RE: Re: Bureaucracy

["michael pugliese" <debsian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"To Control or to Smash Bureaucracy: Weber and Lenin on Politics,
" by Erik Olin Wright, Berkeley Journal of Sociology circa '75
or so. Reprinted (I think ) as a chapter of his, "Class, Cris
and the State, " Verso Books.
Michael Pugliese, g*d knows why I bother posting these cites
here. No one ever goes to the library to read 'em! ;-)

>--- Original Message ---
>From: Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date: 4/3/02 9:26:49 AM
>

>
>
>Charles Brown wrote:
>>
>> Open Bureaucracy vs Bureacracy behind a Screen of Participatory
>> democracy.
>>
>> Carrol
>>
>> ^^^^^^^^
>>
>> CB: Isn't "bureaucracy" a Weberian and not Marxist concept
? "Bureaucracy" is comparable to "middle class" in the damage
it has done to the political consciousness of masses of workers
and petit bourgeoisie, peasants.
>
>Mostly correct. After some fiddling I've given up arriving at
a precise
>formulation of the necessary qualifications. Your further remarks
>distinguishing the mass of workers in a bureaucracy from the
ruling
>elemtn is wholly correct. I've argued with students in the past
about
>one aspect of this distinction: the "face" of the Administration
>(bureaucracy) are the clerks and secretaries and lower-level
"working
>supervisors," and hence just as Russian peasants looked to the
Czar to
>correct the local tyranny of minor officials or gentry, so students
>would look to the Deans etc. to correct the tyranny or obstructionism
>which they would blame on the grossly underpaid clerks they
dealt with.
>Same thing happens in the resentment people will quite naturally
feel
>(but misdirect) when they are dealing with the desk personnel
in an
>Emergency Room.
>
>[Digression: As to the last, when I was going through that series
of
>destructive headaches a few years ago, I finally wrote out on
a card
>answers to all the questions one had to answer at the front
desk. It is
>really enraging to have to give your social security number
or list the
>drugs one is allergic to while half dead from a migraine.]
>
>Carrol
>
>