Parkinson Cyril Northcote. Parkinson’s Law, and Other Studies in Administration

Illustrated by Robert C. Osborn. — Houghton Mifflin, 1957. — 126 p. — ISBN 9781568490151.To the very young, schoolteachers, and those who compile textbooks about constitutional history, politics and current affairs, the world is a more or less rational place. To those, on the other hand, with any experience of affairs, these assumptions are merely ludicrous. It is salutary, therefore, if an occasional warning is uttered on this subject. Dismayed to realise what other people suppose to be the truth about civil servants or building plans, the author has tried to provide, for those interested, a glimpse of reality.
Parkinson's law is the adage that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." It is sometimes applied to the growth of bureaucracy in an organization, but can be applicable to all forms of work
Articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as part of the first sentence of an essay published in The Economist in 1955 and since republished online, it was reprinted with other essays in the book Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress (London, John Murray, 1958). He derived the dictum from his extensive experience in the British Civil Service.
A current form of the law is not the one to which Parkinson referred by that name in the article, but rather a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies expand over time. Much of the essay is dedicated to a summary of purportedly scientific observations supporting the law, such as the increase in the number of employees at the Colonial Office while the British Empire declined (he showed that it had its greatest number of staff when it was folded into the Foreign Office due to a lack of colonies to administer). He explained this growth using two forces:
"An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals," and
"Officials make work for each other."
He noted that the number employed in a bureaucracy rose by 5–7 per cent per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done."
Parkinson's Law was translated into many languages. It was highly popular in the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. In 1986, Alessandro Natta complained about the swelling bureaucracy in Italy. Mikhail Gorbachev responded that "Parkinson's law works everywhere."
Parkinson's Law, or, The rising pyramid
Will of the people, or, Annual general meeting
High finance, or, The point of vanishing interest
Directors and councils, or, Coefficient of inefficiency
Short list, or, Principles of selection
Plans and plants, or, The administration block
Personality screen, or, The cocktail formula
Injelititis, or, Palsied paralysis
Palm thatch to Packard, or, A formula for success
Pension point, or, The age of retirement.