Is the Solarian League actually run by bureaucrats?

I was reading this thread about A Rising Thunder: http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/th ... nder.9340/

And one point regarding the Mandarins in particular caught my attention:
"Are they? Remember they call the Solarians and Mandarins bureaucrats but it's not like we've seen any triple stamping of files, committees to monitor committees to monitor spending, any actual bureaucracy, if anything we see the opposite, attacks launched by single individuals and the Mandarins ruling by whim as opposed to forming subcommittees

It's like calling the Roman empire bureaucrats because (IIRC) Augustus never got rid of calling his government the republic"

"Hilariously, we see a lot more of Manticore's bureaucracy than anyone elses'"

"Meanwhile, the text makes it clear that Solaria is in desperate need of a bureaucracy.

Characters never fail to comment on how Solaria's five kings make idiotic decisions. The Czars constantly forget shit and ignore shit and fail to take obvious factors into account, because the entire process of running a bureau of a government of four trillion people has to take place inside their tiny brain. If they had, y'know, a bureaucracy, there would be a lot of people helping them keep track of information in an organized fashion, and mandatory procedures to vet all their decisions in triplicate prior to gradual implementation."

For all characters complaining about the League being run by unelected bureaucrats, we never see them act as actual bureaucrats, while Manticore has bureaucracies all over the place, and Beowulf...Well, like Ralson puts it:

"Wait a second. Beowulf has a "Planetary Board of Directors?"

What the fuck? Beowulf is a fucking Corpocracy. Meaning they are led by ... corporate bureaucrats ... who are not elected.

But.

But you said.

But they.

But. But."

I still like the series, but this is one of the things that makes me tilt my head to the side quizzically.
By all means check out the whole thread. It's really funny.

Karthak wrote:
I still like the series, but this is one of the things that makes me tilt my head to the side quizzically.
By all means check out the whole thread. It's really funny.

Yeah, the one-sided hyperbole of that writer is a bit more than I can take - my teeth grind far too much for my health.

Anyway, from Wikipedia:
"By the mid-19th century the word was being used in a more neutral sense, to refer to a system of public administration in which offices were held by unelected career officials, and in this sense "bureaucracy" was seen as a distinct form of management, often subservient to a monarchy."

So yes, the Solarian League's practical governing power is in fact invested in just such people. Beowulf, by contrast, does have elections: the districts are at least for some purposes drawn by profession rather than locality, and the elections may be unusually indirect, but it's still based on elections at the bottom.

The thing about the League's bureaucrats is that (1) their sense of League power is so pronounced that they cannot respond as if that is not an immutable fact of life, and (2) no one can get in their way by any regular, formal, or public method when they screw up or are about to. They're not responsible government officials. Elections can help that a lot, but they're not strictly speaking a necessary or sufficient condition for it.

Unconditionally, it is run by bureacrats, a cooperative politburo as potent and nasty as the "People's Quorum" that took over Haven after the Harris assassination, with the SLN as thoroughly dominated by family politics as the PN admiralty was dominated by Legislaturalist families.

The reason they're referred to as bureacrats is that they are only answerable within the "federal structure" that the Solarian Assembly and Prime Minister allowed to be passed into law many PD centuries ago. The problem is, the bureacracy is now more powerful than any elected body, has got most of the elected body in it's pocket, and it's been business as usual for way too long.

Business as usual ignoring little things like interstellar law, rights of independent star systems, genetic slavery, transtellar corporations usurping the individual rights of the citizenry, and bringing in the storm trooper types (yucel) whenever the natives get restless.

In US terms, it is what would happen, for example, if the SecDef were appointed for life, the head of HHS for life, Interior, and a couple more, and they got to dictate everything below their belts ANY way they wanted. Now what?

SharkHunter wrote:Unconditionally, it is run by bureacrats, a cooperative politburo as potent and nasty as the "People's Quorum" that took over Haven after the Harris assassination, with the SLN as thoroughly dominated by family politics as the PN admiralty was dominated by Legislaturalist families.

The reason they're referred to as bureacrats is that they are only answerable within the "federal structure" that the Solarian Assembly and Prime Minister allowed to be passed into law many PD centuries ago. The problem is, the bureacracy is now more powerful than any elected body, has got most of the elected body in it's pocket, and it's been business as usual for way too long.

Business as usual ignoring little things like interstellar law, rights of independent star systems, genetic slavery, transtellar corporations usurping the individual rights of the citizenry, and bringing in the storm trooper types (yucel) whenever the natives get restless.

In US terms, it is what would happen, for example, if the SecDef were appointed for life, the head of HHS for life, Interior, and a couple more, and they got to dictate everything below their belts ANY way they wanted. Now what?

My bolding. It is not true that the Assembly and Prime Minister allowed it to be voted into existence. I was a direct result of the SL constitution, which prevented any action by the Assembly - requiring a unanimous vote to do anything. This allowed the bureaucracies to grow as they were the only way of actually getting any thing done.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Unconditionally, it is run by bureacrats, a cooperative politburo as potent and nasty as the "People's Quorum" that took over Haven after the Harris assassination, with the SLN as thoroughly dominated by family politics as the PN admiralty was dominated by Legislaturalist families.

The reason they're referred to as bureacrats is that they are only answerable within the "federal structure" that the Solarian Assembly and Prime Minister allowed to be passed into law many PD centuries ago. The problem is, the bureacracy is now more powerful than any elected body, has got most of the elected body in it's pocket, and it's been business as usual for way too long.

Business as usual ignoring little things like interstellar law, rights of independent star systems, genetic slavery, transtellar corporations usurping the individual rights of the citizenry, and bringing in the storm trooper types (yucel) whenever the natives get restless.

In US terms, it is what would happen, for example, if the SecDef were appointed for life, the head of HHS for life, Interior, and a couple more, and they got to dictate everything below their belts ANY way they wanted. Now what?

My bolding. It is not true that the Assembly and Prime Minister allowed it to be voted into existence. I was a direct result of the SL constitution, which prevented any action by the Assembly - requiring a unanimous vote to do anything. This allowed the bureaucracies to grow as they were the only way of actually getting any thing done.

It is not quite true that a unanimous vote is required for everything that happens by. It is that any member world can cast a veto over any legislation that is passed. It seems like a petty distinction, but it could be important sometime. For example, if a member world delegate was absent for some reason, his vote would not be necessary. Or, something I have wondered is does a no vote automatically mean something is vetoed or is there an additional action required for the veto to be registered?

On first flush, those sorts of distinctions might seem petty, but on specific occasions they could turn out to be important.

Don

n7axw wrote:
It is not quite true that a unanimous vote is required for everything that happens by. It is that any member world can cast a veto over any legislation that is passed. It seems like a petty distinction, but it could be important sometime. For example, if a member world delegate was absent for some reason, his vote would not be necessary. Or, something I have wondered is does a no vote automatically mean something is vetoed or is there an additional action required for the veto to be registered?

On first flush, those sorts of distinctions might seem petty, but on specific occasions they could turn out to be important.

Don

True that it is in fact every member world has veto power, but that effectively means unanimous, in that if there is any important legislation to be passed, every member will make sure that their delegate(s) are present for the vote. Unless you start to suppose the kind of skullduggery that was presented in Insurrection, wherein murder, and critical accidents occurred to certain delegation so they couldn't make it to the vote.

it is only certain actions that can be vetoed

The reasons we do not see much paper pushing done by SL bureaucrats are: 1. There are not that many POV characters within the SL. 2. The actual responsibilities of the SL are very limited. The chances that you have to actually deal with the SL if you live on a member planet are small. (That might be different in the verge. But we saw even less of the life there.)

For me they are bureaucrats, because their most important skill appears to be office politics. What more do you want.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

n7axw wrote:
It is not quite true that a unanimous vote is required for everything that happens by. It is that any member world can cast a veto over any legislation that is passed. It seems like a petty distinction, but it could be important sometime. For example, if a member world delegate was absent for some reason, his vote would not be necessary. Or, something I have wondered is does a no vote automatically mean something is vetoed or is there an additional action required for the veto to be registered?

On first flush, those sorts of distinctions might seem petty, but on specific occasions they could turn out to be important.

Don

True that it is in fact every member world has veto power, but that effectively means unanimous, in that if there is any important legislation to be passed, every member will make sure that their delegate(s) are present for the vote. Unless you start to suppose the kind of skullduggery that was presented in Insurrection, wherein murder, and critical accidents occurred to certain delegation so they couldn't make it to the vote.

Ah, fallsfromtrees, have you kept track of the number of times your own legislators have been absent from voting?

And that doesn't address the issue as to wheather or not a no vote is automatically a veto, or for that matter the effect of abstaining. Kind of a nit, I know, but IIRC textev says that every member has a veto without explaining the nuances of how that is carried out.

Don

One reason that we do not see the Mandarins act like bureaucrats is because they are the very tip-top of the bureaucracy. They do not have to report to anyone, and they basically only deal with things that are handed up to them by their immediate underlings. Beneath each one of the Mandarins is an immense complicated structure of superiors and underlings. I imagine that the total manpower in a single bureau reporting to a Mandarin is equivalent to the population of a city or two.