zwakker wordt, oftewel: de
sterke interactie wordt steeds zwakker, en voldoet niet meer aan de
praktische eis: het nemen van besluiten:
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... When first examined under the microscope, the cabinet council usually
appears–to comitologists, historians, and even to the people who appoint
cabinets–to consist ideally of five. With that number the plant is viable,
allowing for two members to be absent or sick at any one time. Five members
are easy to collect and, when collected, can act with competence, secrecy,
and speed. Of these original members four may well be versed, respectively,
in finance, foreign policy, defense, and law. The fifth, who has failed to
master any of these subjects, usually becomes the chairman or prime
minister.
Whatever the apparent convenience might be of restricting the
membership to five, however, we discover by observation that the total
number soon rises to seven or nine. The usual excuse given for this
increase, which is almost invariable (exceptions being found, however, in
Luxembourg and Honduras), is the need for special knowledge on more than
four topics. In fact, however, there is another and more potent reason for
adding to the team. For in a cabinet of nine it will be found that policy is
made by three, information supplied by two, and financial warning uttered by
one. With the neutral chairman, that accounts for seven, the other two
appearing at first glance to be merely ornamental. This allocation of duties
was first noted in Britain in about 1639, but there can be no doubt that the
folly of including more than three able and talkative men in one committee
had been discovered long before then. We know little as yet about the
function of the two silent members but we have good reason to believe that a
cabinet, in this second stage of development, might be unworkable without
them. There are cabinets in the world (those of Costa Rica, Ecuador,
Northern Ireland, Liberia, the Philippines, Uruguay, and Panama will at once
be called to mind) which have remained in this second stage–that is, have
restricted their membership to nine. These remain, however, a small
minority. Elsewhere and in larger territories cabinets have generally been
subject to a law of growth. Other members come to be admitted, some with a
claim to special knowledge but more because of their nuisance value when
excluded. Their opposition can be silenced only by implicating them in every
decision that is made. As they are brought in (and placated) one after
another, the total membership rises from ten toward twenty. In this third
stage of cabinets, there are already considerable drawbacks.
The most immediately obvious of these disadvantages is the
difficulty of assembling people at the same place, date, and time. One
member is going away on the 18th, whereas another does not return until the
21st. A third is never free on Tuesdays, and a fourth never available before
5 P.M. But that is only the beginning of the trouble, for, once most of them
are collected, there is a far greater chance of members proving to be
elderly, tiresome, inaudible, and deaf. Relatively few were chosen from any
idea that they are or could be or have ever been useful. A majority perhaps
were brought in merely to conciliate some outside group. Their tendency is
therefore to report what happens to the group they represent. All secrecy is
lost and, worst of all, members begin to prepare their speeches. They
address the meeting and tell their friends afterwards about what they
imagine they have said. But the more these merely representative members
assert themselves, the more loudly do other outside groups clamor for
representation. Internal parties form and seek to gain strength by further
recruitment. The total of twenty is reached and passed. And thereby, quite
suddenly, the cabinet enters the fourth and final stage of its history. For
at this point of cabinet development (between 20 and 22 members) the whole
committee suffers an abrupt organic or chemical change. The nature of this
change is easy to trace and comprehend. In the first place, the five members
who matter will have taken to meeting beforehand. With decisions already
reached, little remains for the nominal executive to do. And, as a
consequence of this, all resistance to the committee’s expansion comes to an
end. More members will not waste more time; for the whole meeting is, in any
case, a waste of time. So the pressure of outside groups is temporarily
satisfied by the admission of their representatives, and decades may elapse
before they realize how illusory their gain has been. With the doors wide
open, membership rises from 20 to 30, from 30 to 40. There may soon be an
instance of such a membership reaching the thousand mark. But this does not
matter. For the cabinet has already ceased to be a real cabinet, and has
been succeeded in its old functions by some other body.
Five times in English history the plant has moved through its life
cycle. It would admittedly be difficult to prove that the first incarnation
of the cabinet–the English Council of the Crown, now called the House of
Lords–ever had a membership as small as five. When we first hear of it,
indeed, its more intimate character had already been lost, with a hereditary
membership varying from 29 to 50. Its subsequent expansion, however, kept
pace with its loss of power. In round figures, it had 60 members in 1601,
140 in 1661, 220 in 1760, 400 in 1850, 650 in 1911, and 850 in 1952. At what
point in this progression did the inner committee appear in the womb of the
peerage? It appeared in about 1257, its members being called the Lords of
the King’s Council and numbering less than 10. They numbered no more than 11
in 1378, and as few still in 1410. Then, from the reign of Henry V, they
began to multiply. The 20 of 1433 had become the 41 of 1504, the total
reaching 172 before the council finally ceased to meet.
Within the King’s Council there developed the cabinet’s third
incarnation–the Privy Council–with an original membership of nine. It rose
to 20 in 1540, to 29 in 1547, and to 44 in 1558. The Privy Council as it
ceased to be effective increased proportionately in size. It had 47 members
in 1679, 67 in 1723, 200 in 1902, and 300 in 1951. Within the Privy Council
there developed the junto or Cabinet Council, which effectively superseded
the former in about 1615. Numbering 8 when we first hear of it, its members
had come to number 12 by about 1700, and 20 by 1725. The Cabinet Council was
then superseded in about 1740 by an inner group, since called simply the
Cabinet. Its development is best studied in tabular form. This is shown in
Table I.
TABLE
I–GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CABINET
1740 |
5
|
1885 |
16 |
1945 |
16 |
1784 |
7
|
1900 |
20 |
1945 |
20 |
1801 |
12 |
1915 |
22 |
1949 |
17 |
1841 |
14 |
1935 |
22 |
1954 |
18 |
|
|
1939 |
23 |
|
|
From 1939, it will be apparent, there has been a struggle to save this
institution; a struggle similar to the attempts made to save the Privy
Council during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Cabinet appeared to be in
its decline in 1940, with an inner cabinet (of 5, 7, or 9 members) ready to
take its place. The issue, however, remains in doubt. It is just possible
that the British cabinet is still an important body.
Compared with the cabinet of Britain, the cabinet of the United
States has shown an extraordinary resistance to political inflation. It had
the appropriate number of 5 members in 1789, still only 7 by 1840, 9 by
1901, 10 by 1913, 11 by 1945, and then–against tradition–had come down to 10
again by 1953. Whether this attempt, begun in 1947, to restrict the
membership will succeed for long is doubtful. All experience would suggest
the inevitability of the previous trend. In the meanwhile, the United States
enjoys (with Guatemala and El Salvador) a reputation for
cabinet-exclusiveness, having actually fewer cabinet ministers than
Nicaragua or Paraguay.
TABLE II
- SIZE OF CABINETS
No. of Members |
|
6
|
Honduras, Luxembourg |
7
|
Haiti, Iceland, Switzerland |
9
|
Costa Rica, Ecuador, N. Ireland, Liberia, Panama,
Philippines, Uruguay |
10 |
Guatemala, El Salvador, United States |
11 |
Brazil, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Paraguay |
12 |
Bolivia, Chile, Peru |
13 |
Colombia, Dominican R., Norway, Thailand
|
14 |
Denmark, India, S. Africa, Sweden |
15 |
Austria, Belgium, Finland, Iran, New Zealand,
Portugal, Venezuela |
16 |
Iraq, Netherlands, Turkey |
17 |
Eire, Israel, Spain |
18 |
Egypt, Gt. Britain, Mexico |
19 |
W. Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy |
20 |
Australia, Formosa, Japan |
21 |
Argentina, Burma, Canada, France |
22 |
China |
24 |
E. Germany |
26 |
Bulgaria |
27 |
Cuba |
29 |
Rumania |
32 |
Czechoslovakia |
35 |
Yugoslavia |
38 |
USSR |
How do other countries compare in this respect? The majority of
non-totalitarian countries have cabinets that number between 12 and 20
members. Taking the average of over 60 countries, we find that it comes to
over 16; the most popular numbers are 15 (seven instances) and 9 (seven
again). Easily the queerest cabinet is that of New Zealand, one member of
which has to be announced as “Minister of Lands, Minister of Forests,
Minister of Maori Affairs, Minister in charge of Maori Trust Office and of
Scenery Preservation.” The toastmaster at a New Zealand banquet must be
equally ready to crave silence for “The Minister of Health, Minister
Assistant to the Prime Minister, Minister in Charge of State Advances
Corporation, Census, and Statistics Department, Public Trust Office and
Publicity and Information.” In other lands this oriental profusion is
fortunately rare.
A study of the British example would suggest that the point of
ineffectiveness in a cabinet is reached when the total membership exceeds 20
or perhaps 21. The Council of the Crown, the King’s Council, the Privy
Council had each passed the 20 mark when their decline began. The present
British cabinet is just short of that number now, having recoiled from the
abyss. We might be tempted to conclude from this that cabinets–or other
committees –with a membership in excess of 21 are losing the reality of
power and that those with a larger membership have already lost it. No such
theory can be tenable, however, without statistical proof. Table II on the
preceding page attempts to furnish part of it. Should we be justified in
drawing a line in that table under the name of France (21 cabinet members)
with an explanatory note to say that the cabinet is not the real power in
countries shown below that line? Some comitologists would accept that
conclusion without further research. Others emphasize the need for careful
investigation, more especially around the borderline of 21. But that the
coefficient of inefficiency must lie between 19 and 22 is now very generally
agreed.
What tentative explanation can we offer for this hypothesis? Here we
must distinguish sharply between fact and theory, between the symptom and
the disease. About the most obvious symptom there is little disagreement. It
is known that with over 20 members present a meeting begins to change
character. Conversations develop separately at either end of the table. To
make himself heard, the member has therefore to rise. Once on his feet, he
cannot help making a speech, if only from force of habit. “Mr. Chairman,” he
will begin, “I think I may assert without fear of contradiction–and I am
speaking now from twenty-five (I might almost say twenty-seven) years of
experience–that we must view this matter in the gravest light. A heavy
responsibility rests upon us, sir, and I for one…” Amid all this drivel the
useful men present, if there are any, exchange little notes that read,
“Lunch with me tomorrow–we’ll fix it then.”
What else can they do? The voice drones on interminably. The
orator might just as well be talking in his sleep. The committee of which he
is the most useless member has ceased to matter. It is finished. It is
hopeless. It is dead. ...
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