PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATIONS

We must be able to answer:

Why are we studying and what are these two

Differences: what and why

Similarities: what and why

What do scholars think about it

Role of public & private administrations in developed countries

Role of public & private administrations in developing countries

Respective roles in pre-LPG: divergence

Respective roles in post-LPG: convergence

Final analysis

o Ultimate aim

o Whither future and how should the change be directed (in both cases)

With the change in economic milieu world-over, the role of public and private sectors is being

reviewed and reoriented to meet the emerging challenges of society.

DIFFERENCES

The difference in their values, objectives and contribution to society fundamentally differentiates

the business of public and private administrations. Simon, Stamp and Drucker endorse this

viewpoint.

1. Service motive and general welfare of the public are the ends of public administration, while

private administration by contrast, is basically oriented towards earning profit.

2. Public administration operates under constitutional laws, rules and regulations. While the

private administration works under market environment recognized by greater autonomy,

competitiveness and freedom.

3. Public Administration enables accessibility to all, any deviance is exposed to public gaze and

censure. While discrimination on the other hand, is almost a part of business culture.

4. Public administration is exceedingly complex, with lots of pulls and pressures and political

directions. Private administration by contrast, is much more well-knit and single minded in

operation.

5. Urgency and comprehensiveness of functions ranging social, cultural and economic activities

identifies the Public administration. Natural calamities and man-made disasters force the

government to provide immediate relieves without waiting for the private sector to help.

6. Efficiency criterion of private sector is guided by socially narrow tests of resource use, while

effectiveness in terms of achieving specific policy goals assumes critical significance in public

administration. “Managing for Performance” puts public administration at higher pedestal

than the private administration.

SIMILARITIES

Several aspects of public management are generic to both. There are many grey areas

where the line of separation between the two is not well-marked.

Organisational structures, managerial processes and office techniques are quite similar in

the two.

Hierarchy, planning, communication, budgeting and reporting are well-practiced in the

two administrations.

Fayol, Urwick and Follett believe that same principles can be applied to both irrespective of

the size, description and purpose of the organisation.

Lateral entry system in USA, movement of retired bureaucrats to private sector in Japan and

the recently initiated lateral entry of public servants in private sector in India at higher

levels well endorse the similarities in the two sectors.

ROLE IN DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

In developed countries like USA, private administration plays an important role in economy

and society. There is blurring of lines rather than a distinct bifurcation of responsibilities.

In developing countries like India, public administration plays instrumental role in societal

change while mixed role of both directs economic development.

CHANGING ROLE OVER TIME

The public-private relationship has undergone an overhauling change from divergence in

pre-1990 period to convergence later on. While the public administration is adopting

practices of private management, private administration increasingly subject to government

regulation in public interest e.g. the ‘Investment Commission’ was constituted with

corporate involvement to explore ways to attract investment in India. Corporate planning and

performance budget have become the buzz words today, which clearly demonstrate their

merging roles.

CONCLUSION

Ultimately the aim of governance is to provide people’s self development and empowerment.

Public and private administration are the tools to achieve this and by directing and accelerating

the change in development enterprise. The public administration needs to be aggressively

managerialized and given entrepreneur tilt, while private administration must realize that the

whole enterprise can not just be about higher profits, there must also be a higher purpose.

PUBLIC CHOICE APPROACH

The Public Choice Approach is basically an application of economics to political science. Its

principal contributors have been micro-economists like Buchanan, Tullock, Niskanen and Ostrom. It

is essentially a state-reducing and market-expanding doctrine, justified by its view that

government decision making is not based on individual citizens’ interests.

The Public Choice Approach is based on the behavioral assumptions that human beings are:-

Individualistic, and

Rational-economic

In other words, humans in general are utility-maximizers seeking to further their self-interest. In

particular, it is true for actors in the politico-administrative spheres. Thus civil servants are self-

aggrandizing bureaucrats interested only in expanding the activities under their charge, and

increasing their departments’ budgets. Similarly the political leaders are vote seeking politicians,

maximizing their votes for perpetuating their stay in power as their sole end. For this, they go on

recklessly promising more and more programmes to their constituents.

The natural consequence of this is state overload or enlargement of the public sphere. In turn, this

overload has following consequences:-

1. The government machinery becomes unwillingly large. This calls for an increased public

revenue and thereby increases the tax-burden on the citizens. Most of it is spent on

maintaining the government and very little is left for actual provision of goods and services.

2. In the absence of market conditions, there is no compulsion to innovate or raise quality and

reduce costs. The government activities become increasingly bureaucratic, leading to

inefficiency.

3. A large government increases the powers of bureaucracy threatening individual liberty.

4. In the absence of organizational pluralism, a citizen has no freedom of choice. This is anti-

democratic.

Having this built up a case against governments, Public Choice Approach gives the following

prescriptions:-

1. The role of the state needs to be minimized. In particular, no role to be played in the

production and distribution of goods and services, social or economic. As large a sphere of

activities as possible should be handed over to the private sector, operating under the market

mechanism.

2. Even in those activities in which the state must keep itself, there should be multiple

agencies delivering the same public good. Such kind of institutional pluralism ensures

competition. If possible, even these services should be contracted out or leased to private

parties.

This has the following benefits:-

1. Market ensures competition. There can be as many players as warranted by demand. Such

organizational pluralism is in accord with democracy, the freedom to choose, that

competition also results in efficiency, innovation and price reduction. This benefits the

citizens.

2. Due to roll back of state, there are several benefits. The size of the government comes down

and thereby, reducing the tax burden on citizenry alongwith the power of bureaucrats

and politicians.

3. Government can focus on regulating common goods better, providing public goods and

rationally design other goods and services.

4. With the cutting of all unnecessary functions, the government can concentrate on important

activities like defence, law & order, and foreign policy.

CRITICAL APPRAISAL

It is a fact today that governments have become very big, even unwieldy. Several of their functions

are plain unnecessary. This naturally leads to avoidable expenditure and reduce effectiveness. In this

context, the call for roll-back of state by the Public Choice theorist seem correct and timely, and it

finding wide acceptance too.

Public Sector Undertakings are being privatized from New Zealand to China to India, and being

disinvested. Downsizing of government is accompanying a re-definition of its functions. Reducing

fiscal deficit is the focal concern. Countries like USA and Germany have gone in for outright

privatization, allowing the market a free play bin the economy. Australia and Singapore are shifting

operating responsibilities from the central departments to specific decentralized agencies. This allows

competition. Most developing countries from India to South Africa to Malaysia are undergoing

structural adjustment which is only shifting the economic balance from government to the private

sector. Overall the trend is towards state-minimalism.

Nevertheless, the theory has certain weaknesses for which it has been criticized:-

1. It is a throwback to laissez-faire. This, we know leads to the state monopoly being

substituted by the far more dangerous private monopoly.

2. The market-mechanism does not automatically ensure competition. Big multi-national

corporations first establish and then exploit their market dominance to eliminate other

players. Citizens’ choice is thus constricted. Scandals in USA and other developed

countries in private sector are not unknown.

3. Market has no sympathy for those who cannot afford. This is especially a cause of

concern for developing countries which have a large no. of poor, even destitute population.

4. It looks like a new right ideology being propagated by the capitalist states like America

to open the lucrative markets in the Third world to their rapacious trans-national companies.

5. Its criticism of political leaders and civil servants as being motivated solely by self-

interest is unfair.

6. It forgets the important role of the state vis-à-vis the market. The state has to enforce

contracts, adjudicate disputes, curb monopolies and build physical infrastructure. No market

is possible without these.

7. It is crudely ahistorical. In the early stages of development, a country e.g. East Timor or

Afghanistan may not have any private enterprise. State is the only instrument of

development there.

8. The assumption about human nature- individualistic and utility-maximizers is too

simplistic. Plural societies need communitarianism than self-centered individuals.

9. In advocating market-led development, it prescribes “one-best way”.

10. To say that efficiency is the sole aim of government is to trivialize government. The

latter has higher goals like equality, equity and welfare.

11. The theory justifies consumption of ever increasing amounts of goods and services, and so

apotheosizes the western way of life.

E-GOVERNANCE IN INDIA: PROBLEMS CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

E-Governance is a new version and a novel variety of governance. E-governance is not only the

new, but also the now trend occurring in India. It is fast taking the form of a movement. Many

benefits are flowing from its adoption in various spheres of administration. Several advanced

governments of the world have switched over and many other seem to be switching over to electronic

administration. India lacks however, a national perspective one-governance, although, there is

space of flourishing eloquence among some ministers, bureaucratic techno experts and other pundits

combined with a fairly widespread awareness and more or less universal realization of the positive

aspects of this informative revolution.

With most aspects of citizen life and most sectors of governmental functions coalescing, in a

mutually beneficial, friendly ambience through an electronic convergence system, there will emerge

one day, a one stop, non stop shopping approach in the governments, involving ‘cross-cutting’

over-joined up governance – the idea simply being to create capability for providing the citizens

access to government services across departments though electronic networks.

There is no doubt that seriously implementing e-governance programme calls for basic restructuring

of an age-old archaic and colonial procedures – it indeed involve almost wholesale elimination of

the existing dysfunctional system of governance. What is urgently needed is change in the mindset

of the people in government, change in the philosophy, spirit and processes in bureaucracy,

development of a national infrastructure, and a governing body on e-governance for the whole

country.

There seems to have come about a welcome change, rather dramatic. Inaugurating the first meeting of

state IT ministers on July 15, 2000 in New Delhi, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee announced

major initiatives aimed at propelling development of IT and telecom infrastructure in the country.

These included the end of VSNL’s monopoly on international band width access, full deregulation of

the national long distance telecom market to private competition and formation of a task force on

human resource development in IT. As 13-Point Common Action Plan for promoting IT in India has

been adopted, divesting the Union and State governments to promote e-governance and to improve

efficiency.

People have long been a harassed lot in their relationship with the government with endless forms,

regulations, by-laws, paperwork, delays, secrecy, authoritarianism and negativism. They would not

take these any more and hence the demand for ‘good governance’ slogan, for ‘paperless office’;

cry for transparency and death of secrecy and insistence on right to information. Technology

can give them all that stands for good governance. E-governance is the other name of good

governance.

People cannot go without good governance. It is their right to have it. It is government’s duty to

govern, and govern well. Government is a mandated pledge that has to be fulfilled. The state has to be

welfare oriented, people directed and service driven. Government can justify the existence only by

providing good, transparent and effective governance.

Suddenly, e-governance through a technological revolution have brought in healthy changes. The

basic character of governance, operational methodology, functional style, ideological orientation

has undergone changes. In fact much more transparency, demolition of discretion and arbitrariness,

and above all, clientele orientation and citizen savvyness have been brought about by the e-

governance.

The IT Act 2000 has been passed. Chapter III of the act deals with electronic governance. The Act

marks a watershed in the conduct of affairs in the government, signaling a new beginning in the

official transactional mode. More importantly, paper work, files fastened by red tape, elaborate

noting and drafting – all delay producers – may be a relic of the past, if in future, e-governance

becomes the order of the day. And there is no reason why it should not.

Areas targeted for bringing in information technology are revenue carving departments – such as

registration department, commercial tax department, ration-card and public distribution system,

treasury, health department, municipality functions etc. If future is the place where we have to live

the rest of our lives, we all must have stake and concern for its regulation, control and

development. IT is the tool for that. IT is an instrument for enrichment of quality of people’s life. IT

is the promise for a brighter future.

E-governance is certainly a legitimate hope, and not a tall order to be sure, that our traditionally

lethargic, leisurely and old worldly public administration must sooner than later, rid itself of its

inherited “burdensome baggage” through the intervention of IT. The need for conceptual clarity to

realize mutually reinforcive relationship between IT and public administration is indicated.

Applying and developing IT in different spheres of activities and other programme sectors of

development administration in our country that the poor people, illiterate masses, underfed men,

particularly inhabiting the rural interiors, the under-privileged, disadvantaged and handicapped

sections of our society can get a better deal in life. Therefore, full potential of IT need to be tapped

and harnessed in the following fields: Education, health, banking, tax administration, water and power

supply, transport system, export and import, ports and docks and shipping administration, traffic

control, immigration, public distribution system law and order maintenance, security, criminal justice

administration and environmental protection etc.

Prosperity through IT is at our door step. We must open the door fully, and not keep it shut. We

have lived in the past, in the dark, for far too long. E-governance is the future, and we must go

in for it, to make the future secure for our future generations.

IT REDEFINED THEORY AND PRACTICE OF ADMINISTRATION

As far as the theory of administration is concerned, no other change was as penetrating as the one

brought about by IT. It has affected the theory in the following ways:-

Principles of management:

Simplification of Hierarchy

Centralization in organizations

Expansion of Span of Control

Enhanced Co-ordination

Change from emphasis on structures to delivery

Reduced role of human element: this has reduced the element of errors in administration.

However, IT can only supplement and support but cannot supplant the human factor.

Change from generalist to specialist administration

As far as the practice of administration is concerned, IT has far reaching positive consequences

for the governments as well as the citizens.

For the government as an organisation, IT has brought in systems like MIS (Management

Information System) and DSS (Decision Support System). Further, it has redefined the

POSDCORB activities of Gulick and revolutionalized the Communication across the

various levels of government horizontally as well as vertically. It has helped in the

improvement of work culture in the government transforming an ivory tower approach into

a people centric one.

For the government as a State, IT has improved the reach, speed and quality of various

government driven programmes and policies.

More than for any other thing, the practice of IT in the form of e-governance has benefited

the citizens most. The SMART administration (Small, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and

Transparent) has had a direct impact on the application of 4Es (Efficiency, Effectiveness,

Economy and Equity) on the citizens.

Besides, e-governance also helped in the evolution of a participative-governance, ultimately

leading to the empowerment of citizens.

ROLE OF IT IN MANAGEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONS

The information technology revolution has been called as the second industrial revolution. Both

computer technology and communication technology has grown very rapidly, contributing to each

others’ growth; the two have become very interdependent. The term IT has come into common use

since the mid 80’s with the integration of the computer technology and the communication

technology. Today, IT provides integrated solutions for development of information systems in

organizations and society. Information system is the nervous system of any organization and

since qua non for its survival. Information lies at the heart of any management process, information

systems are playing greater role in providing integration in organizational and pubic functioning. The

developments in IT have affected every industry and every profession.

The main subsystems or components of information systems are:

(i) Information storage, selection and retrieval (data base) system.

(ii) Information consolidation system (data and text processing)

(iii) Information communication system (networking) and

(iv) Information analysis (decision support) system.

Operational information is used daily and routinely and allows the organization to carry on its daily

tasks. It serves the operational level of functional units of the organization. The information needs

of planning consists of knowledge of current and past performances, forecasts on future performance,

view of government policies, technological developments, market changes, and a feel for the political,

social and economic climate. Effective control requires detailed information on performance at the

lowest level of the organization.

OPTIMUM UTILIZATION OF IT IN PUBIC ADMINISTRATION

There is a need for improvement in quality of services rendered by the government. The importance

of computers can be attributed to its speed, accuracy, deterministic characteristics and connectivity,

which has conquered time and distance. Today, IT is more than a resource, it is an environment.

Development is a complicated process, which involves not only economic aspects, but also social,

political and environmental forces. The major challenge facing the systems analysts and designers is

to overcome the built-in resistance in the bureaucracy and official systems that do not permit

changes many a times.

IT is an integrated technology, which includes within its sphere, computer, telecommunication

and broadcasting products, by recognizing the technological convergence of these three fields. IT is

an essential pre-requisite for providing basic infrastructure inputs to secure the desired industrial

development and economic progress.

Adequate dissemination of information is essential for social change. Government should

understand the enormous potential of IT not only as a tool for improving governance and creating

more jobs, but more significantly as a means to greatly enhance the standard of living of the

people. Use of it in enhancing the delivery of government services leads to a very responsive and

transport administration, facilitating empowerment of people, satisfying their right to information.

The following steps could be taken to enhance the quality of administration:-

1. Ensure involvement of people from professional bodies in governmental decision-making

process

2. Shift to performance orientation, rather than a procedure oriented bureaucratic set up

3. Ensure full participation of personnel working at all levels of management

4. Identify the common factors and differentiating characteristics in developing a model

information service.

5. Besides strong political will, a programme/ project needs honest implementation with a

definite and clearly defined objectives

6. IT strategy must stem from business models to ensure that mission critical applications get

top priority

SUGGESTIONS TO ENHANCE IT APPLICATIONS

Management comprises three levels: operational, tactical and executive (in ascending order).

The data requirement varies which the level of management. As one moves up the hierarchy,

the data gets refined, filtered and in the process quantity of data is reduced but its quality is

enhanced. The application of IT should thus be consistent with the goals and objectives of

management.

Emphasis should be on IT training rather than IT education. Schools need to shift from

mere teaching technology to teaching application of technology as well.

One has to look at specific application areas of IT that can make a real impact on the Indian

scene during the next two decades. The contents and subject matter to be available through

these technologies must be consistent with the need of different categories of users.

The officers should be linked by network, and the businessman may get a single – window

clearance.

Experiment with the new may be made only when existing and available resources have

been optimally utilized and fully exploited.

One department at national level should be responsible for the development and import of

required hardware and application software to be used by other departments in the country.

This would save time, energy and resources.

EXAMPLES OF IT PROJECTS IN INDIA

1. BHOOMI - Karnataka - Land reforms

2. APSWAN - Andhra - Secretariat

3. WARNA - Maharashtra - Co-operatives

4. GYANDOOT - M.P. - Education

5. RAJSWIFT - Rajasthan - Organisation Effectiveness

6. FRIENDS - Kerala - Delivery Services

MARXIST VIEW OF BUREAUCRACY

Marx did not write extensively on bureaucracy. Yet, what he did write was not insignificant. He

placed bureaucracy and studied it, in the context of his study of state of in the capitalist society. For

him, it was the apparatus of the state i.e. civil service.

PERSPECTIVE ON ADMINISTRATIVE REALITY

Marx’s assumptions are the following:

1. He saw the individual human being as selfish in nature, promoting his self interest. In

particular, the bureaucrat is self-seeking and self-aggrandizing.

2. This was a materialist conception of the state, in contrast to Hegel’s idealist view that

regarded state as an ethical entity.

In regarding state as representing the interests of the capitalist class, there are 2 marxist

positions:

1. Fundamentalist model – Aaronovitch sees bureaucracy as directly manned and controlled

by the ruling class. Thus, given that top civil servants and members of government advisory

bodies are directly connected to the capitalist class, it will naturally favour this class.

2. Relative Autonomy Model – Poulantzas says that bureaucracy need not necessarily be from

the ruling class to serve the latter’s interests. State as part of superstructure being conditioned

by the base, bureaucracy automatically represents the interests of capital. This in fact,

better serves the capitalist class as free from internal squabbles of groups within the class,

bureaucracy serves the whole class and also it can easily portray that it serves the entire

society.

HOW DOES THE BUREAUCRACY PROMOTE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL?

In explaining this, Marxists Westergaard and Resler are explaining the 20 th century state, welfare

state.

1. State makes laws to safeguard private property, the basis of exploitation of the subject

class.

2. Bureaucracy is engaged in a large no of activities that appear to benefit the subject class in

particular or society as a whole. These include regulatory legislation to improve health and

safety in the workplace, direct provision through national health services and free education

for all and also distribution i.e. security benefits as old-age pensions and unemployment and

sickness insurance.

3. These it says are meant to act as safety-valves to diffuse working class unrest that might

threaten ruling-class dominance. But these activities only smoothen the rough edges of

insecurity while leaving the basic structure of inequality intact. Further, even these have been

financed from the wages of those they are intended to benefit, resulting in little redistribution

of wealth.

3. State’s direct production role in economy is explained as establishing the basic conditions

for business prosperity and growth. This objective explains nationalization of basic

industries as energy and transport. State also contributes financially to the private sector e.g.

by pubic finance institutions.

BUREAUCRACY

1. Represents interests of the dominant class i.e. from the fundamentalist model, its own

interests. It only parades these interests as the public interest, if the people get taken in by

this; it is false-class consciousness.

2. The individual bureaucrat is self-aggrandizing, chasing after promotions, high posts and has

excessive attachment to status and prestige.

3. Apart from being selfish, bureaucracy is oppressive. Thus it enmeshes and controls civil

society in every aspect of existence – from the most important to the most trivial.

4. In turn, it does not submit itself to any control by others. This, it ensures through its

secretive nature secured internally by hierarchy and externally by its character as a

closed corporation. It keeps aloof from society, frowns upon any and complicates its

political consciousness among people, its affairs to a degree that most people cannot

comprehend it.

In fact, Lenin believed, contrary to Weber, parliaments are mere talking shops and

cannot control bureaucracy which really conducts governmental work.

5. Not being directly or organically linked to the mode of production, bureaucracy leads a

parasitic existence.

6. Bureaucracy is inherently incompetent. The superior does not know the specifics of the

case, the subordinate does not know the general objectives and thus, none comprehends the

totality of the situation. Hierarchy of structure thus means hierarchy of knowledge too-

Vertical and functional differentiation.

7. A bureaucrat thinks he can do everything but in fact, lacks initiative and imagination. This

leads to mere combination and mutual reinforcement of incompetence.

8. The mentality of bureaucracy is idolatry of authority and is passively obedient of

authority. In other words, anyone who has authority can direct the bureaucracy to any end.

9. Bureaucracy is and status-quoist, believing in fixed principles, attitudes, behaviours and

traditions.

FUTURE OF BUREAUCRACY

State, being an instrument of ruling class domination and exploitation of subject class, must be

eliminated. This can only be ensured by changing the nature of economic base to which the state

bureaucracy owes its position. In other words, with social ownership of means of production,

bureaucracy will disappear. While recognizing the need for some form of administrative

organization in the socialist society, Weber’s ideal typical model was rejected both by Lenin and Mao.

Thus, administrators would be directly appointed by the people and subject to recall any time.

Their wages would not exceed those of any worker. They would only lead, not command. Division of

labour and technical specialization and the professional administrator are replaced by a system where

everyone can take care of everything in the organization. Administrative tasks are simplified to the

point that only basic literacy and numeracy are sufficient skills to perform them.

Thus, everybody in the community would have the skills necessary to directly administer the

organization as also directly control and supervise it. Thus, all can become bureaucrats for a time

and so no one can become a bureaucrat. Administrative leaders would also spend some time in

actual production, in field and factories.

The rigid hierarchy will be abolished as it stifles the energy and initiative of the masses. Fixed rules

and regulations only repress the masses and so will be changed as the masses see fit.

Thus the repressive state bureaucracies of the capitalist society will be replaced by a truly democratic

system. The organization would be directly controlled and administered by the masses.

However these prophecies have not come true. In the former USSR, under Lenin himself, there was

expansion, than dismantling of state bureaucracy. Even accounting for the transitional dictatorship of

the proletariat, a mature USSR did not reverse trend of bureaucratization. In fact Alfred Meyer

says, bureaucracy is the organizing principle of the soviet Society which may be seen as a large,

complex bureaucracy just like any large organization of the west. As to its exact nature, opinions are

divided. Milovan Djilas says Soviet bureaucrats have directed the polity and economy for their

benefit, exploiting the masses and allowing the latter no opportunity to participate in or control

administration. In fact, bureaucracy has itself emerged as an elite – a ‘power elite’ as Bottommore

and Raymond Aron see it – controlling political, economic and military power, using this absolute

and unbounded power for self-enrichment than for the society as a whole.

David lane agrees that bureaucratization in USSR is opposed to democracy but it does not take away

from the fact that the industrialization and the social change brought about by the centralized

bureaucracy has benefited all members of society.

An attempt to remove the bureau was made in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. One, there

was ‘role shifting’ i.e. leaders moved to the base of the organization to empathize with the workers

and minimize status differences. Secondly, there was group-based decision-making i.e. workers

directly participate in decision making in the factory. The impact of these however was as short as the

revolution itself. Yeo-Chi King saw Mao’s intervention as a kind of charismatic break from

bureaucratic routine. Weber proved correct and this charismatic authority was rapidly routinized

back to bureaucracy.

MARX VS WEBER

In general, Weber’s work is seen as providing a corrective to Marx’s mono-causal determination

of events. Weber thus responded to most themes touched upon by Marx insisting the comment that he

was having a dialogue with the ghost of Marx. In particular, both studied bureaucracy.

To Marx, bureaucracy meant only the bureaucratic apparatus of the state i.e. the civil service.

For Weber however, it had a wider meaning. It meant a form of organization – public or private.

Weber’s view was correct hill 1950s when both public and private sector organizations were

bureaucratic. Since then, private sector has started abandoning bureaucracy.

For Marx, bureaucracy was a specific creation of the capitalist society. Bureaucracy serves

interests of ruling class. For Weber, bureaucracy is a more general phenomenon – a

manifestation of rationalization i.e. rise of industrial society. It is found in all industrial

societies, capitalist or socialist. Studies of Milovan Djilas, David Lane, Raymond Aron and T.B.

Bottommore confirm Weber’s view.

Weber believed Parliament can effectively control bureaucracy. Marxists as Lenin have

rejected this view. They say parliaments are mere talking shops; while bureaucracy, away from

parliament, really conducts work of government.

The nature of administrative organization prophesied by Marxists for socialist society is the

antithesis of Weberian ideal type.

Weber rejects Marx’s view that bureaucracy is a parasitic entity.

Marx believed bureaucracy is inherently incompetent and non-rational while Weber believed,

it is the most competent.