Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics

Friday, July 11th, 2008

Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.

2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to
assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

John Derbyshire adds this:

Of the Second Law, Conquest gave the Church of England and Amnesty International as
examples. Of the Third, he noted that a bureaucracy sometimes actually is controlled
by a secret cabal of its enemies — e.g. the postwar British secret service.

John Moore thinks the third law is almost right; it should read “assume that it is
controlled by a cabal of the enemies of the stated purpose of that bureaucracy.”

Francis W. Porretto notes that Cyril Northcote Parkinson studied the same phenomenon
of bureaucratic behavior:

Parkinson promulgated a number of laws of bureaucracy that serve to explain a huge

percentage of its characteristics. They’ve exhibited remarkable predictive power within
their domain. The first of these is the best known:

Parkinson’s First Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Parkinson inferred this effect from two central principles governing the behavior of
bureaucrats:

1. Officials want to multiply subordinates, not rivals.

2. Officials make work for one another.

Like most generalizations, these are not always true…but the incentives that apply
specifically to tax-funded government bureaucracies make them true much more often
than not. They make a striking contrast with the almost exactly opposite behavior
observable in private enterprise.
[...]
That young bureaucrat will profit from deliberate ineffectiveness to the extent that he
can get himself viewed as an asset by his superiors and a non-threat by his peers. His
superiors want him to produce justifications for the enlargement of their domains. His
peers simply ask that he not tread on their provinces.

Miltion Friedman noted that bureaucratic resource allocation involves spending other
people’s money on other people, so there are no compelling reasons to control either
cost or quality — but a bureaucrat will learn, given time, how to “spend on others” in
such a fashion that the primary benefit flows to himself.

To do this, bureaucrats must manage perceptions, so that their work seems both
necessary and successful:

Von Clausewitz and others have termed war “a continuation of politics by other means,”
but when viewed from the perspective of the State Department official, war is the
declaration that his organization has failed of its purpose. He sees it as bad public
relations for his entire function. Thus, even when the nation’s interests would be
overwhelmingly better served by war than by the continuation of diplomacy, the State
Department man will prefer diplomacy. It’s in his demesne, and enhances his prestige
by enhancing the prestige of his trade.

It’s not too much to say that averting war regardless of its desirability or justifiability is
near the top of every State Department functionary’s list of priorities. In this pursuit,
the State Department will often find itself opposing even peacetime operations of the
military designed to improve its effectiveness, such as the acquisition of new weapons
or the enlargement of its ranks.

Posted in John Derbyshire, Policy | 12 Comments »

Comments

1. Henry Levy says:

February 23, 2014 at 10:06 pm

“Bureaucratic Organization” is an empty term, or merely misunderstanding the

essence behind each word composing this term. Bureaucracy is simply a tool,
almost always in the hands of an Organization. A tool serves the goals of its
organization and has no self-aspirations, neither motivations nor goals. As such,
it is meant to remain static in nature, a “one trick pony” similar to one unit in a
long automatic manufacturing machine. Analyzing bureaucracy with
organizational critical methods is nothing different than Disney Animation; it
seems real, so kids adopt it as reality. Philosophers should’ve not fallen to this.

2. Raven says:

June 4, 2015 at 7:29 pm

“Bureaucracy is simply a tool, almost always in the hands of an Organization.”

Both capitalized words are abstractions, not concrete objects. Bureaucrats,
however, are real people, such as clerks and middle managers, on whom the
 aforesaid “bureaucratic organizations” depend for their functioning and
existence — and while bureaucracy may be a tool in the hands of the
organization, or the government it serves, bureaucracy is most certainly a tool
in the hands of bureaucrats… who know it inside and out, chapter and verse,
article and subarticle, paragraph and subparagraph, item (c) stroke 3 footnote
12 (b). And that unfiled bit in the pigeonhole over your left shoulder, sir.
Which would set the cat among the birds….

3. Bill K. says:

July 8, 2015 at 9:21 pm

Might one say that bureaucracy is the continuation of slavery by other means?

4. BJK says:

July 9, 2015 at 10:36 am

Conquest probably adapted those from communism (his scholarly field). Leftists
said that any socialist or labor organization would eventually be taken over by
hardened communists, and it’s reasonable to assume that any communist is not
a communist when it comes to his own possessions.

5. Wayne Grand says:

August 13, 2015 at 6:28 am

“…..but when viewed from the perspective of the State Department official, war
is the declaration that his organization has failed of its purpose. He sees it as
bad public relations for his entire function. Thus, even when the nation’s
interests would be overwhelmingly better served by war than by the
continuation of diplomacy, the State Department man will prefer diplomacy. It’s
in his demesne, and enhances his prestige by enhancing the prestige of his
trade.
It’s not too much to say that averting war regardless of its desirability or
justifiability is near the top of every State Department functionary’s list of
priorities.”
Explains Obama’s and Kerry’s behavior regarding the Iran deal.

6. G-Man says:
 October 22, 2015 at 1:36 pm

4. the simplest way to identify the cabal is to find out who you are not allowed
to criticize.

7. G-Man says:

October 22, 2015 at 1:48 pm

“Might one say that bureaucracy is the continuation of slavery by other means?”
Not necessarily. Bureaucracy is about a certain level of control. Slavery is also
about a certain level of control. But most people would distinguish between the
levels of control. Would you call a traffic light “slavery”?
That said, it’s clear where you are coming from. Consider this. Capitalism,
communism, libertarianism, socialism, monarchy, democracy — it’s all about 1)
who works, and 2) who gets the goods — and they all trend in the same
direction, towards centralized control.

8. TB says:

October 28, 2015 at 6:03 pm

Somewhere in here there should be a mention ofPournelle’s Iron Law of

Bureaucracy.

9. Jacksonian Libertarian says:

October 28, 2015 at 7:56 pm

All human organization can be placed on a line between Monopoly and Free
Market. Starting at the extreme left you have a Communist Totalitarian
Government Monopoly which owns everything, and going to the extreme right
you have a Laissez Faire Anarchy, neither is a successful model. The Ideal Model
is the one that encourages the greatest growth. This is because “Compounding
Growth” is the greatest force in the Universe according to Einstein, or so the
urban legend says. This is what I call the “Einstein Strategy”.
The Government Monopoly like all monopolies suffers from the same disease,
the lack of the “Feedback of Competition”. It’s the “Feedback of Competition”
which provides both the information and motivation, that forces continuous
improvements in Quality, Service, and Price in free markets. This means that
 the Government Monopoly can never be the efficient deliverer of benefits and
services the Leftists would have everyone believe. To maximize growth and
enjoy the benefits of the “Einstein Strategy”. The Government Monopoly needs
to be limited to only those tasks that only a central government can provide
(Defense, Foreign Relations, Justice) as set down in the Constitution. And all
other tasks need to be handled by the free market, where they will be forced to
improve in Quality, Service, and Price by the “Feedback of Competition”.

10. Will says:

October 28, 2015 at 10:54 pm

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization

there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the
organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an
educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch
technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural
scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective
farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself.
Examples are many of the administrators in the education system,
many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much
of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain
and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and
control promotions within the organization.

11. Francis W. Porretto says:

April 30, 2016 at 10:09 am

Because the original posting of the article is no longer available on the Web, you
might want to alter the link to this reposting. It remains a popular, often-cited
piece. Thank you.

12. James G. Rickett says:

March 22, 2018 at 12:33 am

I would argue with Parkinson’s contrast between government and the corporate
world. We’ve all seen big businesses that are just as bureaucratic as anything in
the public sector. The US auto industry has provided more than one poster child
for Conquest’s Third Law. It’s also interesting to note that normal behavior of a
publicly traded corporation is practically a textbook example of the behavior of
an individual sociopath.