Is a Rational Socio-Economic System Possible?

Abstract

In 1922, Max Weber claimed bureaucracy to be, according to all experience, the most rational form of domination for both the master and those mastered. Weber considered that the “bureaucratization” or the “dilettantization” of management were the only alternatives. Bureaucracy’s overwhelming superiority originated in professional competence, which was made indispensable by the modern technology applied in the production of goods and by the economy as a whole, irrespective of whether the economy was organized in the capitalist or socialist manner. This latter economic organization, Weber continued, implied a large increase in professional bureaucracy if it should aspire to the same technical performance.