“Work to be done,” of course, means the transformation 
of one kind of material energy into some new form, as trees 
into lumber or paper, or clay into bricks or plates, or metal into 
pipe. In terms of this kind of work, the accumulation of office 
personnel in a navy, for example, goes up as the number of 
ships goes down. What Parkinson carefully hides from himself 
and his readers is simply the fact that in the area of 
information movement, the main “work to be done” is actually 
the movement of information. The mere interrelating of people 
by selected information is now the principal source of wealth in 
the electric age. In the preceding mechanical age, work had not 
been like that at all. Work had meant the processing of various 
materials by assembly line fragmentation of operations and 
hierarchically delegated authority. Electric power circuits, in 
relation to the same processing, eliminate both the assembly 
line and the delegated authority. Especially with the computer,