Weber's phrase (at least in translation) for the 'good' kind of bureaucracy is "Rational-Legal Authority." Sounds good, don't it?

We have a rule of thumb in Computer Science: the simpler and more intuitive you want to make a program seem to the end-user, the more complex the program will become "under the hood". Perhaps the same could be said of bureaucracy. (Here I'm thinking more of the health care plan than the DOJ flowchart.)

and either the system breaks (further weakening trust in government) or corruption reigns

So, corruption reigning doesn't count as a broken system? ;)

Bureaucracy as a dirty word was a hallmark of Reaganite ideology.

Mark; excellent observation, after watching Alberto Gonzales absolutely wear out the word "consensus" during his mendacious and contemptable appearance, under oath, before the Senate Judiciary Comm., the word is gaining new meaning. The unfolding picture of the gross politicization, reaching to unheard of and unknown crevices everywhere Conyers and Waxman look within our government, is staggering. The hubris being uncovered is betraying new depths of greed, hateful deceit and narcissism within the Republican party. And it was all going perfectly until Americans finally woke up in November. We must all continue to press this fight.

Meh. The post seems a rather long semantic argument imo. Just accept popular connotations and meanings of words, and move on to more descriptive language.

For example, discussing European and Asian consortium to develop technology standards like wireless technology or universal healthcare, one speaks of increased efficiency due to standardization, scale, developing infrastructure and safety nets for prosperity and future competitiveness, etc.

Discussing markets like biotech or software one speaks of entrepreneurs, startups, efficiency of market competition and capitalism, etc.

Those are all bureaucracies. Every private business or government agency is managed by a bureaucracy. Every CEO is a bureaucrat. Law enforcement is a bureaucracy. Defense is a bureaucracy.

In meaningful conversations the word never need be raised, because the specifics are being discussed, not so obvious a fact.

Seems to me you're talking about the difference between a system with "limits" versus "anything goes."

Now what's interesting here is that bushco believes in "anything goes" as far as almost everything. Corporations? Anything goes! They have simply ignored or dismantled "limits" which protect workers or consumers. Same thing with oversight: "anything goes." And for war: "anything goes." Torture: "anything goes." You name it. They're not for limits unless it relates to abortion or homosexuality, things which rev up the base.

It's like a rule of thumb for this whole administration. Just let the whole country be taken over by criminal cronies. Because "anything goes" if you're a loyal bushie.

And the Dems are trying to restore limits and protections and oversight and benchmarks and so forth. Limits are really what the rule of law is all about. Versus the "law of the jungle" kind of "anything goes" bush regime.

While the subject is on the table. . .

let me give a public thank you to the folks who operate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  My mother will turn 100 in December.  Her checks have come in regularly since my father's death 30 years ago, and since she entered a nursing home six years ago her the home is paid promptly, as are her medical needs.  I get an accounting monthly, and provide a simple report to certify her continued eligibility once a year.  No doubt there are occasional slip-ups in a system which cares for millions, but from the county in which she lives to the central agency in Washington, DC, I think the performance is laudatory.  And I suspect this is one reason why so many people defend social security--especially those who have had the experience of being hassled by a private insurance company.

aMike

If the goal is to debunk Reagan era privatization voodoo, then simply calling all bureaucracies by name makes it easy.

Problem solved. Should have been done decades ago.

Republicans certainly haven't been honest about terribly inefficient private bureaucracies such as for-profit healthcare which is an easy example of utterly failed Republican privatization ideology, perhaps best represented by that knuckle-head Frist of Schiavo telediagnosis fame. Wonder if he billed her, or just passed the charges onto his other patients.

Some bureaucracy is impossible to avoid. The soner we stop playing pin the word on the donkey, the sooner the conversation and voter can move on to more meaningful comparisons between various schemes in various context.

I do not actually support the Weberian notion of bureaucracy (and the closely linked American version associated with Luther Gulick and the Brownlow Commission). 

These notions of bureaucracy too rigidly limit administrative discretion in precise contradiction to the point of administrative reforms initiated at the beginning of the 20th century under the intellectual guidance of Frank Goodnow (the dominant source of American administrative thought). 

Bureaucrats need to be treated as meaningfully contributing members of the decision process.  It is the constrain and make interchangeable effort that creates the morass of undesirable effects that are Kafkaesque. Kafka and Weber are in agreement, except that Weber likes the results.

When I objected to bureaucracy language (in the Anrig posting), I was objecting to the mistreatment of government employees, not to a distaste for certain effects from poorly formed organizations (government and private) built on the Gulick-Brownlow/Weber model. 

Confusing people trapped in a broken process with the process only locks us further and further into the process.  Most big private sector organizations are every bit as much Weberian as are public sector ones.

Where in this would you put the Japanese (think MITI), British (think SIS), French (think alternatively magistrates and the screw-you police at CDG), and the nomenklatura?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

The French are noted to have the most rigid bureaucratic structure in the world.  As the Belgians inherited some of their governmental practices from the French and the EU from the Belgians, we begin to see why the EU constitution is as thick as a phone book...

In the early 20th century the Japanese emulated the US, so their governmental practices (when not tied to Samurai traditions or other traditional practices), are similar to American ones.  The Brits, have a tradition of more administrative discretion than the US has.

As to your specific police agencies, I have no idea.  They are likely to follow the general governmental culture, but there is always the possibility of exception. 

You are talking policies.  I am discussing how their government entities operate.  These are different things.  Whether Japan has ever emulated European governmental practices is unknown to me, but it's emulation of US governmental practices is historically documented.

MITI is not a police agency, but the post-WWII Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which, with the Foreign Ministry and the Treasury, probably were the most desired jobs in the nation. MITI, especially, is considered the source of the Japanese technology industry.

In Japan, being a civil servant is to be in the elite. The Vice-Minister of an agency is the senior civil servant, usually with more real power than the Minister. As senior executives fall off the pyramid of power and go into much more highly compensated jobs in industry, that event is called the "descent from heaven", in that they will never enjoy the same power -- or the ability to shape their nation's destiny.

I suspect it depends when in the early 20th century you had in mind. By the twenties and thirties, that which was not military was part of what inadequately translates as "home ministry". That ministry contained a group quite openly called the Thought Police. Interestingly, however, the Thought Police, as opposed to Orwell's would carefully report on radical new ideas, examining them for the possibility that they were useful for the national polity.

The nomenklatura was not particularly police. Rather, it was the part of the Soviet bureaucracy, typically of Party members and even there with levels, that qualified for all manner of special privileges: shopping in special stores, private medical care, hard currency "certificate rubles", jumping to the head of lines, etc. At the highest levels, there was even a special traffic lane reserved for the leadership. But don't worry, they got rid of the House of Romanov, those nasty aristocrats.

I did like the idea that the British objected to joining the EU currency system, as they were not willing to give up their euphemistic "spend a penny" to replace it with Euronation.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

The French call it Fayolism (I am sure that would not be the French term), which is essentially the same as Gulick/Brownlow top down bureaucracy.

It is not the bureaucracy that provides the benefits you describe.  It is the policy environment that does so.  Even well acculturated American bureaucrats can become frustrated with French bureaucrats.  It is not the bureaucrats who are at fault, it is the rigid top-down organizational design that is defective.

Privatization is not a solution to these problems.  Private and mixed organizations can be just as rigid as pure public organizations.  The problem rests with Fayolism, Gulick/Brownlowism, or Weberianism. 

Democratic pols need to make some populist remarks in praise of bureaucracy. Few people complain about having to take a number at the deli in their local grocery. It helps you plan their trip to the store. If the line is short, you can wait. If the line is long, you can do your other shopping in the store and come back with your number in a few minutes. That minimal level of 'regulation' - taking a number - is welcome by nearly all regular shoppers. Taking a number isn't about lack of personal service, it's about ensuring fairness and efficiency.

That's what a government of the people and by the people is supposed to represent. Some level of functioning bureaucracy is essential to good governing. The GOP hates this fact. People LOVE Social Security because it's fair and efficient - something a functioning ethical bureacracy helps, not hinders. People used to like FEMA under Clinton for the same reasons.

Howard,

Usually I can follow where you are going. This time I cannot. 

I am sorry I got the police thing wrong.  My answers were still factually correct. 

As I responded to another individual, it is factually correct that Japanese governmental organizations (Tokyo city government, for example) emulated American government during the (to be more specific) 1920s and earlier.  I don't know the full extent as this is not my precise area of expertise (although it is close).  The rest of my comment regarding Japan was pretty clearly speculative from the beginning.

My main point is that the Weberian model of bureaucracy is defective.  That is not the fault of public employees.

I think that's getting a bit abstract and drawing false distinctions.

Dividing the bureaucracy from the positive role government plays in advancing national development and managing the economy in Western Europe or Japan or SKorea is rather impossible.

Not to say all bureaucracy is good of course. And not to say all privatization is bad either. Nor the opposite.

The bottom line is their bureaucracies are efficient on the net economic and quality of life level for a number of specific reasons having mostly to do with a mature evolution of pragmatism and balancing sometimes conflicting goals. I'd say as small nations they also have a more vigorous sense of local politics and exchange of ideas than our much more highly centralized and insulated nation.

Our bureaucracies, whether they be private or governmental, have been much more ideologically driven, especially in reaction to the cold war and the artificial reality it created for American supremacy, economic and militarily. National consensus on issues, economic or social, are far more difficult in America as well, which tends to slow the rate of mutation and evolution to use Darwinian speak.

You should read the writings of Frank Goodnow (and that is a disgracefully brief entry in Wikipedia), and not just his Politics and Administration.  Goodnow was the FIRST president of the American Political Science Association (which I note that Wikipedia does not note) and he essentially founded the academic study of public administration in the US.  Until the somewhat misguided drowning out of American political thought by European political thought during the 30s-60s as a result of European intellectual migration away from Nazi Germany, Goodnow was the principal source of understanding of how government organizations should work.

The Gulick/Weber model is a substitute, not an extension of the Goodnow model.  Goodnow recommended far more administrative discretion that Gulick does.  We live in Gulick times.  It is too bad. 

I link you to a citation.  Why I was interested in this, I won't say, as anonymity is of significance to me.  I will mention that Beard was there as a consultant.