DEFINITION

The bureaucracy is an instrument for implementing the policies and laws made by the political decision makers in a polity. Legislators, executives and judges make decisions as to what needs done in the human polity. Those decisions have to be implemented otherwise they might as well not have been made. Laws and policies must be applied or they are no good.

Bureaucracy is that instrument through which society operationalizes its decisions on governing itself. The bureaucracy is a machine, a mechanism through which policies and laws are realized. In theory, the bureaucracy is not supposed to make the decisions and policies it implements, but be a neutral organization through which decisions are actualized in a human polity.

HISTORY

The origin of bureaucracy is long lost in the past. For our present purposes, we know that the Romans had bureaucracy through whom they implemented the laws and rules made in Rome , in Rome 's far-flung Empire. Laws and policies were made at Rome and those were implemented throughout the Roman Empire . Those doing the implementation are bureaucrats.

A person who did not make decisions but merely implements them is a bureaucrat. He is implementing other people's, not his own personal, decisions. As such, a bureaucrat must be impersonal, objective, impartial, unsympathetic and detached in implementing the decisions he is implementing. Rome gave an order for a general to go to war and conquer yet another territory for it, and the general and the army he leads does as Rome's political authorities (emperor, Senate etc) asked him to do. It is not for him to decide whether the decision to go to war is right or wrong, that is for political actors to determine; his role is to do as told.

Bureaucracy is a giant wheel through which society rolls its decisions into motion. Each person working in the bureaucracy is a spoke, an object doing what he is told to do and not asking questions why he should do what he is told to do. The day a bureaucrat asks questions and disobeys orders, he is no longer a bureaucrat, perhaps, and he is now a politician, may be. He at that point should get out of the bureaucracy and go to where he belongs, politics, or he is booted out.

A bureaucrat is a humble servant, a machine operated by the decision makers of society. He is not supposed to have opinions of his own, or if he does to keep them, to himself. Just do what your bosses ask you to do or if you do not want to do them you must quit your job. As long as you want to retain your job as a bureaucrat, you must obey orders and do what told to do, it is not relevant whether what you were told to do is right or wrong.

The Roman army and civilian bureaucracy was, perhaps, the world's best bureaucracy and did what it was told to do. Told to fight and good soldiers fight. Die while fighting for the empire and the good soldier lays his life for his superiors. He does not ask questions.

Rome decides to punish Jews by destroying their temple in 70 AD and gave the order to the local Roman bureaucrat in Jerusalem and he does as he was asked to do and destroyed the temple. He does not ask why he should destroy such a historic monument but just does what he was asked to do.

When the Roman Empire fell in 450 AD, for a while, there was chaos in Europe . Later, the Catholic Church emerged as a universal European Church . The Church replicated the bureaucracy of the Roman army and spread throughout the Roman Empire . It had its headquarters at Rome and the Pope and his cardinals made decisions and the decisions were relayed to the Church's army in the field: Rules emanated from Rome (from the Pope and his council) and went to cardinals in major population centers of Europe, and from them to Archbishops in major cities and from them to Bishops in medium sized cities and from Bishops to reverend fathers, priests in their parishes.

The Church had monasteries and nunneries through out Europe . Here scholastic monks and nuns lived and, among other things, researched how best to control the local areas where they were located. The monks and nuns practically controlled the lives of every person in their areas of operation. Like the modern secret police, these people made sure that the will of Rome was obeyed and that those who did not were punished. An example is for the offender to be ex-communicated from the Holy Church, hence sent to hell fire…later the Church could not wait for people to be damned in hell fire and subjected them to fire right here on earth, I am talking about the Spanish inquisition that burned heretics on the stake.

The Roman Church was a far-flung bureaucracy for controlling Christendom. It worked well. For our present purposes, the Church was part of the roots of modern bureaucracy.

The Church exists to the present except that its power has been weakened. In 1517, Martin Luther challenged the authority of the popes of Roman and precipitated wars that lasted over 130 years. At the end of those religious wars, the Catholic Church failed to bring back Protestants to the Church. The treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which ended the religious wars, essentially saw the creation of the modern nation states.

The Catholic Church was further weakened by the rise of secularism and scientism. Today, very few educated persons really pay much attention to the doctrinal policies emerging from Rome . In the past, the Popes encyclicals ruled the Christian world. Today, folks see them as just another superstition that they have to tolerate until religion is done away with from human society.

The various kings of Europe had their own bureaucracies for governing their kingdoms. They had officials spread out in their kingdoms making sure that folks obeyed the kings' divine rights to rule, to make laws for them. Those who did not obey the king were arrested by the sheriff, judged, and if found guilty, sent to jail or even killed. Bureaucrats enabled the monarchs of Europe to control the people and maintain law and order.

The above past bureaucracies contributing to the modern bureaucracy were exactly that, antecedents, for none of them remotely resembles the modern bureaucracy.

The modern bureaucracy is a 19^th century phenomenon. Throughout the Western world efforts were made to professionalize the bureaucracy. Prior to that movement, in America , for example, winning presidents used to sweep into town and appoint their cronies into most government offices. This was called the patronage and spoils system. You won the presidency and you came to Washington and kicked out whoever was working for Uncle Sam and replaced them with your own people, those who worked in your campaign.

In 1887, Congress passed the first civil service law requiring that civil servants be hired on merit and not just be the cronies of the president. A Congressional Act established the Civil Service Commission to hire and supervise a professional civil service. Ultimately, Congress passed laws that civil servants are employed by Uncle Sam, not by the president, and that they be recruited on the basis of merit and promoted on the basis of merit. Thus, it came to pass that a professional civil service was established in God's own country, thanks largely due to the efforts of Woodrow Wilson, the scholar President of Princeton University who later became an idealistic president of the United States (remember his 14 points proposals to make the world safe for democracy?)

While America was turning its corrupt civil service into a professional civil service, other European countries were doing the same thing around the same time. In Prussia , the Kaiser's chancellors turned their civil service and army into a marvelous machine for carrying out the will of their emperor. The German civil servant and soldier did exactly as he was told to do, no questions asked. He was the quintessential bureaucrat, a machine for carrying out the will of politicians. Max Weber wrote admiringly about these Prussian machine men.

With those machine men, the iron fisted chancellor, Von Bismarck, smashed the French army in 1870 and made Germany a united country.

The modern bureaucracy came into being in the late 19^th century. By the 1920s we essentially have the bureaucracy we have today. Max Weber described this new type of human organization so well that we just have to summarize what he said. As he sees it, the bureaucratic organization is hierarchical in structure, is a pyramid with fewer persons at the top, many at the bottom and few in the middle. Those at the top giving orders to those at the bottom. Those at the bottom obey what they were told to do without asking questions. Those at the top, in turn, are told what to do by the civilian leaders of society and they obey without asking questions.

For example, Congress passed laws/policies and gave them to the right bureau to implement. The top bureaucrats in that bureau write procedures on how to carry that order out and go about doing so in an impersonal, objective manner. There is nothing personal about the bureaucrat's behavior; he is just doing his duty.

Bureaucrats are recruited on the basis of merit. Generally, they are required to take examinations and qualify for the positions that they are applying for.

The jobs that bureaucrats do are not their personal jobs. Rather, those jobs are roles in an organization, and any one could be hired to perform the job specification described for each role. Indeed, it would be better if machines could do the jobs, so that we did away with human sentimentalities and emotions.

There is a job description and one is hired to do that job. If one can do it one stays, if not one is fired. That is all there is to it. A bureaucracy is not a charity house. The employee is used by the organization to achieve goals others set, that he did not set. His job is to help the organization accomplish the goals the decision makers of society set for it.

Bureaucratic organizations must follow procedures. They must rigidly adhere to procedures, policies, how things are done there and should never deviate and do their own things. It does not matter whether the person in front of a bureaucrat is a family member or friend or foe, he is supposed to treat him or her according to the rules of his bureau. No favoritisms allowed and no nepotism permitted.

Bureaucrats are required to do their jobs without enthusiasm and feelings of rightness or wrongness, but to just do what the job descriptions call on them to do or they are sacked from the bureau (French for office…bureaucrats, office workers).

Bureaucratic organizations are not democratic organizations where all members gather and collectively make decisions regarding what to do. Instead, they are machines used by the decision makers of society to accomplish their goals and objectives. Bureaucratic organizations are non-democratic for employees cannot be democratic when the decisions that they are implementing are not theirs in the first place.

Bureaucratic organizations are excellent instruments for those who formulate political policies to implement them.