Editing Red tape (section)

==Origins and history==
[[File:NARA Backstage Pass (2011-08) - 14.jpg|thumb|Bundle of US [[pension]] documents from 1906 bound in red tape|left]]
It is generally believed that the term "red tape" originated in the early 16th century with the Spanish administration of [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]], [[King of Spain]] and [[Holy Roman Emperor]], who started to use red tape in an effort to modernize the administration that was running his vast empire. The red tape was used to bind the most important administrative dossiers that required immediate discussion by the [[Spanish Council of State|Council of State]], and separate them from files that were treated in an ordinary administrative way, which were bound with ordinary string.<ref name="DD">{{cite book|last1=Dickson|first1=Del|title=The People's Government: An Introduction to Democracy|date=2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=New York|isbn=9781107043879|page=176|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HnvsAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA176|access-date=13 December 2015}}</ref>

In Britain, [[Charles Dickens]] spoke of red tape in ''[[David Copperfield]]'' (1850): "Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape."<ref name="DD" /> The English practice of binding documents and official papers with red tape was popularized in [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s writings, protesting against official inertia with expressions like "Little other than a red tape Talking-machine, and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence".<ref>p.1152, ''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable'', 17th Edition; Revised by J Ayto, 2005</ref> As of the first decade of the 21st century, the British [[barrister]]s' [[Brief (law)|briefs]] continued to be bound with pink-coloured ribbon known as red tape.<ref name="ET" />

In the United States, red tape was used to tie personal records of [[American Civil War|Civil War]] veterans, reputedly making access to them inconvenient.<ref name="DD" />

According to his own annual report for 1921, [[President of the United States|President]] [[Warren G. Harding]]'s [[United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior]] [[Albert B. Fall]], later convicted for his role in the [[Teapot Dome scandal]], set himself the goal of removing "red tape and technicalities" from the management of the department's economic resources to combat [[Economic stagnation|stagnation]].<ref name="KC">{{citation |last=Chamberlain |first=Kathleen Patricia |title=The Controversial Term of Albert Bacon Fall, Secretary of the Interior, 1921–1923 |publisher=Ohio State University |date=1992 |url=https://digital.auraria.edu/files/pdf?fileid=f3b97108-f796-4cbe-b774-cb3729b80de6}}</ref>{{rp|40}} On 23 June 1921, the task handed to [[Scott Cordelle Bone|Scott C. Bone]] on his appointment [[List of governors of Alaska|Governor of Alaska]] on June 23, was to "unravel government red tape".<ref name="KC" />{{rp|39}} Also in 1921, the official explanation for the [[3rd Infantry Regiment (United States)|3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment]]'s strenuous march of 800 miles from [[Camp Sherman, Ohio]] to [[Fort Snelling]] was given as "red tape".<ref>{{citation |last=Smith |first=Hampton |title=Confluence: A History of Fort Snelling |journal=[[Minnesota History (journal)|Minnesota History]] |volume=67 |issue=7 |year=2021 |page=317 |jstor=48769226}}</ref>

In 1938, the [[IG Farben]] chairman [[Carl Krauch]] used the argument that red tape was responsible for previous delivery delays on the part of private enterprise in persuading [[Hermann Göring]], the head of the [[Four Year Plan]], to appoint him as plenipotentiary for the chemical industry over an [[Waffenamt|Army Ordnance]] representative.<ref>{{citation |last=Schweitzer |first=Arthur |title=Business Power Under the Nazi Regime |journal=[[Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie]] |volume=20 |year=1960 |issue=3–4 |doi=10.1007/bf01320054 |page=434}}</ref> In his speech at the meeting of [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] Major-Generals in occupied [[Poznań]] on 4 October 1943, the SS leader [[Heinrich Himmler]] made reference to "red tape" as an example of a potential obstacle to "[[Wunderwaffe|inventions]]" within [[Nazi Germany]]'s armaments industry.<ref>{{citation |author=[[Nuremberg trials#American and British prosecution|Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality]] |title=Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression |volume=4 |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |location=Washington, DC |date=1946 |pages=562–563 |url=https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llmlp/2011525363_NT_Nazi_Vol-IV/2011525363_NT_Nazi_Vol-IV.pdf}}.</ref> In 1947, a contractor who had worked during [[World War II]] under [[Vannevar Bush]] in the [[Office of Scientific Research and Development]] remembered Bush's "impatience with Army red tape", apparently referring to the OSRD's executive secretary Irvin Stewart's organisational efforts.<ref>{{citation |last=Owens |first=Larry |title=The Counterproductive Management of Science in the Second World War: Vannevar Bush and the Office of Scientific Research and Development |journal=[[Business History Review]] |volume=68 |issue=4 |year=1994 |page=540 |doi=10.2307/3117197 |jstor=3117197}}</ref>

As of the early 21st century, Spanish bureaucracy continued to be notorious for extreme levels of red tape (in the figurative sense).<ref name="Graff">{{cite book |last1=Graff |first1=Marie Louise |title=CultureShock! Spain |date=2009 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish |location=Tarrytown, NY |isbn=9789814435949 |page=57 |edition=6th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GRiJAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA57}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=March 2025}} In 2013, the [[World Bank]] ranked Spain 136 out of 185 countries for ease of starting a business, which took on average 10 procedures and 28 days.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Buck |first1=Tobias |title=Spain hopes new law to cut red tape will attract entrepreneurs |url=http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fe6c8276-ca0b-11e2-8f55-00144feab7de.html#axzz3uEEMVxsd |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/XsNM7 |archive-date=2022-12-10 |url-access=subscription |access-date=13 December 2015 |work=Financial Times |publisher=The Financial Times Ltd |date=2 June 2013}}</ref>
Similar issues persist throughout [[Latin America]].<ref name="Graff" /><ref>{{cite book |author1=Jose Luis Guasch |author2=Benjamin Herzberg |chapter=Increasing Competitiveness Through Regulatory and Investment Climate Improvements in Latin America; the Case of Mexico |editor1-last=Haar |editor1-first=Jerry |editor2-last=Price |editor2-first=John |title=Can Latin America Compete? Confronting the Challenges of Globalization |date=2008 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=9781403975430 |page=255 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYzFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA255}}</ref> 
In Mexico in 2009, it took six months and a dozen visits to government agencies to obtain a permit to paint a house.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ellingwood |first1=Ken |title=No stamp of approval for Mexico bureaucrats |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jan-02-fg-mexico-redtape2-story.html |access-date=13 December 2015 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=2 January 2009}}</ref> 
To obtain a monthly prescription for [[gamma globulin]] for [[X-linked agammaglobulinemia]], a patient had to obtain signatures from two government doctors and stamps from four separate bureaucrats before presenting the prescription to a dispensary.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Malkin |first1=Elizabeth |title=For Redress of Grievances, Mexicans Turn to Bureaucracy Contest |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/world/americas/09mexico.html |access-date=13 December 2015 |work=New York Times |date=8 January 2009}}</ref>
Mexico was the original home of [[Syntex]], one of the greatest pharmaceutical firms of the 20th century—but in 1959, the company left for the American city of [[Palo Alto, California]] (in what is now [[Silicon Valley]]) because its scientists were fed up with the Mexican government's bureaucratic delays which repeatedly impeded their research.<ref name="Gereffi_Page_110">{{cite book |last1=Gereffi |first1=Gary |title=The Pharmaceutical Industry and Dependency in the Third World |date=1983 |publisher=Princeton |location=Princeton University Press |isbn=9781400886227 |page=110 |edition=2017 reprint |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4grDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA110 |access-date=11 January 2021}}</ref>