Organization and Bureaucracy

Nicos P Mouzelis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136253782
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1998. This is Volume VIII of the eighteen in the Sociology of Work and Organization series and offers an analysis of modern theories in relation to organisation and bureaucracy. The present study tries to provide some guidance which may help students to orient themselves with greater ease in the labyrinth of organisational writings. More specifically, it tries to identify and examine critically some of the major approaches to the study of organisations, and the ways in which such approaches are linked with each other.

Part One

THE STUDY OF BUREAUCRACY

Chapter One

THE CLASSICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF BUREAUCRACY

Despite the variety of sources from which the classical writings on bureaucracy have sprung, it is possible to identify in all of them a common and recurrent preoccupation around which one can organise all the early literature on the subject: this was to enquire into the impact of the growth of large-scale organisations on the power-structure of society. In what ways does ‘big’ government or ‘big’ business influence the political institutions of modern society? Or, on the level of the individual, in what ways are such developments going to affect man's chances for a free and meaningful existence? In a cruder way, the problem is to find out whether bureaucracy, despite its dimensions, is still an administrative apparatus for the implementation of social goals or whether it has lost its instrumental character; whether from a tool in the hands of the legitimate policy-making body, it has become itself the master dictating the general goals to be pursued.

As the problem is formulated, it becomes evident that one can hardly find any student of society who has not dealt directly or indirectly with this subject. Thus, necessarily, the following analysis will be limited in two ways: firstly, we will try to discuss only the theories which deal systematically with bureaucracy or which are crucial for the understanding of the problems and discussions which surround it. Secondly, the main focus in these writings will be on points which are crucial for understanding the basic assumptions and the problematics of the classical approach. From this perspective three major contributions seem to constitute the key elements in the development of the classical literature of bureaucracy: the Marxist, the Weberian and that of Robert Michels.

1. THE MARXIST POSITION

A. Marx

Although the concept of bureaucracy does not occupy the central position in Marx's thought, his views on bureaucracy and its relation to the power-structure of society is of crucial importance for an understanding of the early controversies about this problem. Indeed the Marxist position constitutes a frame of reference for such students of bureaucracy as Weber and Michels who, although amongst the most prominent critics of Marx, were very much influenced by his thought. Marx studies the phenomenon of bureaucracy and uses this concept in the limited context of the state administration. His ideas on bureaucracy can only be understood in the general framework of his theory of class conflict, the crisis of capitalism and the advent of communism.

Marx elaborates his concepts of bureaucracy by studying and criticising Hegel's philosophy of the state.¹ The Hegelian analysis conceives public administration as a bridge between the state and the civil society. The civil society comprises the professions, the corporations which represent the various particular interests, the state representing the general interest. Between the two, the state bureaucracy is the medium through which this passage from the particular to the general interest becomes possible.

The Marxist analysis accepts this tripartite structure but it radically changes its content. According to Marx this formal and legalist notion of bureaucracy does not represent its true nature; it is simply the false image that the bureaucracy has of itself, an image which derives from law books and administrative regulations. Hegel's bureaucracy takes its meaning from the opposition between the particular interests of the corporations and the common interest of the state. According to Marx, this opposition is meaningless, as the state does not represent the general interest but the particular interests of the dominant class, itself a part of the civil society. From this viewpoint, bureaucracy constitutes a very specific and particular social group. It is not a social class, although its existence is linked with the division of society into classes. More precisely, bureaucracy, as the state itself, is an instrument by which the dominant class exercises its domination over the other social classes.

In this way, to a certain degree, the future and the interests of bureaucracy are closely linked to those of the dominant class and the state. Its justification and existence depends on them. In capitalist society, its real task is to impose on the whole of society an order of things which consolidates and perpetuates class division and domination. At the same time, its other task is to mask this domination by interposing itself as the general interest smoke screen between exploiters and exploited.² But on the other hand, as bureaucracy is not an integral part of the capitalist class, it has a certain autonomy which makes conflict with its masters possible. This conflict cannot go beyond certain limits, which are always determined by the existing forces and relations of production.

Briefly, from the above, it follows that bureaucracy does not occupy an organic position in the social structure, as it is not directly linked with the process of production. Its existence and development has a transient and parasitic character. Its main task is to maintain the status quo and the privileges of its masters. From this point of view bureaucracy and further bureaucratisation become unavoidable and indispensable in a society divided into classes. Indeed the political system of such a society increasingly requires further and stricter control for the maintenance of the divisions and inequalities among its various groups.³ This basic position of Marx had a great influence on his disciples as well as on his critics.

Once the problem of bureaucracy is placed in the wider context of the class struggle, we must examine how Marx analyses and explains its main features in terms of the preceding general analysis. In the first place bureaucracy is one specific instance of the general process of alienation. The concept of alienation has a central place in Marxist thought. It is by this process that social forces escape from the control of man, attain an independent existence and finally turn against man, their creator. This philosophic notion of alienation applies admirably in the case of bureaucracy. Indeed, according to Marx, bureaucracy becomes an autonomous and oppressive force which is felt by the majority of the people as a mysterious and distant entity – as something which, although regulating their lives, is beyond their control and comprehension, a sort of divinity in the face of which one feels helpless and bewildered. And, of course, this attitude is reinforced by the bureaucrat's creation of special myths and symbols which sanctify and mystify further his position. It is in this way that bureaucracy becomes a closed world. A sort of caste jealously guards its secrets and prerogatives, presenting to the outside world a united front of silence and hostility.

But the alienation is not only limited to the relation between bureaucrats and outsiders. It is to be found within the bureaucracy itself. Bureaucracy does not only hide its true nature to the non-bureaucrats, it hides it from itself. More often the bureaucrat is not aware of the parasitic and oppressive nature of his job. He thinks of his job as indispensable for the general interest.⁴ This self-illusion is consolidated inside the bureaucracy by the strict hierarchy and discipline and the bureaucrat's veneration of authority (another form of alienation).

Incompetence is the other major feature of bureaucracy. Marx has stressed the bureaucrat's lack of initiative and imagination, his fear of taking any kind of responsibility. And this incompetence does not intimidate the bureaucrats who think of themselves as capable of doing everything. Indeed they try continually to extend their functions of domination in order to consolidate their position and their prerogatives. By this bureaucratic imperialism, the bureaucrat tries to persuade himself that he has a useful and salutary function to perform. Moreover, this process of self-aggrandisement is accompanied by what Marx calls the ‘sordid materialism’ of bureaucracy: the internal struggle for promotion, careerism, the infantile attachment to trivial symbols, status and prestige.⁵

Bureaucracy is the instrument of the capitalist class. Thus, with the proletarian revolution and the advent of a classless society the state and its bureaucracy will wither away. Indeed, according to Marx, in a communist society where no exploitation and social divisions exist bureaucracy becomes redundant. This ‘withering away’ must be conceived as the gradual absorption of bureaucracy into the society as a whole. Thus instead of having an oppressive structure which is separated from and antagonistic to the rest of society, in the communist state those functions of bureaucracy which are not parasitic will be performed by all social members. The administrative tasks, losing their exploitative character, will consist of the administration of things and not of people, as was the case with bureaucracy.

This radical transformation of the administrative tasks must be seen in conjunction with Marx's general conception of the Communist society, a society in which the division of labour no longer exists and where every man will be free ‘to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening …, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic’.⁶ Thus the end of the division of labour marks the end of alienation and the beginning of an era of individual freedom. It is only in such a society that a really democratic administration can exist. The administrative tasks, simplified and demystified, will be the concern of everybody. There will be no more monopoly of the administrative positions. The worker, citizen of a true democracy, will be at the same time elected and elector, administered and administrator. It is only by this kind of ‘auto-administration’ that the ‘public’ authority returns finally to its true basis and the state ‘withers away’.⁷

B. Lenin

As far as the analysis of bureaucracy is concerned, Lenin follows faithfully the basic position of Marx, elaborating it further in certain respects. For example, going into more detail, Lenin believes that the gradual decline of the bureaucratic apparatus must begin as soon as the dictatorship of the proletariat is established. The struggle against bureaucracy should be one of the first tasks of the revolution.⁸ In his State and Revolution, he shows by what concrete steps this could be realised. These are as follows:

(a) the eligibility and instant revocability of every civil servant

(b) the official's salary reduced to the level of ordinary workmen's wages

(c) the creation of a state of things in which the ‘functionsof control and accounting – becoming more and more simple – will be performed by each in turn’.⁹

Lenin's writings about bureaucracy become more interesting after the Revolution of 1917, as from this time on he is obliged to accommodate his master's theory with a bureaucratic reality which does not fit very well into the Marxist scheme. Lenin realises very quickly that the post-revolutionary bureaucratic apparatus not only did not show any sign of decline, but on the contrary, was expanding at a rapid rate.¹⁰ How can a Marxist explain this phenomenon? Lenin explains it as a sign of the ‘immaturity of socialism’. The civil war and the ensuing chaotic state of the economy partially account for it. Moreover such factors as the non-socialist relations of production between the workers and the peasants, the still existing small bourgeois and the tsarist bureaucrat with his feudal mentality, constitute a fertile soil for the further strengthening of bureaucracy. But, according to Lenin, the cure for this bureaucratisation will come automatically when economic development is achieved. In the long term, it is increasing industrialisation which will constitute the objective basis for a final victory over bureaucracy.¹¹

C. Trotsky

As Trotsky wrote about bureaucracy at a moment when the process of bureaucratisation had reached its peak (with Stalin as dictator), the reconciliation between theory and reality takes a somewhat different form.¹²

According to Trotsky, the increasingly oppressive character of the Soviet bureaucracy and its gradual formation into a closed privileged group, cannot be explained merely by the immaturity of socialism and the inadequate development of the forces of production. The roots of the bureaucratic evil are deeper. They are to be found in the first years after the Revolution. Trotsky believed that socialism in one country, especially in a predominantly agricultural one, is not possible. This is because the substructure of such a country, its weak industrialisation, excludes the development of a political superstructure of the socialist type. This does not mean that the Russian Revolution was premature. It simply means that it had to be continued in other countries, especially the industrialised ones. In this way the Russian Revolution should have been immediately transformed into a world-wide proletarian revolution.¹³

This theory of the ‘permanent revolution’ was ignored by Lenin as early as 1917 at Brest-Litovsk. According to Trotsky, ‘Brest-Litovsk has been the first retreat of the victorious Revolution’. The economic difficulties which followed, the introduction of the new economic policy and all the internal contradictions of the system have their source in the erroneous belief that one can build up socialism in one country. So, under such conditions, it is not suprising that bureaucracy, instead of withering away, fortifies itself. If the danger of counterrevolution has disappeared, the effort to impose a juridical and political régime on an inadequate material basis necessitates a tremendous oppressive force. The party bureaucracy has undertaken this task of oppression.

Indeed Trotsky saw clearly that the problem of bureaucratisation did not only have a quantitative aspect. There was something more than a simple increase in the dimensions of hierarchical administrative structures. There was a qualitative change, as the party bureaucracy began to detach itself from its proletarian basis. If, under Lenin, bureaucracy still kept its character of instrument at the service of the people, with the advent of Stalin this was not any more the case : the distinction between...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK AND ORGANIZATION
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART ONE: THE STUDY OF BUREAUCRACY
• PART TWO: THE MANAGERIAL TRADITION
• PART THREE: CONVERGING TRENDS
• CONCLUSION
• Index