Chapter 18: The bereaucracy
If there was no noble anymore, and magician became the government agent, not the local ruler, then what would replace them?
The answer is The bureaucrat and the military officer.
The former, the bureaucrat was another type of professional introduced to Noseth by David as early as he became a Count.
The bureaucracy was not a new word, the job of scribes to assist the nobles in administrative, those scribes would write or recorded to help noble in administering the people and collected tax.
So bureaucracy was an ordinary thing for humanity in the civilized world by Noseth standards, even elves and dwarves have a pseudo-bureaucracy of their own.
However, there was a difference between David's bureaucracy and traditional Noseth's term of bureaucracy.
MERITOCRACY
The things that David used for his rule was a new type base of bureaucracy, a modern bureaucracy based on meritocracy system.
First, David showed his people that there was no need for family connection and every position was not restricted to only the nobility. Any literate citizen with ability in administrative, management and calculating, would be employed by David. This means every child got an equal chance to succeed in life even if they were born of lower status.
Second, He guaranteed for everyone that rank would be determined by merit of the individual. Unlike the old ways, David used people by their ability and judged their deeds by their actions without nepotism or cronyism.
Simply speaking he put the right man on the right job, awarded them at their worth and eliminate favoritism.
Most of them came from the poor or ordinary family, they tried hard at learning so that they could live a better life. They would work for the emperor who controlled the empire from the center, they would be brought the order from the capital to every corner of the vast land under David control. Since most of them came from a poor common citizen who got a chance to study because of David's benevolence, their loyalty to David was genuine.
But While they really loved and adored David, that did not mean they would love all of his sons,
And while they came from the lower class, that did not mean they would care for the lower class.
The top people in the hierarchy of bureaucracy would stay at the capital, most of them would live in the inner circle of the city wall but since they mostly came from common people they did not like the luxury lifestyle of the nobles so they chose opposite side of nobles quarter.
These people were David's officer from the beginning of his rule, their situation was not different from the other bureaucrats and it seemed that their prejudice toward nobles was even greater. They were once a people that nobles would not even look, but now the situation had changed. The nobles were not all bad but who could blame these top notch in David's government from having some bad biased opinions against nobles. Surely, the nobles never heard something like " The river turn every 30 years, don't bully a youngster because he's poor!"
Since they hated the nobles, maybe this was the reason why they had Queen Alexandria, once a commoner and knowledge loving lady, as their idol and wanted the intellectual first prince as a next emperor.
As for the rest of them would be living near the workplace designated to them from the government, and would be transferred from place to place as the central government sees fit.
Were all the bureaucrats smart and capable?
Yes, at least they were fast learner and eloquent.
Were all the bureaucrats people of good characters?
That would need a discussion since sometimes good can vary from person to person and the key to judge whether someone work was good or not, was not fixed.
Would government owed bank audit officer considered good if they could find even a very tiny fault?
Could business continue its smoothly grow if they worry every move?
Would teachers considered a good bureaucrat if they follow every command of the higher up without looking at their students?
Was it good to ignore their students as human beings and their primary role which is to teach, just to follow the top brass order?
As we all knew, the basic foundation of bureaucratic management was rules design for effective production, but wasn't it impossible to write rules that could foresee every possible future?
Even on Earth, there were examples when either the bureaucrat or another thing outside of the bureaucracy had to interfere, so the bureaucracy would not reach deadlock or bottleneck and enable them to reach the best decision.
It was an irony when people thought that a properly designed bureaucracy will have the ability to handle all bad situations since problems sometimes need the flexibility to handle it perfectly. While the foundation of bureaucracy was a rule, and it was not liked that bureaucracies necessarily had the flexibility to cope with every problem.
Another point to consider was how Max Waber, one of the most famous sociologists whose idea on bureaucracy model had influenced other, stated that bureaucracy constituted the most efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized. But on the other hand, the same Max Weber also stated that bureaucracy was a threat to individual freedom
However, we could not disregard the fact that systematic processes and organized hierarchies were indeed a most efficient way to maintain order, and for David to take control of the country with a vast of land and races could not be possible without bureaucracy that had people worked at maximizing efficiency or closed to that.
At least, It was sure that the meritocracy system was better than the old ways of personal connection and inheritance status, but that did not mean everything was good. An issue would happen in every system, whether the issue became a problem or not would depend on the people.
Another dangerous thing that could not prevent with was how a tiny drop of rain could fill a huge reservoir, problems were the same.
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." spoken by Leonard Nemoy was indeed true. Even in a fantasy world with magic, too bigger bureaucracy was bad but not enough bureaucracy was worse, we may need just the right amount of bureaucracy but it was impossible to define right, thus the process repeated itself.
Let's look into an old question. How could we hide the sight of the whole elephant with one hand from someone?
Of course, a human hand is tiny but if we think a bit. It's possible to do.
…
....
.....
Just cover the eye, then that person would be unable to see anything.
And if the person was far enough, even one hand could cover the big thing from his sight.
David was a human and human is tiny compared to the world. He was not a god, he must use bureaucracy to assist him in his rule, there was no way else. With his skill, David could look into people heart and with a secret agent to become his watchmen, maybe he could do it.
Right?
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
patsahas
patsahas This is not an essay, the story needs a reason for conflict.
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