Words of Wisdom

Over the years I have had to listen to a variety of 'experts' - usually expensive 'consultants' - telling me that "bigger is better" or talking about "economies of scale" while ignoring the waste that usually arises when organisations get too big. So it is pertinent at present to consider the problems when an organisation becomes to large or answerable only to itself. FIFA is just such an organisation and so is the ICC. Then you have organisations like Greenpeace, Frieds of the Earth and Earth First, to name but a few who feed into the epitome of corrupt and unanswerable organisation - the UN.

The early American President, Thomas Jefferson, had it right when he commented -

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants, at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste.

As soon as the 'people' begin to feel they have no voice and no say in the direction or organisation of a state or even a company, they become detached and it isn't long before the functionary begins to feather his or her nest and play the 'rules' to their own advanatge. The chances of being caught are remote - since usually the 'management' have no idea of what is really going on below their ivory tower. Nor do they care, as long as it appears to be operating smoothly and their own expensive tastes and coffers are constantly in receipt of their 'perks.'

If this is true of a single people, connected one to another by language, culture and history, how much truer is it of gigantic multi-national units?

Aristotle noted:

“To the size of a state there is a limit, as there is to plants, animals and implements, for they can none of them retain their natural facility when too large”.

History has proved his words more than once - and our own age has a long list of proofs -

The UN and all its "agencies"
The EU bureaucracy
Washington's bureaucrats,
Whitehall and its legions,
Beijing and its Central Organisations,
Moscow ...