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The world over, the bureaucracy is fair game for anyone who wants to have a go at it. Very few institutions have been as reviled, jeered at and abused as continu­ously as the bureaucracy. Not that it is entirely unwarranted, as anyone who has had to go to a Government office and deal with forms or permits knows. And because most people cannot avoid the bureaucracy, a book which rails at it will always be read with interest.

This is one of the reasons why Parkin­son’s Law and The Peter Principle have achieved the popularity they have; but it is not the only reason. These two books set about the job of debagging officialdom by using satire in one of its contemporary forms: by the straight-faced pretence that theirs is a scientific subject, a study of which leads one to the discovery of what are skillfully presented as momentous truths. Work expanding to fill the time available for it is not merely a clever re­mark; it is very close approximation to a scientific axiom-anyone will do-gives the amusement it provokes a much richer quality.