Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Bureaucracy Linked To A Nation's Growth

Two of the conquest inscriptions on Building J (ca. 100 BC). Each inscription shows an upside down head with closed eyes signifying conquest on the bottom, a "hill" glyph signifying generalized place in the middle, and a third element on top that varies among inscriptions signifying specific place name. (Credit: Charles S. Spencer, AMNH, used with permission)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2010) — "Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work," said Albert Einstein, sharing a popular view about bureaucracy grinding progress to a halt.

But it now appears that the organizing functions of bureaucracy were essential to the progressive growth of the world's first states, and may have helped them conquer surrounding areas much earlier than originally thought. New research conducted in the Valley of Oaxaca near Monte Albán, a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in southern Mexico, also implies that the first bureaucratic systems may have a lasting influence on today's modern states.

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