BUREAUCRATEM VS INSURRECTION

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON THE DIALECTIC OF RATIONALITY

Several of the thinkers who I’ve been exploring in this substack, e.g. Michéa and Nisbet, have harkened back to the 19th century communitarian anarchists as either right wing socialist or pluralists. However, it’s true that at least some of them clearly had more of an insurrectionary flavor to their strategic vision. Bakunin is an iconic case in point. Keeping that in mind, I have made the point that I believe both the concept of the iron cage of rationality and the dynamism implicit in Weber’s terms vergememinschaftung and vergesellschaftung combine to suggest that Weber’s thought points in the direction of a kind of dialectic of rationality (see here).

Such a dialectic ultimately threatens a collapse that reopens the opportunity for temporalist gemeinschaft. The following passage from Weber’s classic essay on bureaucracy does a nice job of capturing both the inexorable momentum of bureaucratic rationality and the futility of insurrectionary overthrow of the bureaucratem. At the same time, the final reference from the passages reminds us of the real alternative to the bureaucratem of the hyper-gesellschaft world. Though Weber remains as ever circumspect about speculating over how we’d get there, again.

If the bureaucratic apparatus ceases to do its work, or if its work is violently obstructed, chaos will erupt. To offset such chaos, it will be hard to come up with replacements for this work from the midst of the [untrained, undisciplined, and unhabituated] governed people. This applies to public administration as well as private business administration. The masses’ material destinies are more and more bound to continual and precise functioning of the increasingly bureaucratically organized private capitalistic institutions. Hence, any thought to put them out of work becomes more and more utopian. Thus, the “files” on the one hand and the discipline of the Beamte [officer] on the other are increasingly the basis for establishing all order in the public as well as in the private sector. This is especially true for “discipline,” no matter how important in practical terms the filing system is for administration. Beamte discipline means precise obedience and submission within their routine daily tasks.

Believing that destruction of the files simultaneously destroys the basis for “acquired” rights and for the underlying Herrschaft [authority], is the naïve idea of Bakuninism. Its reasoning neglects the fact that human beings stick to the norms and regulations that they are used to, independent of the existence of any files. Any reorganization of defeated and dismissed armies takes place by appealing to habits to obediently submit. The restoration of administrative systems that were destroyed by the instigation of revolts, panics, or other catastrophes work the same way.

If such appeals to submission are successful, the defective mechanisms “snaps” back into place. Once the apparatus is up and running, it becomes objectively indispensable. Together with its inherently “impersonal” character, it prepares the apparatus to be easily co-opted to work for anyone who is able to assert dominion [Herrschaft] over it. This stands in contrast to the feudal system that relied on personal loyalty rooted in piety.

I read Weber here as saying that the bureaucratem, with its bureaucratic rationality, has its own logic, which can not be defeated by those who target their assault upon that citadel. The bureaucratem cannot be defeated from within, it is from within. The only means by which it can be overthrown is by an alternate logic: the logic of pluralism, federalism, custom and tradition, organic community, concrete institutions, and a realignment to time biased society. Weber’s dialectic of rationality implies the opening for such an opportunity. I have been long arguing on this substack that if populism is to play a world-historical role in current events, it must find its way back to its historical orientation, as the Schmittian enemy of not merely the managerial class, but the very logic of space biased society.

Toward that end, I’ve a big announcement coming up. So, if you want to be the first in the know, and you haven’t yet, please…

And if you know anyone else interested in such things, please…