Sumario: | "Death, taxes and red tape. The trio no one can escape. That wry sense of reality colors Herbert Kaufman's classic study of red tape, that bureaucratic phenomenon that all of us have encountered in some form - from the tax form filled out annually to the time-consuming wait to renew a driver's licence ... Red Tape remains a definitive account of one of modern life's greatest, but absolutely necessary, scourges. Kaufman, a lifelong student of government and bureaucratic behavior, takes us on a unblinking tour of the dismal landscape of red tape: it's messy, it takes too long, it is out of date, it makes insane demands, it increases costs, it slows progress. But Kaufman also shows us another side. Red tape is generated by our government's response to the demands of both interest groups and ideas about what is best for the greater good of society. Red tape strives to protect us ... to guarantee a social safety net ... and to maintain due process of law. Kaufman posits that one person's red tape is another perason's protection"--Publisher's description
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