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)