Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 8 Connections between formal rationality and patriarchal-patrimonial domination
over and through men
149
7. Rationalization of bureaucracy: central official, clerks and collegiate bodies
Weber's description of the rationalization process of the patrimonial bureaucratic apparatus
is more fragmentary than his analysis of formal and material rationalization of patrimonial
law. In his chapter on 'feudalism, Ständestaat and patrimonialism' he deals only with the
special central offices, in particular with the institution of the central official, adding some
remarks on the working officials, the clerks, on collegiate bodies and on patrimonial
education.
The office of central official is an ancient one; it supplements the discontinuous activities of
the table companions and confidants of the lord.
46
Most often the central official is a favorite,
a court official 'whose function involves the closest, purely personal position of confidence':
he is keeper of the harem, executioner, or major domus. This central official can threaten the
power of the lord, as happened under the Merovingians; however, when the lord, fearing a
take-over, tries to do without one - as the Carolingian lords did - the realm is threatened by
disintegration.
There is still another type of officials which has a decisive influence on the rationalization
process: the *writing and accounting officials. Even in a feudal system the patrimonial ruler
who possessed a developed clerical and accounting system could hold an considerable
amount of centralized power; in Normandy and later in England this power was based on the
accounting office, the Exchequer. Most of the time the chancellor, the head of the
secretariat, was the central figure of the political administration.
47
Rationalization originates
in these offices, since the power in them shifts from courtiers to working officials
48
.
The next factor in the rationalization process are the great collegiate central agencies which
Weber deals with in his chapter on bureaucracy
49
, and which, because of the sequence
formal rationality-tradition-charisma, have been placed before the chapter on patriarchal and
patrimonial domination. Weber here treats the great collegiate bodies as an instance of the
'qualitative extension of administrative tasks'; in his view they resulted in an increase of the
interest of specialized knowledge as a foundation of the power of the office holder.
50
Since
the absolute ruler, due to lack of public criticism, depends on the bureaucracy itself for his
information, the bureaucrats can often ignore him, putting him in his place as a 'dilettante'.
51
46
ES p. 1088, WG p. 638.
47
ES p. 1089, WG p. 639.
48
'At the same time, such offices are regularly the beginning of bureaucratization, because the working officials,
who were mostly clerics in medieval times, gain actual control from the high-ranking courtiers who officially
occupy them.' Weber continues: 'In ancient Egypt the scribes controlled the administration.' He thus suggests
that this power shift occurred very early. I think this suggestion of a power shift is one of the elements in Weber's
construction of a direct development from patrimonial to rational bureaucracy.
49
ES p. 994 ff., WG p. 574 ff.
50
'Since the specialized knowledge of the expert became more and more the foundation for the power of the
officeholder, an early concern of the ruler was how to exploit the special knowledge of experts without having to
abdicate in their favor.'
51
ES p. 993, WG p. 573.
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