About the Book
Public Life and Late Capitalism
Paperback: 348 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (1984)
Languages: English
ISBN-10: 0521255430
ISBN-13: 978-0521255431
Excerpt from Chapter 2: The Legacy of Max Weber, pp. 30-69
Bureaucracy: the organizing principle of modern life
To speak about bureaucracy, as many nowadays love to do, is to engage the
central concern of Max Weber. Preoccupied with understanding the distinctively
individual or unique character of the present historical phase,l Weber was convinced
that modern bourgeois reality is marked by an unprecedented “passion
for bureaucracy.” In no previous country or historical period has existence come
to be so absolutely confined within calculating, rationalized forms of organization.
Their scope and influence tend to become universal. Everywhere houses
of bureaucratic serfdom are being constructed and finished; the advance of
bureaucracy seems irreversible. Click here to continue reading (PDF)
Read Cass R. Sunstein’s Review of John Keane, Public Life and Late Capitalism, 96 Ethics (1986): download pdf file here
Read the review of Public Life and Late Capitalism and After Full Employement, by Kevin McDonald, Thesis Eleven, Vol. 26, No. 1, 167-172 (1990) – click here
