Economy and Society: A New Translation

This order is, in princi ple, applicable to enterprises pursuing com mercial, charitable, or any other kind of private ideals or material aims, is equally applicable to po liti cal or hierocratic organisations, and can also be demonstrated to have existed historically (with a greater or lesser coincidence with the pure type). 1. For example, the bureaucracy is, in princi ple, the same whether one con siders private clinics, endowed hospitals, or hospitals maintained by religious orders. It can also be seen in the modern administrative role of the Catholic priesthood, which has expropriated practically all church livings that had for merly been privately appropriated. It is also evident in the conception of the universal episcopacy, which is thought to formally constitute a universal legal competence in religious matters. Likewise, the doctrine of papal infallibility is thought of as in fact involving a universal competence, but only one that functions “ex cathedra” in the domain of the office, thus implying the typical distinction between the domain of the office and that of the private affairs of the incumbent. 3 It is just the same in the cap i tal ist enterprise, the larger it is, the more so, and no less true of the po liti cal party as an enterprise (which will be discussed separately), 4 nor of the modern bureaucratic a r my, led by military officials of a special kind called “officers.” 2. Bureaucratic rule prevails in its purest form where the princi ple of nom- ination of officials is adhered to. There is no such thing as a hierarchy of elected officials in the same way that there is one of nominated officials; the former approach makes it very difficult to approach even very approximately the disciplinary rigour of the latter. In that case, the subordinate can insist on se lection just as much as the superior, and his Chancen do not depend on a s u p e r i o r ’s judgement (on elected officials, see §14 below). 3 For a modern reader, these remarks on the evolution of religious bureaucracy are extremely cryptic in the original, and I have here generally adopted Parsons’s useful gloss, rather than seek a closer, and consequently obscure, translation. 4 There is no subsequent discussion of party organisation. Types of Rule 349 3. Appointment by contract, presuming free se lection, is the essence of modern bureaucracy. Where unfree officials (slaves or dependants) are placed in a hierarchy with material competences—in a formally bureaucratic manner—we will talk in terms of a “patrimonial bureaucracy.” 4. In a bureaucracy, the role of specialist qualification is constantly in creasing. Even party and trade union officials need specialist knowledge that is acquired empirically. The fact that a modern “minister” and a “state presi dent” are the only “officials” requiring no specialist qualifications only goes to prove that they are officials only in a formal and not in a material sense; just like the “general director” of a large private limited com pany.

This order is, in princi ple, applicable to enterprises pursuing com mercial, charitable, or any other kind of private ideals or material aims, is equally appli…