Key Arguments

• Weber explicitly links the historical emergence of the need for such administration to capitalism: 'The need for constant, firm, intensive, and calculable administration was created historically by capitalism—not entirely by capitalism, but undeniably primarily—and cannot exist without it.'
• He argues that a rational socialist order would not overcome but intensify this need, thus also intensifying bureaucracy: 'Any rational socialist system would simply have to adopt it and intensify it, and this determines the fateful inevitability of bureaucracy as the nucleus of any mass movement.'
• He notes that only small-scale units can partially escape bureaucratisation: 'It is only small-scale enterprise (political, hierocratic, social, economic) that can succeed in more or less successfully evading it.'
• He describes a mutual reinforcement between capitalism and bureaucracy: 'Capitalism in its current developmental stage furthers bureaucracy, even though they have both grown out of very different historical roots, and bureaucracy provides the most rational economic foundation on which capitalism can exist in its most rational form, because bureaucracy is also capable of providing it with the necessary funds.'

Source Quotes

limited degree for anyone who is not an expert: the expert privy councillor usually has in the long run the advantage of his minister in doing what he wants. The need for constant, firm, intensive, and calculable administration was created historically by capitalism—not entirely by capitalism, but undeniably primarily—and cannot exist without it. Any rational socialist system would simply have to adopt it and intensify it, and this determines the fateful inevitability of bureaucracy as the nucleus of any mass movement.

The need for constant, firm, intensive, and calculable administration was created historically by capitalism—not entirely by capitalism, but undeniably primarily—and cannot exist without it. Any rational socialist system would simply have to adopt it and intensify it, and this determines the fateful inevitability of bureaucracy as the nucleus of any mass movement. It is only small-scale enterprise (political, hierocratic, social, economic) that can succeed in more or less successfully evading it.

Any rational socialist system would simply have to adopt it and intensify it, and this determines the fateful inevitability of bureaucracy as the nucleus of any mass movement. It is only small-scale enterprise (political, hierocratic, social, economic) that can succeed in more or less successfully evading it. Capitalism in its current developmental stage furthers bureaucracy, even though they have both grown out of very different historical roots, and bureaucracy provides the most rational economic foundation on which capitalism can exist in its most rational form, because bureaucracy is also capable of providing it with the necessary funds.

It is only small-scale enterprise (political, hierocratic, social, economic) that can succeed in more or less successfully evading it. Capitalism in its current developmental stage furthers bureaucracy, even though they have both grown out of very different historical roots, and bureaucracy provides the most rational economic foundation on which capitalism can exist in its most rational form, because bureaucracy is also capable of providing it with the necessary funds. Besides fiscal conditions, bureaucratic administration chiefly faces constraints in communication and transport.

Key Concepts

• The need for constant, firm, intensive, and calculable administration was created historically by capitalism—not entirely by capitalism, but undeniably primarily—and cannot exist without it.
• Any rational socialist system would simply have to adopt it and intensify it, and this determines the fateful inevitability of bureaucracy as the nucleus of any mass movement.
• It is only small-scale enterprise (political, hierocratic, social, economic) that can succeed in more or less successfully evading it.
• Capitalism in its current developmental stage furthers bureaucracy, even though they have both grown out of very different historical roots, and bureaucracy provides the most rational economic foundation on which capitalism can exist in its most rational form, because bureaucracy is also capable of providing it with the necessary funds.

Context

Middle of the section 'Legal Rule with a Bureaucratic Administrative Staff', where Weber generalises from the superiority of bureaucratic administration to its structural connection with capitalism and its inevitability in mass movements, including socialism.