The same dynamics exists in Silicon Valley between the contractors (the highly-skilled experts who work freelance) vs the CEOs and VPs of Big Corps. The contractors laugh at CEOs. Small teams of contractors can build projects in a few months in a flat network with only a little team coordination. Big corps waste millions of dollars and years to build something that often barely works.
It's not "Big Government" that is inefficient. It's Big Anything. Filled with lifers, clueless managers, and figurehead CEOs, it's remarkable they stay in business. It moves by inertia.
yrs, andreas www.andreas.com----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian" <cabrian@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 4:46 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Big Army versus Special Forces
I was reading Vince Flynn's first novel Term Limits recently and a passage struck me about animosity between politicians and soldiers, especially Special Forces: "I was in the Special Forces for almost fifteen years...I've worked with the Navy SEASLs, Green Berets, Rangers, Marine Recons, I've met them all. Do you know what the one thing is they all have in common? "They all hate politicians. The two professions couldn't be more fundamentally different. Commandos live by a warrior's code, honor and integrity above everything. Do what you say and mean what you do. Politicians just say whatever will keep them in office. Now, where you run into the problem is when you have the unprincipled, honorless politician telling the principled, honorable warrior what to do. The way the relationship works, with the politicians in the position of authority, they're destined to foster disgust and animosity among the troops.
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