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What does Parkinson's law teach us?

Parkinson, by studying the evolution of the British navy during the first half of the 20th century, noted an inflation over time of non-directly productive personnel.

Parkinson's law is a direct consequence of social ambition: to rise in the social hierarchy, the majority of people want to become 'leaders', that is to say command instead of doing things directly.
In addition, when resources become rare, which leads to what is modestly called restructuring, one might think that it is the people out of production who are fired first, but this is not the case, because they have more time to devote to the plot to defend their job, and are closer to decision -making sources.

Consequences of Parkinson's Law

The right-wing myth: to reduce public spending, we must subcontract to private companies which are more efficient.
False: private companies are more effective ... when they are younger. After a few years, we have more out of production since we also have in the out -of -production: a state service that only makes the markets a sales service that only responds.

The left-wing myth: to improve public services, you just need to increase resources.
False: After a few years, public services become inefficient again, because the non-directly productive workforce has continued to increase.

Conclusion: To have more satisfactory public services, the only solution is to understand Parkinson's law, and to fight, foot, permanently, against the inflation of the workforce outside production.

Go deeper

↣ Wikipedia article explaining Parkinson's Law

See question 'What is Lean Manufacturing?'
See also chapter 2'Widespread nepotism' from the book From capital to reason.