tion in all aspects of social life. Institutions as diverse as churches, legal systems
and symphony orchestras were becoming bureaucratized, as well as govern-
ment departments and large-scale industrial concerns. Believing bureaucratic
institutions to be uniquely efficient, Weber expected this pattern of organiza-
tion to become supreme; and because he thoughtsocialism, with its planned
economy, to be essentially bureaucratic, he expected a form of what we would
now callstate capitalismto become dominant throughout the developed
world.
Since Weber’s day it has become increasingly clear that this ‘ideal’ type of
bureaucracy seldom exists and is not necessarily more efficient than others
when it does. However, Weber’s is still the best characterization of how large-
scale institutions operate much of the time. The idea that the spread of
bureaucracy, leading to abureaucratic state, will produce essentially similar
societies regardless of whether they are officially capitalist or communist has
been developed by later writers, sometimes as theconvergence thesis,
sometimes as a version of class theory (seenew class). Some of the implica-
tions of this theory, particularly as it affects social mobility, have been tested
empirically and found to be approximately valid.
The pejorative sense of ‘bureaucracy’, describing institutions as full of small-
minded time-servers, indifferent to the public and incapable of initiative, was
largely ignored by the original theorists of bureaucracy, and indeed refers only
to a corrupt manifestation of a useful general principle for organization of
efficient goal-oriented human interaction. (See alsocivil service.)
Bureaucratic State
MaxWeberand many later social theorists argued that political systems would
become increasingly similar as they all underwent a process of increasing
‘bureaucratization’. According to this theory the especial suitability of bureau-
cratic forms of administration for running complex and large-scale organiza-
tions would make the development of a bureaucratic state essential, regardless
of official ideologies. One theory derived from Weber, theconvergence
thesis, claimed that even such apparently opposed systems as the USA and the
Soviet Union were growing increasingly alike as bureaucracy took over.
Political changes in the 1980s undermined this theory. Not only did the
communist economies collapse from inefficiency, to be replaced by attempts at
free-market capitalism, but liberal, conservative and even social democrat
governments throughout the West set out to ‘deregulate’their own economies,
reducing the role of thestateconsiderably. At the same time, however, the
accompanying desire to ensure accountability in public enterprises such as
education has led to an increase in bureaucratic monitoring.
Bureaucratic State