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August 18, 2022

The early bureaucratic state

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It has been well over a hundred years since German social theorist Max Weber (1864–1920) coined the term “bureaucracy,” delineating at length its characteristics and discussing its benefits and shortcomings.  Thereafter, students of social theory, organization theory, and management, among others, have read in part his influential works, and practitioners have been wise in understanding just how bureaucracies run.

The six major characteristics of bureaucracy are 1) task specialization, 2) formal selection and training of personnel, 3) impersonal approach to the work at hand, 4) hierarchical system of authority, 5) many rules and regulations “on the books” that must be followed, and 6) career advancement and ambition.

While references to “the bureaucracy” and “the bureaucrats” are generally pejorative, there are impressive feats that bureaucracies can accomplish, such as building public works, running school systems, training a readied army, or creating a devotion to a religion.  Such entities, at times, get high marks for efficiency and effectiveness metrics in accomplishing organizational goals.

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Modern social theorist James Q. Wilson (1931–2012) continued to study bureaucracies.  Like earlier thinkers, he found that bureaucracies are remarkable in accomplishing major social goods but wanting in their responsiveness to acute needs of the people.  Wilson, in his tome Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It, focused on government bureaucracies.  Much has been written about “the rise of the bureaucratic state” and the rise of big government at all levels in the U.S.  The Founders, and certainly the Anti-Federalists, wanted assurance that the Executive Branch, through the morass of its unelected operatives, would not be telling us how to live our lives.

We are our brother’s keeper

The Founders of our country clearly wanted government to be limited.  They would be disappointed to learn how massive government has grown at all levels.  One reason for wanting less government is that part of our American ideology is we generally believe “we are our brother’s keeper.”  While shifting over the years, the conventional thought was that we don’t expect government to be at our beck and call.  We were founded in a spirit of community, with shared values and a penchant to help others.  Aside from our well known principles of liberty, equality, and democracy, we are a fraternal people.

This sense of fraternity is operationalized through our many nonprofit organizations, whose health, welfare, and charitable works complement what government can do.  This aspect of the American character was apparent to Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French visitor to America, who wrote in Democracy in America that “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations. … Wherever, at the head of some new undertaking, you see the Government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.”  Generally, regardless of one’s political party affiliation, Americans welcome nonprofit organizations that can do good work, relieve government of the burden of such work, and reduce the need for the public to fund this work via taxes.

Enduring problems need policy responses that work

Poverty is not a new problem for government and organizations to ameliorate.  Jesus Christ spoke about the poor, and Charles Dickens used this population as a basis for many bestsellers.  Marvin Olasky, a prolific author of books on socio-economic and political policy, in his seminal work on welfare and social policy, The Tragedy of American Compassion (1996), quotes Charles Chauncey in 1752, who said a clear distinction must be made “between those needy people who are able and those who are unable, to employ themselves in Labour.”  It was based upon a theological view that stressed man’s sinfulness.  Olasky continued by stating that “enforcing work among the able-bodied was not seen as oppressive.  The objective was to treat all human beings as members of the community with responsibilities, rather than as animals.  There was an expectation the poor should be educated to believe they had a responsibility to society more than the reverse.”