Students for Liberty recently highlighted one of the most grotesque examples of central planning gone wrong: the Soviet Union’s whaling industry. It is a case study in what happens when bureaucratic incentives replace human needs, and when “success” is measured not by outcomes but by paperwork.
Their summary is brutal:
Soviet whalers targeted endangered right whales and humpbacks because they were larger, helping them hit tonnage targets faster. The meat rotted on deck during long voyages back to port, where officials dutifully recorded the numbers and sent reports to Moscow declaring another successful harvest. Central planners measured success in tons harvested, not consumer satisfaction or long‑term sustainability. Remove the profit motive and price signals, and you get 180,000 dead whales rotting in the sun while commissars celebrate meeting their targets.
This is not hyperbole. It is documented history.
The NOAA report on Soviet whaling confirms the scale of the destruction. The Conversation’s investigation shows Soviet scientists secretly tracked the ecological toll because they knew the official numbers were lies.
The Soviet Union didn’t hunt whales because people wanted whale meat or oil. They hunted whales because the plan said they must.
Quotas replaced demand. Targets replaced reality. Box‑ticking replaced judgment.
And the result was ecological devastation on a scale that still shocks marine biologists today.
This is not hyperbole. It is documented history.
The NOAA report on Soviet whaling confirms the scale of the destruction. The Conversation’s investigation shows Soviet scientists secretly tracked the ecological toll because they knew the official numbers were lies.
The Soviet Union didn’t hunt whales because people wanted whale meat or oil. They hunted whales because the plan said they must.
Quotas replaced demand. Targets replaced reality. Box‑ticking replaced judgment.
And the result was ecological devastation on a scale that still shocks marine biologists today.
The Bureaucratic Mindset: Process Over Consequences
If this sounds familiar, it should. It is the same mindset that dominates modern bureaucracies; including New Zealand’s.
Having dealt with NZ bureaucrats on both sides of the fence, I can say this with confidence: box‑ticking is their highest virtue. It is the bureaucratic sacrament. It is the ritual that justifies their existence.
And it is often completely disconnected from reality.
A personal example: my council once ran a public survey on a vanity project (a cycleway). They never released the raw numbers, only the percentage. They claimed “support” based on 20% approval. In other words, they ignored 80% of respondents and proceeded anyway.
Why? Because the process had been followed. The box had been ticked. The ritual had been performed.
Consequences were irrelevant.
This is the same logic that drove Soviet whaling: the plan matters, not the outcome.
Why Bureaucracies Fail
The Soviet whaling disaster illustrates three universal truths about bureaucratic systems:
1. Bureaucrats respond to incentives, not reality
If the incentive is “hit the quota,” they will hit the quota, even if it means killing endangered whales no one wants.
2. Bureaucracies measure activity, not results
The Soviet whaling fleet was praised for “high production” even though the product was literally rotting on deck.
3. Bureaucracies destroy what they manage
When price signals are replaced with administrative targets, destruction becomes inevitable. The Soviet Union nearly wiped out multiple whale species. Modern bureaucracies wipe out time, money, and public trust.
The Modern Echo: Job Creation Without Value
Students for Liberty point out that this mindset persists today:
- Politicians promise to “create jobs” in industries that lose money year after year.
- Government agencies measure success by dollars spent, not problems solved.
- Universities chase enrolment numbers, not student outcomes.
It is not planning. It is not governance. It is not stewardship.
It is ritualised incompetence.
Socialism and the Environment
The Soviet whaling disaster is a reminder that socialism is not environmentally friendly. It is environmentally catastrophic.
When incentives are severed from reality, ecosystems collapse. When planners replace markets, destruction follows. When bureaucrats replace feedback loops, nature pays the price.
The Soviet Union didn’t destroy whale populations because it hated whales. It destroyed them because bureaucracy cannot see consequences.
And that lesson applies everywhere — including here.
Conclusion: All Hail the Process, Consequences Be Damned
The Soviet whaling disaster is not just a historical curiosity. It is a warning.
When bureaucracies worship process, they become blind to outcomes. When planners replace markets, they destroy what they manage. When incentives reward box‑ticking, box‑ticking becomes the national religion.
New Zealand’s bureaucratic culture is not Soviet, but it rhymes. It is obsessed with process. It is indifferent to consequences. It is allergic to accountability.
And unless we recognise the pattern, we will repeat it; not with whales, but with our economy, our institutions, and our future.....The full article is published HERE
Colinxy regularly blogs at No Minister
3 comments:
A retired NASA engineer who had worked on the Space Shuttle program for 25 years was hired by SpaceX at age 62. He described the first week as the most disorienting experience of his professional life.
At NASA, a design change required 3 meetings, 2 committees, a review board, and 6 to 18 months of documentation. At SpaceX, his new supervisor said "if it works, build it. If it doesn't, change it by Friday."
He sat at his desk after the first day and called his wife. He told her he felt like a man who had been swimming with ankle weights for 25 years and someone just cut them off. He could move. He could decide. He could build something in the morning and test it in the afternoon. The constraint that he had accepted as the nature of aerospace engineering turned out to be the nature of bureaucracy.
Within 6 months he had contributed to more design iterations than he had completed in his last 5 years at NASA. Not because he was working harder. Because the time between having an idea and testing the idea collapsed from months to hours. The same brain. The same knowledge. A different operating system.
He described a specific moment where he proposed a modification to a Raptor engine component. At NASA, the proposal would have entered a queue. At SpaceX, the modification was machined by the end of the day and tested by the following morning. He watched his idea become a physical object in 18 hours. At NASA, 18 hours would not have been enough to schedule the first meeting to discuss whether to schedule a meeting.
He told an interviewer: "I didn't get smarter when I went to SpaceX. I got faster. The intelligence was always there. The system was in the way."
The difference between SpaceX and NASA is not talent. NASA has extraordinary talent. The difference is the time between a thought and a test. SpaceX compresses it. NASA elongates it. The same engineer produces 10x more at SpaceX than at NASA because the bottleneck was never the engineer. It was the meetings about the meetings about the work.
Pretty much sums up beuracracy in total , that’s why we need to be able to fire those who waste the tax payers money , and are currently held unaccountable , great article
Queenstown has a major one level , on ground level roundabout construction underway that is approaching its fourth year in construction, endless reconstructs , changes , alterations, countless hours of site gatherings holding telephones, computer and the obligatory clipboard.
I understand now that the amazing construction technique of multiple layers of asphalt to a depth of >300mm ( over a foot of asphalt) is because ;
large trucks braking at the roundabout approach give a greater force on the road foundation construction than cars and the multiple asphalt will absolve the issue . REALLY
I thought there were roundabouts built all around the world and nowhere do they need greater asphalt's depths than even airpot runways .
The most interesting part of this bureaucratic monolith is that the entire multiple acreage of roundabout is fed and egressed by only single lane roads .
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