Bureaucracy (Weber)

Max Weber was a historian that wrote about the emergence of bureaucracy from more
traditional organizational forms (like feudalism) and it's rising pre-eminance in modern
society. Scott defines bureaucracy it as "the existence of a specialized administrative staff".
According to Weber, beaucracy is a particular type of administrative structure developed
through rational-legal authority. Bureaucratic structures evolved from traditional structures
with the following changes:

1. Jurisdictional areas are clearly specified, activities are distributed as official duties (unlike
traditional form where duties delegated by leader and changed at any time).

2. Organization follows hierarchial principle -- subordinates follow orders or superiors, but

have right of appeal (in contrast to more diffuse structure in traditional authority).

3. Intential, abstract rules govern decisions and actions. Rules are stable, exhaustive, and
can be learned. Decisions are recorded in permanent files (in traditional forms few explicit
rules or written records).

4. Means of production or administration belong to office. Personal property separated from

office property.

5. Officials are selected on basis of technical qualifications, appointed not elected, and
compensated by salary.

6. Employement by the organization is a career. The official is a full-time employee and

looks forward to a life-long career. After a trial period they get tenure of position and are
protected from arbitrary dismissal.

Weber said that bureaucracy resolves some of the shortcomings of the traditional system.
Described above was his ideal-type construct, a simplified model (not a preferred model)
that focuses on the most important features.

Weber's view of bureaucracy was a system of power where leaders exercise control over
others -- a system based on discipline.

Weber stressed that the rational-legal form was the most stable of systems for both
superiors and subordinates -- it's more reliable and clear, yet allows the subordinate more
independence and discretion. Subordinates ideally can challenge the decisions of their
leaders by referring to the stated rules -- charisma becomes less important. As a result,
bureaucratic systems can handle more complex operations than traditional systems. (all
above Scott p. 41-42).

Bureaucracy and Unresponsiveness

Often public service organizations are criticized for being unresponsive to their customer's
needs.

One of Weber's most serious concerns was how society would maintain control over
expanding state bureaucracies. He felt the most serious problem was not inefficiency or
mismanagement but the increased power of public officials. A person in an important,
specialized position will become to realize how dependent their bosses are on their expertise
and begin to exercise their power in that position. Furthermore, the staff also begin to
associate with the special social interests of their particular group or organization. Over
history this has caused the shift in power from the leaders of society to the bureaucrats.

There were numerous criticism's of Weber's theories over the years.

MAX WEBER: ON BUREAUCRACY

John Kilcullen

Macquarie University
Copyright (c) 1996, R.J. Kilcullen.

See
Marx on Capitalism
Reading Guide 8: Max Weber

'GM' refers to H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (trans. and ed.), From Max Weber
(New York, 1946) (H/33/.W36).

'SEO' refers to Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, tr.
Henderson and Parsons (New York, 1947) ((HB/175/.W364).

'ES' refers to Max Weber, Economy and Society, ed. G. Roth and C. Wittich (New
York, 1968) (HM/57/.W342).

'Beetham' refers to David Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics
(London, 1974) (JA/76/.B37).

In this lecture I want to look at what Weber says about bureaucracy, in G and M, p.
196 ff, and in SEO, p. 329 ff.

First, something about the word. 'Bureau' (French, borrowed into German) is a desk,
or by extension an office (as in 'I will be at the office tomorrow'; 'I work at the Bureau
of Statistics'). 'Bureaucracy' is rule conducted from a desk or office, i.e. by the
preparation and dispatch of written documents - or, these days, their electronic
equivalent. In the office are kept records of communications sent and received, the
files or archives, consulted in preparing new ones. This kind of rule is of course not
found in the ancient classifications of kinds of government: monarchy, aristocracy,
democracy - and bureaucracy? In fact it does not belong in such a classification. It is
a servant of government, a means by which a monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, or
other form of government, rules. Those who invented the word wanted to suggest
that the servant was trying to become the master. Weber is of course aware of this
tendency; in fact he attacked the pretensions of the Prussian bureaucracy to be an
objective and neutral servant of society, above politics, and emphasized that every
bureaucracy has interests of its own, and connections with other social strata
(especially among the upper classes); see Beetham, chapter 3. But formally and in
theory the bureaucracy is merely a means, and this is largely true also in practice:
someone must provide policy direction and back the bureaucrat up (if necessary)
with force. 'At the top of a bureaucratic organization, there is necessarily an element
which is at least not purely bureaucratic', SEO, p. 335, to give policy direction.

In the middle ages the most effective kings ruled from horseback: they travelled
round the country, armed, accompanied by armed men, and enforced their will. They
were prepared if necessary to enforce their will on their armed companions by
personal combat, though their prestige was such that this was seldom necessary.
The king was accompanied also by 'clerks', i.e. clergy, who could read and write,
who took along a chest containing records and writing materials; the modern
bureaucracy developed from this. In modern countries the ruler does not have to
fight in person, or travel round much; he or she rules by sending messages, through
a bureau. The messages are usually acted on mainly because of the government's
moral authority or prestige (a 'status' phenomenon), but also because they can be
backed by force, by a 'staff' of police or soldiers. As Weber points out (e.g. SEO, pp.
330-1), armies have been bureaucratized. Napoleon had to watch his battle from
horseback, but the modern general receives and sends messages. Napoleon had a
'staff', officers who galloped off with written messages, the modern army has a
'general staff'; the Prussian general staff was in Weber's time regarded with pride
one of the key institutions of the German empire - it was in Weber's terms a
bureaucracy. As he also points out, not only government services but also political
parties, churches, educational institutions, and private businesses, and many other
institutions have bureaucracies. That is, they all have a professional staff for keeping
records and sending communications which will be regarded, at least by other staff
of the same institution, as authoritative directions. Bureaucracies are found in
ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, in the middle ages (notably the bureaucracy that
served the pope). Bureaucracy is a pervasive feature of modern societies, ever
growing in importance, Weber believed.

Weber sets out an 'ideal type' (see last lecture) for bureaucracy, characterised by an
elaborate hierarchical division of labour directed by explicit rules impersonally
applied, staffed by full-time, life-time, professionals, who do not in any sense own the
'means of administration', or their jobs, or the sources of their funds, and live off a
salary, not from income derived directly from the performance of their job. These are
all features found in the public service, in the offices of private firms, in universities,
and so on.

Let me comment on these points, starting with the 'economic' features. There have in
history been governments whose members made no distinction in resources,
income, expenditure, etc. between public and private. Weber calls these 'patrimonial'
(from the Roman law term for property that can be bought or sold). In Europe in the
middle ages, for example, 'jurisdiction' was often as much a piece of property as a
building or a horse. A kingdom might change hands as part of a marriage settlement.
This was not true of jurisdiction and property in the Church, which did distinguish the
prelate's private property from that of his church, and did not allow jurisdiction to be
inherited or transferred as property; it forbade 'simony' (buying and selling office in
the church), and enforced celibacy to keep church office and property from falling
into the patrimony of families. Weber also speaks of 'prebends' or 'benefices' (terms
used in the medieval Church), meaning an office to which is attached some income-
yielding property, e.g. a farm, or tithes, or tax-gathering rights, from which the office
holder lives--but this property does not belong to the beneficiary/prebendary and
cannot be sold or bequeathed. The modern bureaucrat is even further removed from
property: he or she does not have a prebend, but is paid a salary. Bureaucrats
are not allowed to charge fees for themselves (if fees are charged they belong to the
government, firm, etc.), or to accept gifts. The ideal lying behind this is that if the
official has any source of income apart from a salary he will not reliably follow the
rules. Reliable following of the official rules is one of the highest values in a
bureaucracy.

The modern bureaucrat does not own his job (SEO, p. 332). Some governments
have sold offices, to raise money. This was true, for example, of judicial positions in
18th century France, of commissions in the army and navy in most European
countries into the 19th century. The vested rights of office holders were an obstacle
to reorganization, an impediment to efficiency; so they were bought out, or
expropriated with compensation.

Bureaucrats do not own the 'means of administration' - the computers, the furniture,
the files, etc. Weber suggests a parallel with capitalist productive enterprise (GM, pp.
81-2). Similarly, in modern armies the soldier does not own his weapons, whereas in
ancient armies he did (GM, pp. 221-2). For example, in ancient Rome when the army
was called together the 'classes' were expected to come equipped to a certain
standard at their own expense - 'classification' was a form of taxation. Soldiers were
expected to bring money to buy food from the locals (when they did not take what
they wanted by force); they got no pay or provisions. In modern educational
institutions teachers do not own what they use (in medieval universities originally
they did, and in fact each 'master' owned a school which was a private business
enterprise). 'The bureaucratization of... the universities is a function of the increasing
demand for material means of management... Through the concentration of such
means in the hands of the privileged head of the institute, the mass of researchers
and docents (lecturers) are separated from their "means of production" in the same
way as capitalist enterprise has separated the workers from theirs', GM, pp. 223-4. In
the modern army, public service, private firm, the equipment is provided by the
organization partly because this is more efficient now that it is so elaborate and
expensive.

The modern bureaucrat is a full-time, life-time professional; this requires a sufficient

salary and job security, because otherwise people will not stay in the job full time for
life. Unless they do, the organization will not be efficient. It takes time and
experience to learn the job, not so much because it is difficult to perform the
particular task, but because it all has to be coordinated. An elaborate division of
labour requires stability of staff. Because of the nature of bureaucratic work, and also
perhaps because of the importance of training and coordination in the job, the
bureaucracy wants educated recruits. Their education will be attested by some
certificate (partly just to prove they have been educated, but also perhaps because a
bureaucracy likes to work with clear impersonal criteria). Weber speaks of
'credentialism', the preoccupation evident in modern societies with formal
educational qualifications. All these things - credentials, fixed salary, tenure, stability
of staffing, Weber incorporates into his ideal type. They are all required, he believes,
for the efficient functioning of an administrative machine.
Another feature is the impersonal application of general rules, both to the outsiders
the organization deals with, and to its own staff. The Taxation Commissioner's staff
impersonally, objectively, apply the rules to the taxpayer, and their own duties and
rights within the organization are defined by rules applied to them impersonally by
their superiors. In Weber's mind this is the most important feature of bureaucracy. It
underlies the features we have been commenting on up to this point: bureaucrats do
not own their equipment or their job, and receive a fixed salary etc., because these
things ensure reliable rule-following. In ESO he treats of bureaucracy under the
heading of Types of Legitimate Authority. There are three types: rational, traditional
and charismatic. Charismatic authority is regarded as legitimate, and works, because
followers are personally devoted to the 'gifted' leader. Traditional authority is
regarded as legitimate because everyone has always obeyed whoever was in the
leader's position, and no one thinks of disputing his authority. Rational authority is
the 'rule of law': it exists in a community in which there is a moral attitude of respect
for the law as such, or because the law has been arrived at in a way that is regarded
as legitimate. Rulers are recognised and obeyed if they can show a warrant in the
law. Bureaucracy obviously exists within such a framework: even in the bureaucracy
of a private firm, subordinates want to be assured that orders are properly
authorised. Bureaucracy is the most efficient way of implementing the rule of law: the
legal rules are recorded, studied, and applied in a carefully considered and reliable
way to individual cases.

Why does Weber regard the rule of law as 'rational'? One possible answer is
suggested by his statement that 'any given legal norm may be established... on
grounds of expediency or rational values or both, with a claim to obedience', SEO, p.
329. 'Expediency' is, in Weber's thinking, one of the two main forms of rationality,
and 'rational values' is the other. So he is saying that law may be rational in either or
both of those ways, and (therefore?) claim obedience. Insofar as the law is rational,
obedience is rational, and the rule of law is rational.

In other places he emphasises the rationality of bureaucracy in precisely the first of

those two senses. So let me explain the two senses more carefully. He distinguishes
the 'zweckrationell' from the 'wertrationell', the 'goal-rational' and the 'value-rational'
(SEO, p. 115). 'Zweck' means end, purpose, goal. Goal-rational behaviour is
whatever course of conduct is well-adapted as a means to one's ends, whatever
they may be; i.e. it is economic efficiency from the actor's point of view - given that
these are my goals, and these are the resources available to me, what is the
effective way of achieving these goals? The Nazi 'final solution' might be said to be
rational if it really was an efficient solution to what its proponents saw as a problem,
whether they were right to see it as a problem or not, and whether it was moral or
immoral. And very often Weber writes as if the intelligent choice of means is all that
rationality can be. But from time to time he says that the rationality of actions is not
always determined by their effectiveness in furthering goals, but sometimes by some
other sort of relation to values that are not goals, and that goals and other values
also can be rational or irrational. For example, to tell a lie may be an effective means
of furthering one's goals, but it may violate a moral value, a value that truth-telling
serves in some sense other than as a means to achieve a goal; and truthfulness is
not a goal, but a 'value' of some other sort (we also 'value' ultimate goals). So
occasionally he distinguishes between 'goal-rationality' - effectiveness in serving
one's goals whatever they are, rational or irrational - and 'value-rationality', the
rationality of goals (and not merely as means to some ulterior goal) and other values,
and of actions in their relation (otherwise than as means) to some value. But only
occasionally: often he treats rationality as synonymous with efficiency. And it is in
this sense, I think, that he means that bureaucracy is rational in the following:
'Experience tends universally to show that the purely bureaucratic type of
administrative organization... is... capable of attaining the highest degree of
efficiency, and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of carrying
out imperative control over human beings. It is superior to any other form in
precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability. It thus
makes possible a particularly high degree of calculability of results for the heads of
organization and for those acting in relation to it. It is finally superior both in intensive
efficiency and in the scope of its operations, and is formally capable of application to
all kinds of administrative tasks', ESO, p. 337.

Weber is thus not one of those who regard bureaucracy as synonymous with
inefficiency: quite the reverse, it is the supremely efficient way of conducting
administration. This is why is has been adopted by capitalistic firms, and in every
institution. An institution served by a bureaucracy will out-perform its competitors,
and prevail in the struggle for survival: bureaucracy has spread and continues to
spread because of its survival value for social institutions. 'When those subject to
bureaucratic control seek to escape the influence of the existing bureaucratic
apparatus, this is normally possible only by creating an organization of their own
which is equally subject to the process of bureaucratization', GM, p. 338 - because
they can't beat a bureaucracy except with the aid of another one. (This is the theme
of the book on Political Parties by Weber's protege Roberto Michels; his book shows
how the Marxist Social Democratic Party, despite its belief in internal democracy,
had become thoroughly bureaucratized and undemocratic. Later Trotsky explained
Stalinism as a 'bureaucratic deformation' of Marxism.) Just as Adam Smith's pin
makers who divide their labour will make more pins and sell them more cheaply than
their old-fashioned competitors, and will drive them out of the market, so an army
with a general staff, a government with a bureaucracy, a pope with a chancery, a
firm with an efficient office, will prevail over their competitors.

Bureaucracy is in fact the division of labour applied to administration, and

bureaucracy occupies the same place in Weber's account of the development of
modern civilization as division of labour in general occupies in Adam Smith's
account. For Weber this species of division of labour is more fundamental than the
others because it initiates and orders other divisions of labour. Instructions come to
the factory floor from the office. Just as Adam Smith saw division of labour in general
as the cause of progress toward modern, generically commercial, society, so Weber
sees bureaucracy as one of the most important causes of the development of
capitalism specifically. He points to many cooperating causes (see Collins), and in
The Spirit of Capitalism puts some emphasis on the moral causes - on the factors
that made people strive for ever increasing profit, and to use their profits not for
consumption but for further investment. But among the causal factors he often
mentions the adoption of rational accounting methods: no amount of will to make a
profit, or willingness to invest, would have had the desired result if investment and
management had not been guided by systematic accounting, carried on of course
increasingly by a bureaucracy. Once some began to be systematic others had to
follow suit or go under. Labourers were 'separated' from the old-fashioned means of
production by the superior effectiveness of production guided by systematic
accounting - they could get a better living as employees. Capitalists adopted
machinery and other innovations when their bureaucracy analyzing the possibilities
of investment found that such innovation would be profitable. In fact a bureaucracy
finds its own capitalists. As modern Weberians have pointed out, modern firms are
run, not by owners, but by their managers, who often initiate the issuing of shares to
raise capital, or seek loans or investments.

But although Weber regards bureaucracy as supremely efficient, he regards its

inevitable triumph with distaste. Paralleling the distinction between 'goal-rational' and
'value-rational' (and perhaps the same distinction in other words) is a distinction
between 'formal' and 'substantive' rationality. Society is 'formally' rational when
things are organized to maximise the attainment of people's goals, whatever they
are. But it may be formally rational without being 'substantively' rational, because this
organization is inimical to values rationally paramount over the goals actually served.
One of these values is personal freedom, to which bureaucracy is inimical. 'The
quality which best guarantees promotion [in a bureaucracy] is a measure of pliancy
toward the apparatus,... of "convenience" for his superior', ES, p. 1449. Socialism
would mean one unified bureaucratic system: at least now there are alternative and
competing bureaucracies; see ES, pp. 1402-3, 1453-4, and Beetham, pp. 82-9. So
for Weber bureaucracy occupies the place capitalism has for Marx, of the admired
enemy, spreading inexorably throughout the world and into every department of life.
But Weber foresees no 'death-knell'. Bureaucracy is inescapable.

But Weber does not believe that there is no point in resisting the inevitable. He was
himself politically active, in a despairing kind of way - he did not expect to have
success, but he went on 'resolutely', like a Stoic. Weber as politician takes his stand
on certain values although (as a scientist) he cannot rationally justify them, and takes
'responsibility' for organising action aimed at realising those values although he
knows that action may fail.

Weber contrasts the status honour of the bureaucrat with the responsibility of
politician; see ES, pp. 1403-4, 1417, 1438. If a bureaucrat's superior gives him a
directive he considers wrong he should object, but if the superior insists 'it is his duty
and even his honour to carry it out as if it corresponded to his innermost conviction',
On the other hand 'the politician must publicly reject the responsibility for political
actions that run counter to his convictions and must sacrifice his office to them'. A
genuine political leader will be ready to accept responsibility for morally dubious
action, since the different parts of our value system are irreconcilably in conflict; GM
pp.118-28, 147ff.

'The essence of politics is struggle' (ES, pp. 1415, 1450) to attain power; political
leaders must be selected through competitive struggle. They will enter parliament
only if that is the way to real power; see ES, pp.1409, 1414, 1420-1, 1450. The real
leader's task is not merely to compromise interests as if politics were like a market
place, but to take a stand on issues that transcend material interests; see Beetham,
pp.222-6, 144-7. A person is more likely to care about such issues, and be willing to
sacrifice office to conviction, if he is financially independent - he must live 'for', not
'off' politics; see ES, pp.1427, 1448, and GM pp.84-5.
See Max Weber on Capitalism

Bureaucratic Form According to Max Weber — His Six Major Principles

Before covering Weber's Six Major Principles, I want to describe the various multiple
meanings of the word "bureaucracy."

1. A group of workers (for example, civil service employees of the U. S. government), is

referred to as "the bureaucracy." An example: "The threat of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings cuts
has the bureaucracy in Washington deeply concerned."

2. Bureaucracy is the name of an organizational form used by sociologists and

organizational design professionals.

3. Bureaucracy has an informal usage, as in "there's too much bureaucracy where I work."
This informal usage describes a set of characteristics or attributes such as "red tape" or
"inflexibility" that frustrate people who deal with or who work for organizations they perceive
as "bureaucratic."

As you read about the bureaucratic form, note whether your organization matches the
description. The more of these concepts that exist in your organization, the more likely you
will have some or all of the negative by-products described in the book "Busting
Bureaucracy."

In the 1930s Max Weber, a German sociologist, wrote a rationale that described the
bureaucratic form as being the ideal way of organizing government agencies.

Max Weber's principles spread throughout both public and private sectors. Even though
Weber's writings have been widely discredited, the bureaucratic form lives on.

Weber noted six major principles.

1. A formal hierarchical structure

Each level controls the level below and is controlled by the level above. A formal hierarchy is
the basis of central planning and centralized decision making.

2. Management by rules

Controlling by rules allows decisions made at high levels to be executed consistently by all
lower levels.

3. Organization by functional specialty

Work is to be done by specialists, and people are organized into units based on the type of
work they do or skills they have.

4. An "up-focused" or "in-focused" mission

If the mission is described as "up-focused," then the organization's purpose is to serve the
stockholders, the board, or whatever agency empowered it. If the mission is to serve the
organization itself, and those within it, e.g., to produce high profits, to gain market share, or
to produce a cash stream, then the mission is described as "in-focused."

5. Purposely impersonal

The idea is to treat all employees equally and customers equally, and not be influenced by
individual differences.

6. Employment based on technical qualifications

(There may also be protection from arbitrary dismissal.)

The bureaucratic form, according to Parkinson, has another attribute.

7. Predisposition to grow in staff "above the line."

Weber failed to notice this, but C. Northcote Parkinson found it so common that he made it
the basis of his humorous "Parkinson's law." Parkinson demonstrated that the management
and professional staff tends to grow at predictable rates, almost without regard to what the
line organization is doing.

The bureaucratic form is so common that most people accept it as the normal way of
organizing almost any endeavor. People in bureaucratic organizations generally blame the
ugly side effects of bureaucracy on management, or the founders, or the owners, without
awareness that the real cause is the organizing form.

To read more about "what is bureaucracy" and how to keep the good parts and get rid of the
bad stuff click here to go to The Bureaucracy Busting Book.