“Max Weber said that it is not wise to apply to public administration the sort of moral and ethical norms we apply to matters of personal conscience. It is important to realize that the state bureaucracy might possess its own independent bureaucratic morality.” Critically analyse this statement.
Max Weber, a German thinker, defines bureaucracy as a highly structured, formalized, and also an impersonal organization. Weber felt that bureaucracy should be designed according to a rational principle. According to him, bureaucrats should be guided by rules and regulations which should override moral and ethical norms of personal conscience. If he be given a chance to skip rules and regulations he might resort to misuse of power. A bureaucrat acts as a facilitator only. Hence, the bureaucrats should not use his discretion in public administration and their actions should be guided by standard operating procedures (SoP). As there is too much emphasis on these inflexible and rigid rules and regulations, typically, bureaucracy involves a lot of paperwork which leads to a waste of time, money, and also effort. The rules and formalities lead to an unnecessary delay in the decision-making process.
He also instituted the belief that an organization must have a defined hierarchical structure and clear rules, regulations, and lines of authority which govern it. The bureaucratic system gives top-level management all the significance and control.
Due to these characteristics, there is a popular perception that public experiences a sense of personal frustrations in its dealing with state bureaucracy. However, such frustration is a by-product of the achievement of other objectives that the public also values highly such as desire to ensure fairness, justice and equality in treatment of citizens – a crucial qualitative feature of modern government that is largely taken for granted.
Weber’s theory fit well for developed countries like France, Germany. However, developing countries like India where there is a need to undertake various socio-economic challenges like Poverty, Malnutrition, Caste inequality etc. and for this, what’s imperative is values/ethics in administration such as empathy, equity, compassion, integrity, non-partisanship, impartiality, etc.
The one sided rationality sustains itself through repressing and marginalizing of values. This results in the bureaucracy developing into an elite class at the cost of public cause depriving the disadvantaged the needy things.
“It is not merely bigger government that ultimately matters: what is significant is that morality in administration alone could ensure better government. One would not doubt that the morality in administration is sustained by patience, honesty, loyalty, cheerfulness, courtesy and like traits.” – Paul H. Appleby.
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