Max Weber - Seminar Paper

The German Empire was one of the first modern Bureaucratic States. The Empire was incredibly powerful, consisting of 27 constituent territories that were mostly ruled by royal families. Bismarck, a German statesman unified these German states under Prussian Leadership which created this powerful Empire. In practise the Empire was ruled and dominated by the largest state, Prussia. At the heart of the State, the Prussian army was highly trained, equipped and extremely Bureaucatic.

A Bureacracy is an organisation of non-elected officials of a government who implement the rules, laws and functions of their institutions. Burea, originally dervied from the french meaning desk implements the meaning to rule from a desk or office.
Max Weber, a German sociologist and political economist attacked the pretensions of the Prussian Bureacracy emphasising that every bureaucracy has interests of its own with connections to other social groups, especially those amongst the upper class. In practise, there must be someone at the top of the Bureacracy who must provide direction and back up other bureaucrats with force.

Weber listed several preconditions for the emergence of the bureaucracy. He believed that the growth in space and population being administered, the growth in complexity of administrative tasks being carried out as well as the existence of a monetary economy resulted in a need for a more efficient system. Developments of communication and transportation technologies made more efficient administration possible as well as the democratization, the transition to a more democratic political regime and the rationalization of culture resulted that the new system treated everybody equally.

Weber had an “ideal” type for Bureacracy. This was characterised by a hierarchial organisation and divison of labour with delineated lines of authority in a fixed area of activity. People were directed by rules impersonally applied by neutral officials and they were staffed by full time professionals who lived off of a salary. All these features are found in public services, offices of private firms as well as universities etc.
In modern day times, bureaucrats are full time professionals whom are paid a high salary. “Credentialism” a term of which Weber deemed, a preoccupation with formal educational qualifications, which is evident in modern societies. To ensure efficient functioning of the organisation there was an “ideal type” of bureaucrat. These ideal types were invaluable to Bureaucracies who wanted security that people would stay in their jobs full time to ensure efficiency, hence a higher salary.

It is noted that domination equals authority plus legitimacy. This equation led to Weber narrowing down bureaucracy’s into three types: rational, traditional and charismatic. The charismatic bureaucracy works because there is a personal devotion to the leader due to their charisma and personality. They make people believe in them. Traditional works because it’s always been and no one thinks to disobey it. They have authority because traditional society says so. Rational works because it’s the rule of law, it takes place in a society that obeys the law because they recognise the moral codes. We are led by administration and bureaucracy.

Weber believed that there was no absolute knowledge. You cannot physically know everything however you can be honest and have a reasonable belief about things.
Weber however believed in rationalisation and the question of individual freedom in an increasingly rational society. This theme of Webers work was situated in the larger context of the relationship between psychological motivations, cultural values and beliefs as well as the structure of the society, usually determined by the economy. Weber was more focused on individuals and culture and this is clear in his methodology. He was concerned with the question of objectivity and subjectivity. Weber distinguished social action from social behaviour, noting that social action must be understood through how individuals subjectively relate to one another. Weber's methodology emphasises the use of comparative historical analysis. Therefore, Weber was more interested in explaining how a certain outcome was the result of various historical processes rather than predicting an outcome of those processes in the future.
Weber distinguishes the goal-rational from the value-rational. Goal-rational meaning that you will use whatever means of conduct to best ensure your ends. The ends will always justify your means. Weber also mentions formal and substantive rationality, society is formal when things are done so people will acchieve their goals.

There are four fundamental types of social action; instrumental rational action, value rational action, affectual emotional action and traditional action.
Instrumental rational action is performed because of social status and security factors, value ration action is done because it is the right thing to do, where as affectual emotional action is carried out because there is an emotional reason behind it and lastly, traditional action is done because it is what should be seen to be done in society. You are doing it “just because”.

As the most efficient and rational way of organizing, bureaucratization for Weber was the key part of the rational-legal authority, and furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the ongoing rationalization of the Western society.