Bureaucracy and Development

Satya Deva The theory of bureaucracy suffers from contradictions and has reached an impasse, Weber's contribution lies, not in discovering the characteristics of bureaucracy, since these were mentioned by Kautilya and Hegel before him, but in legitimising it, in the face of Marx's criticism, on the ground of its rationality, indicated chiefly by its use of specialised knowledge. However, he confuses between specialisation of function and specialisation of knowledge, and fails to realise the significance of the fact that generalist administrators are given higher status and emoluments than specialists. He also tries to ignore the fact that bureaucratisation involves exploitation and alienation, which interfere with the utilisation and growth of science and technology.