Order of the Bath

When I was a teenager I used to read everything and anything I could lay my hands on—I still do to some extent, time permitting. One of the books I read was about the Peter Principle which has proved very useful in the subsequent years. From memory it says something like “every manager will be promoted to their own level of incompetence.”

What this is saying is that a good employee will be promoted to a more responsible job until, at some point they can no longer do it. The net result is that you have a business that is a mixture of rising stars and incompetent old hands. It takes a perceptive person and a flexible company to recognise this situation and allow them to back off to a much more rewarding position that they can do well. I recognised this very early and backed out of all management as I soon discovered that I was useless.

A similar principle can be coined about government in general. I don’t mean about politicians; the Peter Principle works fine for them and should be applied, but about general regulating bodies. This can be worded thus

“People can be regulated to their own level of disobedience.”

I will call it “The Gotcha Principle.” You can make rules and regulations controlling the lives of people as much as you like but there comes a point, different for each person, where they will say “b####r it, I can’t be bothered any more,” and ignore them.

It is not just a New Labour thing. I thought about it today in relation to the copyright licence we have in church for the reproduction of songs for worship. It seems that we are supposed to put the licence number on every page and also check that each song is covered from an ever changing catalogue. I suspect, without accusing anyone, that somewhere along the line someone has said “what a stupid load of fuss and bother” and ignored it. That point, and in those circumstances, was their own level of disobedience.

In extreme cases it applies to things like speed cameras and parking regulations. I know that I am a generally safe driver and try to keep to the limits set and park in safe places but, like everyone, I slip occasionally. These will not be dangerous situations; as I said, I am as safe as I can be, no longer a reckless youth. But, if the authorities get to the point of monitoring our every move and stamp down on every infringement, then I am likely to ignore them, even if it may mean that I can no longer drive. Perhaps that is their intention—to clear the roads.

Rambling off the point a bit further, these are examples of over regulating the law abiding citizens because the outlaw will always ignore all the regulations. What is it to them to lose their driving licence, they didn’t have one in the first place, nor road tax nor insurance.

It takes perception and a strong mind by those in power to realise this and stop trying to regulate the lives of everyone in the pretence that they are improving society.

This entry was posted on 21 May 2006 at 18:17 by Rick and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.