Max Weber's Vision for Bureaucracy: A Casualty of World War I (review)

Abstract

[MWS 18.2 (2018) 294-305] ISSN 1470-8078 https://doi.org/10.15543/MWS/2018/2/7© Max Weber Studies 2018, Rm 4-12, London Metropolitan University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ. Book Reviews Glynn Cochrane, Max Weber’s Vision for Bureaucracy: A Casualty of World War I (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), xii + 194pp. (hbk). ISBN 978-3-319-62288-0. $109.99. Glynn Cochrane’s Max Weber’s Vision for Bureaucracy may seem to offer an account of Max Weber’s conception of bureaucracy but in fact it does not. Instead, it is a conceptually confusing account of Weber’s conception of bureaucracy and an inaccurate historical record of Prussian bureaucracy. Cochrane claims that Weber’s personal military service, coupled with his study of the military experience , formed his conception of bureaucracy—but that this ‘vision for bureaucracy’ was ended by Germany’s defeat in 1918. His account is largely devoted to condemning Weber’s work and then setting out his own idealized view of bureaucracy. He proceeds in three major steps: describing Weber’s notion of bureaucracy, comparing it with the Prussian military bureaucracy, and then expounding his own theory of bureaucracy. Cochrane does not spend much time detailing Weber’s conception of bureaucracy, and when he does he relies primarily on secondary sources. His main aim is to show that ‘Weber’s thinking about bureaucracy was heavily influenced by the highly successful experience of the Prussian General Staff’ (3). Cochrane is correct to note that scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Joachim Radkau have largely ‘passed over Weber’s military service’. His attempt to argue for the importance of this experience in Weber’s intellectual development, however, is unpersuasive. He is wrong to claim that Weber ‘began to enjoy military life’ (5). As much as he detested the physical discomfit of military life, he found the drills even worse—they were nothing more than a ‘monstrous stupidity’, according to Marianne Weber. In order to cope with this ‘meaningless and seemingly endless existence’, he would stay out late drinking and then, in a ‘dreamlike, semi-conscious state of mind’, he was able to stand the military routine. The only way that he could perform the drills was when he was hung over.1 1. Marianne Weber, Max Weber: A Biography, trans. and ed. Harry Zohn (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988), p. 71. Book Reviews 295© Max Weber Studies 2018. Cochrane attempts to show the commonalities between Clausewitz and Weber: ‘Weber followed Clausewitz in giving priority to Germany’s need for national security’. They shared a similar type of ‘goal setting analysis’, and ‘like Clausewitz, Weber used the dialectic in order to frame the issues in his use of the Ideal-Type’ (37, 58, 61). Yet, Clausewitz was concerned with Prussia because Germany as a nation would not exist until January 1871. In addition, Weber and Clausewitz did not share the same goal-setting analysis and Weber certainly did not employ any type of ‘the dialectic’. Clausewitz is discussed in several places but the most detailed discussion is about Clausewitz’s four types of leader (12-14). Yet, Clausewitz concentrated on strategy and tactics and devoted only one chapter out of 125 to leadership qualities (Book One, Chapter 3: ‘On Military Genius’). There is no entry on Clausewitz in any of the six MWG volumes that are devoted to Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, there is no entry in the ten volumes that contain Weber’s correspondence, and there are no references to him in any of the six volumes that pertain to politics or the East Elbian region. Cochrane offers his own view of bureaucracy, which he maintains is based upon his lengthy experience in international banking and in public health programs (xi-xii, 103-107, 118). He believes that the best type of bureaucracy is one that has a ‘flexible hierarchy’ and employs ‘amazing logistics’, where the best workers have ‘strong discipline’ and a true commitment to their ‘calling’ (108-112). Moreover , this involves teamwork, individual initiative, and the ability to think (15, 21, 42, 117, 127, 134, 136). He also insists that these attributes were found in the Prussian Army of the nineteenth century. Yet, it is...