# C. Northcote Parkinson Back to [[Economic Freedom and Prosperity]] · [[Authors/@Kristof_Poland/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - Kristof_Poland on Parkinson's Laws and Brussels (2026-10-25)|@Kristof_Poland on Parkinson's laws]] · [[Vocabulary#Bureaucracy and the EU|Vocabulary]] **Role:** British naval historian and satirist (Jul 30, 1909 – Mar 9, 1993) ✔ - Studied at Cambridge and King's College London. Taught at the Royal Naval College and served in the Army in World War II; later lectured at Liverpool ✔. - Raffles Professor of History at the University of Malaya in Singapore, 1950–58 ✔. Wrote more than 60 books ✔. - **"Parkinson's Law"**, *The Economist*, Nov 19, 1955 ✔: "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". Evidence: Royal Navy capital ships fell from 62 to 20 (1914–28) while Admiralty officials rose from 2,000 to 3,569; Colonial Office staff rose from 372 (1935) to 1,661 (1954) ✔. - **Book, *Parkinson's Law*** (US 1957, UK 1958) ✔. Adds the law of triviality (the reactor and the bicycle shed) and the coefficient of inefficiency (a committee stops working at 19.9–22.4 members) ✔. - **Second law**, *The Law and the Profits* (1960): "expenditure rises to meet income" ✔. - @Kristof_Poland used all three in a two-part series (Oct 8 and Oct 25, 2026). Key: ✔ confirmed this session · ◻ standard knowledge, not opened this session · ⚠️ unconfirmed.