Money and Banking: Study Guide

Kaufman, Herbert

Reference

DC Heath

Death, taxes, and red tape. The inevitable trio no one can escape. That wry sense of reality colors Herbert Kaufman's classic study of red tape, the bureaucratic phenomenon that all of us have encountered in some form—from the confounding tax form filled out annually to the maddeningly time-consuming wait at the driver's license bureau.
 The complaints about red tape, Kaufman concedes, are legion. It's messy, it takes too long, it lacks local knowledge, it is out of date, it makes insane demands, it increases costs, it slows progress. It is, in short, a burden and many times there is no measurable positive outcome.
 Kaufman takes us on an unblinking tour of the dismal landscape of red tape. But he also shows us another side of red tape, one we often forget. Red tape is how government protects us from tainted food, shoddy products, and unfair labor practices. It guarantees a social safety net for the elderly, the disabled, children, veterans, and victims of natural disasters. One person's red tape is another person's protection.
 This reissue is a Brookings Classic, a series of republished books for readers to revisit or discover, notable works by the Brookings Institution Press.

Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses, and Abuses (A Brookings Classic)

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Brookings Institution Press

Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses, and Abuses

<div> Death, taxes, and red tape. The inevitable trio no one can escape. That wry sense of reality colors Herbert Kaufman's classic study of red tape, the bureaucratic phenomenon that all of us have encountered in some form--from the confounding tax form filled out annually to the maddeningly time-consuming wait at the driver's license bureau. The complaints about red tape, Kaufman concedes, are legion. It's messy, it takes too long, it lacks local knowledge, it is out of date, it makes insane demands, it increases costs, it slows progress. It is, in short, a burden and many times there is no measurable positive outcome. Kaufman takes us on an unblinking tour of the dismal landscape of red tape. But he also shows us another side of red tape, one we often forget. Red tape is how government protects us from tainted food, shoddy products, and unfair labor practices. It guarantees a social safety net for the elderly, the disabled, children, veterans, and victims of natural disasters. One person's red tape is another person's protection. This reissue is a Brookings Classic, a series of republished books for readers to revisit or discover, notable works by the Brookings Institution Press. </div>

Administrative Feedback Monitoring Subordinated Behavior

Business & Money

Management & Leadership

Brookings Inst Pr

Administrative Feedback; Monitoring Subordinates' Behavior.

An examination of the major units of federal executive departments shows that government agencies tend to persist, once established, but that terminations and dismantling is not negligible. Bibliogs

Are Government Organizations Immortal?

Most people talk about red tape as thought it were some kind of loathsome disease or the deliberate product of a group of evil conspirators or the result of bureaucratic stupidity and inertia. It is rarely discussed rationally, dispassionately, and analytically; most of us rage about it when it comes up.
In this book, Kaufman attempts a detached examination of the subject to find out why something so universally detested flourishes so widely and enjoys such powers of endurance. Part of the explanation is the protean character of the term "red tape"; each of us applies it to our own pet grievances, not realizing that other people's grievances are often quite different from our own. Underlying this variance, however, is a common core of meaning, and the first part of the book identifies that shared understanding.
The second part searches for the origins of the despised phenomenon in the federal government, and finds the source not in a clique of fools or villains, but in all of us. Red tape, according to this analysis, springs largely from the diversity of values to which people in our society subscribe, from the demands on government to which these values give rise, and from the responsiveness of the government to the demands. In this sense, red tape is of our own making.
Consequently, getting rid of it entirely—rewinding the spools, as it were-is a hopeless quest. The major proposals for eliminating it are found wanting in this regard (though there may be other reasons to favor some of these reforms); they may even generate as much red tape as they cut. That being the case, Kaufman concludes that a more fruitful policy would be to concentrate on relieving the worst of red tape's irritants so as to make bearable what we cannot end, and he explores several steps he believes will have this effect.
Although many readers will find this book depressing, most will probably acknowledge the persuasiveness of its argument. And some, like the author, will take heart from the analysis on the grounds that relief measures rooted in reality are much more likely to succeed than proposals for improvement based on delusive optimism and false hope.

Red tape, according to this analysis, springs largely from the diversity of values to which people in our society subscribe, from the demands on government to which these values give rise, and from the responsiveness of the government to the demands. 100p. Measures 6x8.75 inches.

Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses and Abuses

Most of the people who keep tabs on the workings of the federal government, no matter what the reasons for their interest, seem to take for granted the power and autonomy of the chiefs of the bureaus that make up the executive branch. Because so much is taken for granted, there have not been many studies of what the chiefs actually do day by day. Of all the participants in the governmental process who wield--or are thought to wield--great influence, bureau chiefs are among the least examined.Believing that he could narrow this gap in the materials on the federal government somewhat, Herbert Kaufman set out to report his observations of six bureau chiefs at their jobs in the course of a year. The group consisted of the commissioners of the Internal Revenue Service, the Customs Service, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Social Security Administration; the chief of the Forest Service; and the administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service--a set diversified enough to include a wide variety of organizational situations and experiences, yet with enough in common to allow comparison and generalization.The objective of his research was to describe the chief's activities so as to explain how they exercise their power. And he hoped to find out whether they are as powerful as they are said to be.From his efforts emerges a detailed picture of the work of the bureau leaders and of their role in their agencies and in the government generally. The picture reveals that some of the common beliefs about these officials, and perhaps about the system as a whole, are not altogether accurate. Kaufman traces the implications of his findings for organizing the executive branch, for training administrators, and for organization theory.

The Administrative Behavior of Federal Bureau Chiefs

Limits of Organizational Change

Social Sciences

University of Alabama Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kaufman, Herbert. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kaufman, Herbert

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kaufman, Herbert. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Money and Banking: Study Guide

Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses, and Abuses (A Brookings Classic)

Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses, and Abuses

Administrative Feedback Monitoring Subordinated Behavior

Administrative Feedback; Monitoring Subordinates' Behavior.

Are Government Organizations Immortal?

Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses, and Abuses

Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses and Abuses

The Administrative Behavior of Federal Bureau Chiefs

Limits of Organizational Change