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Week 3: Weber: the Bureaucratization of Early Years Education

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Last updated 15.02.11.

Max Weber (1864-1920):

· German theorist who argued for a ‘scientific’ approach to the research of social situations in order to uncover the importance of the relationship between material conditions, meaning and consciousness in understanding social action.

· Interested in historical development of western societies and the rise of the modern political state: looking at its economic, political, legal and religious facets

· Research focus was on the complex interrelationships between modern economic development and individual behaviour, with an emphasis on the significance of cultural and political factors in this relationship.

· Wanted to understand how monopolies over resources such as wealth, spirituality and violence were constituted – as the development of rationalization.

· Often represented as one of the founders of modern sociology and/or a representative of ‘classical’ sociology.

Marx and Weber

Influenced by German theorists of social thought/action and Marxist economics, Weber's views have some obvious similarities to Marx's notion of alienation:

· Both agree that modern methods of organisation have tremendously increased the effectiveness and efficiency of production.

· Both agree that this has allowed an unprecedented domination of man over the world of nature.

· Both agree that the new world of rationalised efficiency threatens to turn into a monster and dehumanise its creators

Weber believed that Marxist theory was too simplistic because it reduced all society’s problems to an economic cause. He rejected Marx’s assertion that the mode of production is responsible exclusively for the worker’s alienation and stated that other, non-economic factors needed to be taken into account to understand modern western societies. Marx’s alienation of the worker from the means of production becomes for Weber an instance of a more general trend – bureaucratisation means the separation of the soldier from the means of violence, the teacher from the means of learning. Weber proposes instead that rationalisation as enacted in bureaucratic processes are the real alienating force.

Whereas for Marx, the operation of capitalism is irrational because so riven by contradictions, between productive forces and conditions of production, between growth and the falling rate of profit, for Weber, the institutions of capitalism are the embodiment of instrumental rationality. The promotion of rational efficiency and precision goes along with the rational management of state or privately run institutions wherein specialized bureaucratic functions take centre stage.

Although Weber recognises class divisions as structural and orientated to economic relations, his is a ‘subjective’ theory of class which is not deterministic about the relation of economic position to subjective attitudes. He makes a distinction between class and status and differentiates between types of classes and types of status groups in order to explain complex social stratifications.

Rationalisation

· Principle of development inherent in the process of civilisation and western society, and rational containment of everyday modern life.

· Refers to the widespread use of technical and procedural reasoning as a way of controlling practical outcomes and mastering everyday life.

· Process by which nature, society and individual action are increasingly mastered by an orientation to planning, technical procedure and rational action.

Capitalism and instrumental rationality destroyed the natural rhythms of pre-modern means of production and consumption in the traditional household and, with it, introduced the mechanical regulation of bureaucracy. In such a world, meaning can no longer find authority: rationalized authority is incompatible with charismatic powers (see below).

Weber develops an analysis of the “fateful connection between industrialisation, capitalism, and national self-preservation” (Marcuse, 1988, p.201). “Whatever capitalism may do to man, it must, for Weber, first and before all evaluation, be understood as necessary reason.” (ibid., p.202)

“[The] specifically Western idea of reason realizes itself in a system of material and intellectual culture (economy, technology, “conduct of life”, Science, art) that develops to the full in industrial capitalism, and this system tends towards a specific type of domination which becomes the fate of the contemporary period: total bureaucracy.” (Marcuse, 1988, p.203)

The three phases of the development of reason into bureaucracy:

1) The progressive mathematization of knowledge and experience, starting with the natural sciences and developing to include many aspects of life – it’s universal quantification; alongside this, the eradication of pre-modern ‘magical’ thinking’;

2) The development of the need for rational proofs in science and in everyday life;

3) As a result of this organisation of knowledge and experience, and of the need for proofs, the establishment of a technically educated and organized officialdom – including (bureau-professional) teachers. This marks the transition from theoretical to practical reason – the historical form of reason. (Marcuse, 1988, p. 204)

Capitalist industrialization is for Weber an inescapable matter of power politics – only the development of mass industrialization can guarantee the success of the nation in a climate of ever more fierce international competition. Historical reason requires rule by that class of society which is capable of carrying it through and effecting the development of the nation state – the bourgeoisie.

When analysing the historical form of rationality realised as industrialization and bureaucracy, Weber divides rationality into

· formal rationality (Zweckrationalität or ‘purposeful rationality’ or ‘subjective rationality’) – in this case humans only enter into equations insofar as they represent variables in the calculations of gain and profit;

· material rationality (Wertrationalität or ‘value rationality’ or ‘objective rationality’) – the economic maintenance of humans is considered in such a way as to take in value judgements.

“[F]ormal rationality does not go beyond its own structure and has nothing but its own system as the norm of its calculations and calculating actions” (Marcuse, 1988, p.214) and is thus dependant upon something other than itself for its development (see below). The apparatuses of capitalism and bureaucracy are in fact instruments of a force outside of themselves.

The point at which rationality ends is called by Weber, charisma. This is a kind of personal domination, carrying a semi-religious reverence. “What begins as the charisma of the single individual and his personal following ends in domination by a bureaucratic apparatus that has acquired rights and functions and in which the charismatically dominated individuals become regular, tax-paying, dutiful “subjects”.” (Marcuse, 1988, p.218)

Subjugation to the bureaucratic order is established because it puts at the individual’s “calculable disposal the world of goods and performances of which the single individual no longer has an overview of a comprehension.” (Marcuse, 1988, p.220) The inability of the individual to understand or grasp the means of production of the society results in their subjection to its calculating managers. “The formal rationality of capitalism celebrates its triumph in… computers, which calculate everything, no matter what the purpose, and which are put to use as mighty instruments of political manipulation.” (ibid., p.225)

Weber’s two forms of rationality – Zweckrationalität (‘purposeful-rationality’) and Wertrationalität (‘value-rationality’) – are contrasted with irrationality. Morality and rationality are also thereby separated. In assessing rational actions, one takes morality as given. Rationality cannot be employed to assess competing ethical standards. “it follows that what is ‘worth’ knowing cannot itself be determined rationally, but must rest upon values which specify why certain phenomena are ‘of interest’.” (Giddens, 1972, p.42) This puts moral questions about schooling and education beyond the realm of the bureaucrat, yet it is within the bureau that the instrumental decisions are made which enact the values of those in power.

Weber’s theoretical analysis of social action can be classified in four ways or ‘types’, the first two are essentially irrational, the latter reflect the two types of rationality, the value based rationality, and instrumental rationality:

1. traditional action: this is habitual or routine action that isn’t subjected to rational analysis. The actor has no explicitly considered/stated goal because action is informed by an orientation to a fixed body of traditional beliefs, where ends and means are fixed by custom, e.g. attending university because it was always assumed that you would.

2. affectual action: this is action that is motivated by sentiment rather than reason, not orientated to a specific end, but is a reflection of the emotional state of the actor, e.g. attending a particular university because your friend will be there.

3. wertrational action (value-based) The use of rational means to achieve a goal that is value-based. The purpose of the action is the realisation of that value. As valued ends are paramount, this can be viewed as irrational behaviour if the ends are pursued without calculation of the ‘possible costs’, e.g. attending university to engage in the self-development that higher education offers, regardless of the official ‘outcome’.

4. zweckrational action (instrumental action): systematic rational orientation to activity. The use of rational means to attain rational goals: the actor means of action exclusively in terms of their rational efficiency, e.g. attending university to gain a degree that will improve your employment chances.

These classifications of social action to support Weber’s study of the ways in which (and reasons why) modern society differs from societies of the past. He proposes that the distinguishing feature of modern society is a concern with ‘efficiency’ that dominates social behaviour. Consequently zweckrational action (goal-oriented or instrumental rationality) is promoted over and above tradition, values or emotionally motivated actions.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

The growth of rationality depends upon forces which are not themselves rational – it is charisma, the specifically irrational force, which drove the revolutionary movements in history and provides the source of the new forms of rationalisation. The protestant ethic was not the cause of modern capitalism, but provided the impetus for the pursuit of monetary gain which allowed for the growth of rationalising activity. Once established, the spread of capitalism no longer needed a religious ethic and instead transformed most forms of social conduct into the zweckrational type.

Weber defines capitalism as:

‘… rest[ing] on the expectation of profit by the utilisation of opportunities for exchange […] This means that the action is adapted to a systematic utilisation of goods or personal services as a means of acquisition in such a way that, at the close of a business period, the balance of the enterprise in money assets exceeds the capital.’ (Weber, 1905; pp. 17-8)

This process occurs on a small scale in each transaction, and such activity is apparent in most cultures and has existed for thousands of years. However, Weber’s central thesis is that, in the West:

‘… in modern times [there is] a very different form of capitalism which has appeared nowhere else: the rational capitalistic organisation of (formally) free labour.’ (Weber, 1930;. p. 21)

This refers to the capitalism of large-scale industry that we are familiar with in the West, where many workers sell their labour for the profit of a few owners of the mode of production. The feature of this argument which distinguishes it from Marx’s work is Weber’s emphasis upon how the mode of production is conducted so that profit can be maximised, which focuses in detail on the role of rational action and bureaucracy to achieve this goal.

‘… modern rational capitalism has need, not only of the technical means of production, but of a calculable legal system and of administration in terms of formal rules [which reflect] the specific and peculiar rationalism of Western culture. […] For though the development of economic rationalism is partly dependent on rational technique and law, it is at the same time determined by the ability and disposition of men to adopt certain types of practical rational conduct.’ (Weber, 1930; pp. 25-6)

The Spirit of Capitalism

Here Weber is referring to the specific cultural context that he believes allowed (encouraged) western capitalism to flourish. The distinctiveness of the spirit of capitalism is that:

· it developed only in modern western societies and is lacking in other societies where capitalism has existed

· the presence of a religious/ethical doctrine within its economic activity

Weber states that:

‘… the earning of more and more money […] is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears almost entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life.’ (Weber, 1930; p. 53)

He also asserts that there is a common assumption that the individual has a duty to contribute to, and to perpetuate this worldview:

‘Truly what is here preached is not simply a means of making one’s way in the world, but a peculiar ethic. The infraction of its rules is treated not as foolishness but as forgetfulness of duty.’ (Weber, 1930; p. 51)

The use of the word ‘preach’ here is not frivolous – it reflects Weber belief that Protestantism is responsible for promoting the work ethic that generated, and continues to perpetuate, western capitalism. He believes the involvement in capitalism becomes not a human choice, but a divinely inspired duty.

Weber’s interpretation of the purpose of capitalist enterprise reflects the ethical foundations of the Protestant movement, which is most explicitly associated with the ideas of Luther, Calvin and Wesley.

However the hard work that is a central component of capitalism occurs in a very particular interpretation (misinterpretation?) of Calvinist beliefs concerning an individual’s place on earth and their potential place in heaven. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination clearly states that a person can not do good deeds or perform acts of faith to secure his or her place in heaven (individuals are either among God’s ‘elect’ or not), however there remained the common assumption that wealth was an indication that a person was one of the ‘elect’.

The doctrine of predestination imposes two obligations on believers:

· Duty to assume they were among the elect

· Duty to retain their faith in God

Weber argued that this doctrine promoted feelings of abandonment and isolation, which precipitated a crisis in faith that required Protestants to find other ways of finding peace within themselves. Wealth, coupled with self-denial became the basis for interpreting one’s relationship with God.

Wealth had to be put to good use, or at least, not be frittered away on useless objects or transient pleasures. Weber says of the Protestants of that time that

‘… they approved the rational and utilitarian uses of wealth which were willed by God for the needs of the individual and the community. They did not wish to impose mortification on the man of wealth, but the use of his means for necessary and practical things.’ (Weber, 1930; p. 171)

When it was not immediately clear what ‘necessary and practical things’ should be purchased by a person’s wealth, the alternative must be frugality and investment in order to comply with the ascetic principles of Protestantism:

‘When the limitation of consumption is combined with this release of acquisitive activity, the inevitable practical result is obvious: accumulation of capital through ascetic compulsion to save. The restraints which were imposed on the consumption of wealth naturally served to increase it by making possible the productive investment of capital.’ (Weber, 1930: p. 172)

Protestantism provided a religious/ethical context that fostered a spirit of rigorous discipline, which encouraged individuals to apply themselves rationally to the acquisition of wealth. Such has been the influence of this Protestant ethic in the rise of western capitalism that Weber argues:

‘The capitalist economy of the present day is an immense cosmos into which the individual is born, and which presents itself to him, at least as an individual, as an unalterable order of things in which he must live. It forces the individual, in so far as he is involved in the system of market relationships, to conform to capitalistic rules of action.’ (Weber, 1930; p. 54)

Bureaucracy

The analysis of bureaucracy in early twentieth century France and Germany grew as a response to the popularity of Marxism.

Weber is the foremost analyst of increasing bureaucratisation in the advanced capitalist world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, although he pinpoints the emergence of bureaucracies in the princely states of the Italian Renaissance. For Weber, policy requires administration to see it through.

Bureaucracy is a particular form of rationalisation that is concerned with the operation of large-scale organisations, presented in Economies of Antiquity (1908) and Economy and Society (1914)

Bureaucracy a component of modern society and is the result of two factors;

· Changes occurring in the conditions and organisation of society

· Changes occurring in the system of rationality and decision making

Bureaucratic organisation differs from the administration of feudal societies in two ways:

· Administrative activities are carried out under procedurally correct legal enactments

· Society becomes the ‘quantitative extension’ of administrative tasks, which generates the need for a large bureaucratic organisation

Bureaucracy is a form of administrative rationality and a form of domination because it promotes Zweckrationalität (‘purposeful-rationality’) over Wertrationalität (‘value-rationality’).

Technical orientation to means and ends rules out decision making in terms of values, promotes technical guidelines and formalised decision making at the expense of appeals to ethical values. Networks of functions and rules of procedure form an ‘apparatus’ of administration that subordinates everyday life to functional norms

“Bureaucratization offers above all the optimum possibility for carrying through the principle of specializing administrative functions according to purely objective considerations. Individual performances are allocated to functionaries who have specialised training and who by constant practice learn more and more. The ‘objective’ discharge of business primarily means a discharge of business according to calculable rules and ‘without regard for persons’.” (Weber, 1991, p.215)

Bureaucracy is welcomed by capitalism which develops more fully, the more bureaucracy ‘dehumanizes’, that is succeeds in eliminating from business love, hatred and all purely emotional, personal and irrational elements.

“The individual bureaucrat cannot squirm out of the apparatus in which he is harnessed… the professional bureaucrat is chained to his activity by his entire material and ideal existence. In the great majority of cases he is only a single cog in an ever-moving mechanism which prescribes to him an essentially fixed route of march. The official is entrusted with specialised tasks and normally the mechanism cannot be put into motion or arresting by him, but only from the very top. The individual bureaucrat is thus forged to the community of all the functionaries who are integrated into the mechanism.” (ibid., p.228)

What Weber calls the ‘discipline of officialdom’ becomes an ‘attitude-set’ for obedience and habitual activity (ibid., p.229). The discipline becomes the basis of all order. He makes the point that getting rid of the documentation does not in itself free people from the orientation to stick to habitual rules and regulations. So much of this was new in Weber’s day that it can be hard to see some of this as other than stating the obvious. Perhaps this tells us something about how far we have come in a hundred years since a time when many aspects of people’s working lives were not governed by regulations of one kind or another. The continuation of the bureaucratic machine with or without particular individuals in charge means that any radical (revolutionary) change in the system of bureaucracy is “technically more and more impossible” (ibid., p.230)

The teacher is a form of trained bureaucrat. Like other bureaucrats their power is ‘overtowering’ no matter who it derives from, because it is secretive and specialised. “Bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret.” (ibid., p.233) In educational bureaucracy, the layers operate in such a way that teachers, managers, governors, LEA officials, all receive specialised knowledge which is not shared beyond their ranks, increasing specialisation and division.

Weber is famous for his formulation of the ‘ideal type’ bureaucracy, but it is important to note here that his use of ‘ideal’ is not synonymous with ‘desirable’ or ‘admirable’. It is a neutral analytical construct for the analysis of social situations. The ‘ideal type’ of a social situation has ‘logically consistent’ features and is never intended to relate directly to reality, but merely serve as a description to which the social commentator can compare reality. Weber developed ‘ideal types’ as limited, heuristic devices for specific tasks, rather than as scientific laws (as in Marxism). In this he anticipates poststructuralist developments such as Foucault’s analysis of next week. The ‘ideal bureaucracy’:

· Presupposes a chain of authority that is hierarchically organised, with clearly defined offices, functions and responsibilities

· System of impersonal rules governs the actions of members and prevails over personal inclination or sentiment

· Rights and responsibilities of officials are explicitly stated and proscribed within written regulations that outline a specialised division of labour

· Officials receive contractually-fixed salaries and do not own their positions or the means of production

· The system of promotion for officials is based on achievement of the organisation’s goals

· Officials treat people in terms of ‘cases’ rather than individuals and remain impersonal in their contact with the public

· Written documentation and record keeping is the ‘evidence base’ and justification for decision making

Weber also foreshadows the analysis we will see next week with Foucault in that he is dissecting, and describing, but, unlike Marx, he does not see a way out of the bureaucratic order. “Whenever the trained, modern official has once begun to rule, his power is absolutely unbreakable, because the entire organisation of providing even the most basic needs in life depends on his performance of his duties.” (ibid., pp.157-8)

All of the features of the ideal-type bureaucracy have a single purpose, which is to promote the efficient attainment of the organisation’s goals

‘From a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency, and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of exercising authority over human beings. It is superior to any other from in precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability. It thus makes possible a particularly high degree of calculability of results for the heads of the organisation and for those acting in relation to it. It is finally superior both in intensive efficiency and in the scope of its operation and is formally capable of application to all kinds of administrative tasks.’ (Weber, 1921: p. 223)

However, he also argues that bureaucracy is unwieldy and often unhelpful in its response to individual cases.

· The impersonality that is so important for attaining and maintaining the efficiency of the organisation is dehumanising (alienating) for the individual.

· Bureaucracy promotes the centralisation of power in the hands at the top of the organisation (oligarchy), so that, in practice, those who control organisations also control the quality of their individual members’ lives.

‘The performance of each individual worker is mathematically measured, each man becomes a little cog in the machine and aware of this, his one preoccupation is whether he can become a bigger cog … it is horrible to think that the world could one day be filled with these little cogs, little men hanging to their jobs, and striving towards little ones … this passion for bureaucracy is enough to drive one to despair.’ (Weber 1913 cited in Ray 1999: p. 187)

Note on ‘charisma’:

Historically natural leaders in all societies have been neither officeholders nor incumbents of an occupation but, rather, men who were considered to hold gifts of body, mind or spirit which were not available to everybody. These ‘gifts’ took the form of ‘charisma’, in Weber’s particular sense. Charisma knows no agency of control, it is subject only to inner restraint. As he has no office, the charismatic must maintain his recognition by proving himself. “In contrast to any kind of bureaucratic organization of offices, the charismatic structure knows nothing of a form or of an ordered procedure of appointment or dismissal, It knows no regulated ‘career’, ‘advancement’, ‘salary’, or regulated and expert training of the holder of charisma or of his aids.” (Weber, 1991, p. 246) What part could charisma play in the modern school? How does this match up with the notion of passion we find among early-years workers?

“The ‘Rationalization’ of Education and Training”

Education and training are central to the production and maintenance of the administrators of the bureaucratic order – people like teachers and educational officers of various kinds: the two sources of officials’ power identified by Weber are specialist training and privileged knowledge. A problem arising from this for Marxist interpretations of educational change is that even those forms of Marxism which are based in the immediacy of workers struggle and foreground trade unions and works councils must fail in their efforts to gain control: workers’ power must be an illusion, because it is a delusion to suppose that even the most experienced workers understand the running of factories, schools and such like. Modern management is “based entirely on calculation, knowledge of demand and technical schooling – all things which need to be practiced increasingly by specialists, and which the trade unionists, the real workers, have absolutely no opportunity to learn about. Therefore, whether they like it or not, they too will rely on non-workers, on ideologues from the intellectual strata.” (ibid., p. 298)

“[N]aturally, bureaucracy promotes a ‘rationalist’ way of life, but the concept of rationalism allows for widely differing contents. Quite generally one can say that the bureaucratization of all domination very strongly furthers the development of ‘rational matter-of-factness’ and the personality type of the professional expert. This has far-reaching ramifications [including]… its effect upon the nature of training and education.” (ibid., p.240)

All educational institutions, says Weber, are increasingly dominated by the special examinations of ‘trained expertness’ essential for the specialisation of bureaucracy. “The modern development of full bureacratization brings the system of rational, specialized, and expert examinations to the fore.” (ibid., p.241) Weber has in mind examinations for entry into professional specialisations, but the principle is extended downwards, and was taken up by Foucault and applied more generally as examination for everyday educational practice. Weber tracks the rise of the ‘qualification’, the “certificate of education [which] becomes what the test for ancestors has been in the past… a prerequisite for equality of birth, a qualification for a canonship, and for state office.” (ibid., p.241) That is, the holding of educational certificates creates a bureaucratic caste or status-group who will tend to intermarry with others with similar status to reproduce the bureaucratic order: “When we hear from all sides the demand for an introduction of regular curricula and special examinations, the reason behind it is, of course, not a suddenly awakened ‘thirst for education’ but the desire for restricting the supply of these positions and the monopolization by the owners of educational certificates”. (ibid., p,241). Because of the financial implications of working over long periods towards the attainment of educational certificates, this system will favour ‘property’ over ‘charisma’. The question is not one of ‘intellect’, but of economic power over talent. Specialisation does not involve a great deal of ‘intellectual cost’, only financial cost. Weber contrasts this educational end with the historical mission of education to produce ‘cultured men’, that is, when it was understood that “the goal of education consists in the quality of a man’s bearing in life which was considered ‘cultivated’, rather than in a specialised training for expertness.” (ibid., p.243)

For Weber, the university and perhaps by extension the school only has a real value when it sets itself to the sole task of promoting ‘intellectual integrity’. Discipline and self-limitation are the hallmarks of the modern vocation of teaching. “The charismatic properties of professorial personalities should be excluded as far as possible from influencing their teaching.” (Giddens, 1972, p.49). Weber favoured the completion of the process of rationalisation of the university (and perhaps of the school) because of his belief that the only platform upon which competing values might be fought over is the political platform, not the academic. The promotion of value positions results in the promotion or retardation of careers on the basis of non strictly intellectual considerations.

Marcuse and other Marxists argue that Weber’s rationality is capitalist through and through, and, because of this workers are bound to rebel against it. Given the exigencies of the capitalist mode of production, it is in evitable that political power, its planning and executive aspects fall to specialists – Weber regards such a state of affairs as permanent – the ‘iron cage’ – Marxists regard this as contingent, arising from the conflating of formal rationality with capitalist rationality.

Useful References

Giddens, A. (1971) Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: An Analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Giddens, A. (1972) Politics and sociology in the thought of Max Weber, London : Macmillan

Hughes, J., Martin, P. and Sharrock, W. (1995) Understanding Classical Sociology: Marx, Weber, Durkheim London: Sage

Marcuse, H. (1988) ‘Industrialization and Capitalism in the Work of Max Weber’ in Marcuse, H., Negations: Essays in Critical Theory, London: Free Association Books

Morrison, K. (1995) Formations of Modern Social Thought. Marx, Durkheim, Weber London: Sage

Ray, L. (1999) Theorising Classical Sociology Buckingham: Open University Press

Weber, M. (1905) ‘Objectivity in Science and Social Policy’ in E.A. Shils and H.A. Finch (eds) (1949) The Methodology of the Social Sciences New York: The Free Press

Weber, M. (1930) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Harmondsworth: Penguin pp. 13-31 and 47-55

Weber, M. (1991) From Max Weber : Essays in Sociology, London: Routledge

Weber, M. (1994) Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press