CB:>Isn't "bureaucracy" a Weberian and not Marxist concept ? ... <
The issue is not whether it's a "Marxist" concept in the sense of whether Marx talked about it as much as whether it fits with Marx's materialist conception of history. But see, for example, Hal Draper's book KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (several volumes, Monthly Review Press), especially volume I. Marx talked a lot about bureaucracy. For example, in CAPITAL, he talks about how bureaucrats (hired managers) were doing more and more of the work that capitalists took credit for doing. BTW, Marx was quite familiar with a quasi-Weberian view of the state bureaucracy, that of Hegel. Weber & Marx have different theories of bureaucracy. Weber was pro-bureaucracy, seeing hierarchies of this sort as an efficient and "rational" way of attaining goals. (My late friend Al Szymanski (sp.?) once embraced this view, arguing for his version of "Leninism" by saying that a top-down (bureaucratic) organization was the most efficient way to organize a revolution. If corporations use hierarchy, why can't we?) Draper quotes Marx again and again as being anti-bureaucracy (and in favor of democracy, as with the Paris Commune) or at least as having a more realistic vision of bureaucracy than Weber. >...When a "giant bureaucracy" is mentioned, I get this picture of an enormous collection of people sitting at desks in office buildings. HOWEVER, it is not this bureau-proletariat of secretaries, clerks, mailboys, receptionists, beancounters, etc. that is the "cratic", the power in either Russia or the New Deal, or any government. This mass of deskclerks is not the cause of "redtape" or anti-democratic rule from above, as if they took a vote among the vast bureaucracy to exercise its power on major questions before whatever institution with whatever bureaucracy. "Bureaucracy" is a very misleading concept that is rife in liberal political analysis.< The thing about bureaucracy is that the power of any individual rises as you go up the hierarchy (though that power is hardly absolute, since people down below can often block the effectiveness of the organization --that's one of the things that "red tape" is about). The difference between the top bureaucrats and the petty bureaucrats is a little like the difference between the grand and petty bourgeoisie. (Unlike Weber, I see a bureaucracy as involving a lot of competition.) Usually these days, however, the bureaucracy is only a means to an end: the corporate owners use it to try to attain maximum profits by organizing production, marketing, etc. The state bureaucracy is similarly a tool of the state elite, which under capitalism by and large serves the preservation of the system. Getting beyond capitalism, there are lots of cases where the bureaucracy could be seen as a ruling class of some sort. The Pharoah couldn't rule ancient Egypt without relying on the bureaucracy, so the latter got a lot of the power. In pre-modern China, the bureaucracy was clearly a powerful and self-perpetuating stratum, bringing in only those who could pass the calligraphy test (and the like) to run the show. In pre-revolutionary (and in many ways, pre-capitalist) Russia, the upper bureaucrats had noble titles and quite a bit of power, often combining "feudal" power with a piece of state power. Under the Soviet system, the ruling stratum was bureaucratic: the leadership of the Communist Party ruled their party in a top-down way, while that Party held a monopoly of political power. (State force was mobilized to suppress or buy off any opposition.) That is, the Party "owned" the state, which in turn officially owned the means of production and controlled the economy (to the extent that the planning process worked), i.e., they had more control than anyone else did over the process of the production and utilization of surplus-labor and the accumulation of fixed means of production. >Perhaps the kernel of truth in this demogogy is the hierarchy in "bureaucracy" . In other words, the bosses of the bureausitters, the "cracy' of the bureaucsitters not the bureausitters en masse. It's the SMALLNESS of the bureacracy at the top that is the problem. We want a big bureaucracy, in the sense of masses people having the power and control over society and their lives.< Yes, it's the top-down nature of the rule -- hierarchy as opposed to democracy -- that's the problem. If bureaucracy were to be held democratically responsible at each level and stage, the bureaucracy can be more an means to an end, one determined democratically. Thus the problem with bureaucracy is ultimately that of forcing it to be subordinate to democracy. Jim Devine
