What is amazing is that computers have not already reduced the workforce to run bureaucracies.

In my upcoming book I analyze the Australian Tax Office in 1955 (when Parkinson wrote is great paper) and 2008. At both times it took about 1.5% of GDP to do essentially the same function. (Normalizing for GDP takes into account inflation and population size.)

Back in 1955 tax returns were largely processed by hand, by rows of clerks with fountain pens. Just one ancient mainframe could do the work of thousands of people. Today few returns are even touched by a human hand.

The steam tractor and the combine harvester have reduced the agricultural work force from 80% of the population to less than 20%, depending how you count. But the huge increase in the power of bureaucratic tools has produced no reduction in the proportion of the population that work in bureaucracies, quite the opposite.