The words of Max Weber (1864-1920), the renowned German sociologist, still ring true almost one hundred years after they were written. Although Weber died 86 years ago on June 14, his dark wisdom continues to haunt the highest achievements of modern society.  

Working in the early days of the twentieth century, Weber was very interested in understanding how modern society worked; and he was especially interested in its bureaucratic institutions. Some consider his dark views concerning modern society and its future to be prophetic; perhaps he is today best remembered for his pessimism.  It is this pessimism -- and the reasons for it -- that may help us to illumine some of our most pressing contemporary social and political problems, including education.

There is, for example, the following passage taken from his work that has helped to earn him his reputation as both a pessimist and a modern prophet:

Imagine the consequences of that comprehensive bureaucratization and rationalization which already today we see approaching. ... By it, 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. ... The problem which besets us now is not: how can this evolution be changed? -- for that is impossible, but: what will come of it? We willingly admit that there are honorable and talented men at the top of our administration; that in spite of all the exceptions, they constitute a chance of selection for talent. But horrible as the thought is that the world may one day be peopled with professors (laughter) -- we would retire onto a desert island if such a thing were to happen (laughter) -- it is still more horrible to think that the world could on e day be filled with nothing but those little cogs, little men clinging to little jobs and striving towards bigger ones -- a state of affairs which is to be seen ... playing an ever-increasing part in the spirit of our present administrative system ... This passion for bureaucracy … is enough to drive one to despair. It is as if in politics the specter of timidity -- which has in any case always been rather a good standby for the German -- were to stand alone at the helm; as if we were deliberately to become men who need 'order' and nothing but order, who become nervous and cowardly if for one moment this order wavers, and helpless if they are torn away from their total incorporation in it. That the world should know no men but these: it is such an evolution that we are already caught up, and the great question is therefore not how we can promote and hasten it, but what can we oppose to this machinery in order to keep a portion of mankind free from this parceling out of the soul, from this supreme mastery of the bureaucratic way of life. The answer to this question today clearly does not lie here.

What has happened in many years since these words were first written, of course, is that the distant threat on the horizon has now become the  bureaucratic reality that envelops our lives. And still, there is no answer to Max Weber's question: "What can we oppose to this machinery in order to keep a portion of mankind free from this parceling out of the soul, from this supreme mastery of the bureaucratic way of life"?

Robert Michels (1876-1936) was a German/Italian academic who had won the support of Max Weber, but in spite of this was unable to teach in the universities of Germany due to his political involvement with the Social Democrats. Ironically, much of Michels' work with voluntary political associations, such as the Social Democrat party, was extremely critical of its political opportunism and hypocrisy. It is, however, for this work that he is remembered today.  

Michels' political analysis is penetrating, and worth recalling. In the very least, Michels grounds the theoretical pessimism of Weber in the exigencies of political life, adding another dimension of support to the prophet's doomsday soothsaying.

“[T]he bureaucracy continually increases. It comes to assume the form of an endless screw [sic!]. It grows ever less and less compatible with the general welfare. And yet this bureaucratic machinery remains essential. Through it alone can be satisfied the claim of the educated members of the population for secure positions. It is further a means of self-defense for the state. … [but the] mechanism becomes an end in itself.”  

“There are,” according to Michels, “two classes of intellectuals. One consists of those who have succeeded in securing a post at the manger of the state, whilst the other consists of those who … have assaulted the fortress without being able to force their way in. The former may be compared to an army of slaves who are always ready … to undertake the defense of the state which provides them with bread.” Thus, “The state best fulfills the need for securing a large number of defenders by constituting a numerous caste of officials, of persons directly dependent upon the state.”

From this analysis, Michels derived his Iron Law of Oligarchy, which simply states that in large organizations, even those that are run on democratic principles, there will eventually be only a small number that actually make  decisions. Furthermore, those in power tend to retain their power and privileges, and transfer these to those they choose, thus retaining the character of an oligarchy. Lastly, over time, power elites will lose touch with the values and grievances of those that put them in power, and will instead focus on staying in power – something elites are very successful at. (See Note 3.)

This last point foreshadows an important postulate of later sociological thinking, namely the recognition of the extent to which individual outlook is determined by social position, that is, the large degree to which that ones o utlook is largely dependent upon ones social situation.   

Perhaps it is no accident that Herbert Marcuse, the fiery Marxist prophet active during the Free Speech Movement at the University of Berkeley in the 1960s, most clearly and accurately characterized the darkest aspects of Weber’s nightmare for contemporary America. As the heir and recipient of the intellectual assets of the Frankfort School (which attempted to combine Marxist sensibility with Freud’s psychodynamics), Marcuse also received, and then communicated, the Weber-Michels critique of bureaucratic society.

According to Marcuse, in today’s bureaucratic mass society, “… all domination assumes the form of administration. At its peak, the concentration of economic power seems to turn into anonymity: everyone, even at the very top, appears to be powerless before the movements and laws of the apparatus itself. ” [Eros and Civilization, 98] This is Weber and Michels gone completely and absolutely mad. For Marcuse, the process of “subordination appears as implemented through the social division of labor itself (although physical and personal force remains an indispensable instrumentality).” (89) The complexity of modern society can only be managed bureaucratically, that is, subordinated to the ordering imperative of the bureaucratic society itself, the most efficient means of social control over human beings. Yet, this efficient means of ordering society is invisible, undetecta ble, and limitlessly coercive. Thus, “the sadistic principals, the capitalist exploiters, have been transformed into salaried members of a bureaucracy.” (98)

The end result of this is captured in the title of his book, One-Dimensional Man, which describes the bitter fate of a humanity pressed flat beneath the relentless force of a non-human but totally efficient bureaucracy now in complete control of everything. Even here, and revolt against the system is doomed to become a “betrayed revolution,” since even in success the new victors succumb, and adapt themselves to the true master, which is the bureaucratic system of social control, the all encompassing state. (90-91)  

[The worst case scenario for all this, of course, is that democracy itself deconstructs or decouples into pure rhetoric and rhetorical procedures that mask the true concentrations of power and wealth. Perhaps it was never really there to begin with, just the result of special interest groups happily competing against each other behind the scenes, with a few helpful innovations thrown in. But if the intensity of that competition should suddenly grow, and is noticed, and threatens the mutual trust that makes free markets possible, then the system would be pushed aside. This, of course, was the fear of de Tocqueville, the aristocratic French traveler and essayist writing about Jacksonian America. Some contemporary political theorists continue to share his fears (see Beyond Tocqueville). Democracy, then, is the form of capitalism that can only exist on this kind of founda tional trust.]

Along these lines of thought in Marcuse, Paul Ricoeur points to Eichmann’s defense of the killing of Jews, where it was said “that they obeyed orders, that they were good officers.” Ricoeur’s comment here is illuminating: “The administrative system, then, may not only deprive the individual of person responsibility, it may even cover up crimes committed in the name of the administrative good. … the anonymity of organizational relationships … has led to the diffusion of anonymity in society at large. Something  in the human texture is harmed.” (Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, 206). 

---------------------------------------------------------------

Today's News Herald (May 30, 2006) contained an editorial that -- as sometimes happens, but not very often -- spurred me to reflect on the impact that governmental bureaucracies are having on public school education. And it is with this thought that I end this discussion of the dark legacy of Max Weber.

In his perceptive column, "The school daze," Tibor Machan, originally from behind the Iron Curtain, reminds us, among other things,  that: "… the one major institution of Western society that's similar to what it had been under communism is education. Elementary schools, high schools, the majority of junior and community colleges, as well as colleges and universities --- these are all arms of government. They obtain funding by the extortionist means of taxation. The textbooks used are products of the political process, not of independent scholarship.” 

“When I went to college, I had a problem with the discipline of history. It may have started when I was a kid in Hungary and first ran up against official 'scholars' who rewrote Hungary's history' - renamed the streets in Budapest, rewrote all the textbooks, reshuffled the holidays and even completely recast Western intellectual history. Also, under Marxism, there was room for just one account of the development of philosophy, namely what Karl Marx and his epigone wrote.”

“At first I thought that in a relatively free society historians could be trusted a lot more than under Marxism. But I am not so sure about this now. … [There is now] a monopoly of governmental influence in education … This monopoly clearly influences scholarship, including the reporting and study of history. Books selected by scholars and teachers employed by government schools have a tendency to suppress uncomfortable truths, so the major publishers are inclined to interpret the past in favor of the political ideology that dominate[s] in the schools. ... But because most of these folks are protected by government's near complete monopoly of education, the normal forces of competition aren't at work in their area of scholarship. Can we hope to see any improvement? Not really, not as long as the government's monopoly on education remains basically unbroken."  

But Machan misses a key point.

Rather than emphasize governmental “inputs,” as Machan does, we should consider the context in which education operates – and then we can see that government is itself the largest consumer of America’s educational product.

In other words, the governmental influence on (its) education monopoly is not limited to various inputs, but this influence is far surpassed by the kinds of government employment available, whether it is with a municipality, a county, a state or some federal agency, or their subcontractors. These employment opportunities, in fact, encompass the majority of jobs available to graduates today. The reasons for this, of course, have already been described earlier by Michels. 

REFERENCES
Max Weber, "Some Consequences of Bureaucratization," pages 454-455 in Lewis Coser and Bernard Rosenberg, Sociological Theory: A Book of Readings, 3rd edition, 1969.  

Robert Michels, “Bureaucracy and Political Parties,” pages 456-458 in Lewis Coser and Bernard Rosenberg, Sociological Theory: A Book of Readings, 3rd edition, 1969.

Randall Collins and Michael Makowsky, “Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy,” in The Discovery of Society, pages 215-218.