Problems with Bureaucracies
Inefficiency, rigidity
- alienation
- bureaucratic personality, inertia, ritualism
- oligarchy
- Parkinson’s Law and Peter principle
Perpetuation of inequality
Notes:
Bureaucracies should function to increase the operation of society. However, problems
arise. Weber was very concerned about the dehumanizing aspects of bureaucracy.
He regarded the impersonal treatment in such structures to be dehumanizing and
predicted the growth of alienation.
Ritualism develops in organizations as members begin to over rely on rules and
regulations to the point of obstructing organizational goals. Moreover,
bureaucracies tend to perpetuate themselves via inertia.
Oligarchy is the rule by a few. Michels suggested that powerful persons in bureaucracies
tend to accumulate power and use it to benefit themselves.
Parkinson's Law says that work expands to fill the time allotted for it. The Peter Principle
says that bureaucrats are promoted to their level of incompetence.