RE: RE: RE: Bureaucracy

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Vikash writes:>Weber was not "pro-bureaucracy" as Jim states.  This is a
poor
> reading of Weber.  After all, Weber is the man who cites Goethe at the
> end of the Iron Cage passage in Protestant Ethic to the effect,
> "Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity
> imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before
> achieved."  Was Weber impressed by bureaucratic and hierocratic forms
> of social organization?  Yes.  Was Weber "pro-bureaucracy"?  Hardly -
> he was horrified by all forms of social (and economic) organization
> that were dehumanizing.<

you are accurate. I was writing in short-hand. However, would you agree that
Weber saw bureaucracy as inevitable (along the later-developed "iron law of
oligarchy")?

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vikash Yadav [mailto:vikash1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 10:21 PM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:24642] RE: RE: Bureaucracy
>
>
> 1. Why is Weber constantly contrasted to Marx?  The whole discussion
> of bureaucracy in Weber is an extension of Marx to the degree that the
> evolution of bureaucracy reflects a gradual transfer of the "means of
> administration" from the individual to the state.  Much of Weber's
> writing should be seen as a response and an extension of the
> reductionist aspects of Marx.
>
> 2. Weber was not "pro-bureaucracy" as Jim states.  This is a poor
> reading of Weber.  After all, Weber is the man who cites Goethe at the
> end of the Iron Cage passage in Protestant Ethic to the effect,
> "Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity
> imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before
> achieved."  Was Weber impressed by bureaucratic and hierocratic forms
> of social organization?  Yes.  Was Weber "pro-bureaucracy"?  Hardly -
> he was horrified by all forms of social (and economic) organization
> that were dehumanizing.
>
> Vikash Yadav
>