In Goodsell’s “A Case for Bureaucracy” Goodsell makes several valid points about the argument for and against Bureaucracy. Before reading I too would have assumed bureaucracy is a waste of time and that most bureaucrats are just lazy, rude and tend to hate their job. But now I've realized that Bureaucracy does succeed. People, Americans, tend to expect bureaucrats to be able to do anything. Even when the tasks seems impossible they expect the problem to be solved immediately which ultimately sets the bureaucrats up for failure from the beginning.
The bureaucracy is a major base of power that can be difficult to control. Max Weber believed that bureaucracies shared certain characteristics: chain of command, division of labor, and impersonality. The chain of command is a form of organization characterized by a hierarchical structure of authority. In a military context, for example, the chain of command is the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed within a military unit and between different units. The division of labor is when work is divided among specialized workers in order to improve productivity.
The Federal Bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of government or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institutions. Essentially, Congress and the president create laws that are vague. The bureaucracy is responsible for figuring out how to implement these vague laws in our society through regulations, forms and rules. The Bureaucracy consists of 500 departments with roughly 2.6 million employees. Although, the bureaucracy is not actually a branch of government it does have influence over the decisions of the three branches government.
A bureaucracy that I am familiar with is the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State, specifically the Driver Services Department. Max Weber defined a bureaucracy as a formal organization with a hierarchy of authority and a clear division of labor that places emphasis on impersonality of positions and written rules, communications, and records. His characteristics of a bureaucracy applied to the Driver Services Department of the Illinois Secretary of State are shown below: A bureaucracy has separate levels, with assignments flowing downward and accountability flowing upward. The head of this organization is the Illinois Secretary of State, which is an elected official.
Using the ideas of Perrow and his defense of bureaucracy, the way some professors construct their courses for undergraduate students are examples of what bureaucracy is good for. Take AFAS-371 for example (Hip-Hop Cinema); this course has an integrated, centralized and mechanistic bureaucratic structure. AFAS-371 is an example for what bureaucracy is good for because there are uniform/well defined tasks and goals (limiting particularism), a small top-down centralized hierarchy allowing for easy communication between - Graders, Teaching Assistance and the Professor, and the rules/procedures are laid out in a clear and easy to learn manner which limits mistakes and slow decision making. Having 1,200 students in one course is no easy task to manage,
Bureaucracy is a hierarchical authority structure that is large and complex which I organization composes of appointed official’s. Each appointed officials has specialized asked to be accommodated for. A myth is that Americans dislike bureaucracy but it’s not true because Americans are generally pleased with bureaucrats. The myth that bureaucracies are growing bigger each year is half a myth and half-truth.
Paper Four “To be superfluous means not to belong to the world at all” – (pp 475) Arendt views large, superfluous masses of people as a necessary precursor for the transition from a totalitarian movement to a totalitarian rule. These masses, formed from the atomization of the class system in a society, serve several purposes which allow for successful totalitarian rule: they help to act as the popular lever by which a totalitarian movement may secure power, they carry out the rote functions of the totalitarian rule, and most critically, they are killed or imprisoned in droves as a means of demonstrating and employing the power of the totalitarian system. This final purpose, the continual destruction of random portions of the atomized masses,
Comparison of Marx and Weber for their approach about state and society: Max Weber is one of the philosophers able to explain economic systems such as capitalism. He was born in Germany in 1864 at that time there were a dramatic change in Germany in terms of industrial so there were a transitional German period and that influenced by those changes happened. Max Weber has a specific ideology about state and society. In constant, Karl Marx was a sociologist who were born in Germany in 1818, his idea and ideology about state and society are revolutionary. In addition, he was influenced by Communist party and he worked as a journalist he wrote a number of books and articles about capitalism, state, and society.
Sociologist Max Weber’s statement that bureaucracy is the distinctive mark of the modern era clearly describes a bureaucratic type of structure now intrinsic in public sector organizations. This type of structure which has been termed by theorist J. Donald Kingsley (1949) as a "Representative Bureaucracy", basically speaks of public workforces that are representative of the people in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender. In other words, a Representative Bureaucracy, is more or less "an assessment and reconstruction of public sector organizations for the sole purpose of ensuring that all groups in society are equally represented" (Duada, 1990). Thus, in relation to this definition and many other similar constructs, one can clearly see why that
Another difficulty faced with hours and labor was when a man named Frederick Taylor thought of the “Scientific Management Method” which stated that a manager should supervise each section of a job and time how long it would take for each part to be
In this essay I will compare and contrast Marx and Weber’s theories on social change and the rise of modern capitalism. Firstly I will provide a brief outline of Marx’s theories relating to social change and capitalism. I will then briefly outline Weber’s theories on social change and the rise of modern capitalism. Finally I will give my own critique of the theories outlining which one I prefer and the reasons for my choice.
The German sociologist Max Weber [3] described many ideal-typical forms of public administration, government, and business. Weber agreed that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized, and that thus is indispensable to the modern
This belief supported Weber’s view on human rights; Weber implied that there was a relationship between bureaucracies and rights. The features of Sjoberg’s theory of human rights included focusing on the bureaucracy and the role of human agency in relation to it. Unlike Weber, Sjoberg went further into the topic and includes the inequality that occurs with individuals higher up in the hierarchy. From Sjoberg and his colleagues’ studies it was proposed that individuals are capable
Knott and Miller present a number of dysfunctions that are present within bureaucracies. A few types of dysfunction are goal displacement, trained incapacity and dual systems of authority (Knott & Miller, 1987, p. 110-1). According to Knott and Miller, goal displacement occurs when a rigidity cycle starts to produce greater and greater emphasis is put on the rules, rather than the actual purpose of the organization as a whole (Knott & Miller, 1987, p. 110). In consequence, goal displacement means that employees replace a concern for organizational rules and procedures in the place of organizational goals. In turn, rules and procedures loose their effectiveness and constructive purpose (Knott & Miller, 1987, p. 110)
The term bureaucracy refers to a particular type and technique of administrative organization. In the 1930s Max Weber, a German sociologist and political economist; he wanted to find out why people in organizations obeyed those in authority above them. He wrote a validation that described the bureaucratic form as being the ultimate way of organizing government agencies. Weber’s study of business was centered on understanding the need for stability and consistency in achieving competence.
