Bureaucracy

A good example of how bureaucracies grow if left unchecked can be seen in the military. During WW 2 there were 7 four-star generals and admirals with total personnel of 12 million. In 2023 there were 37 four-star generals and admirals with an active force of 1.3 million troops. This effected all other officers in something referred to a rank creep or officer inflation. In today’s military there is one officer for each 4.4 enlisted and during WW2 the ratio was one officer per eleven soldiers. Something similar happens in business. When the CEO salary increases this opens the door to salary increases for lower-level managers. Between 1940 and 1970 the ratio of CEO to worker salaries was 25 to 1 but by 2023 the ratio increased to 290 to 1. Business hierarchy has flattened over this time period with the ratio of managers vs workers has changed slightly from 5 to 1 to 6 to 1. Much of this is because of automation.