Bureaucracy expands through technical superiority over other organizational forms

Evidence

In Weber’s view, bureaucracies, following their own law, are destined to expand. In the recent past the Nazi SS offers the most horrid example of this thesis. Weber finds the foundation for his thesis in the technical superiority of the organizational type of administration in contrast to traditionalist organization: ‘The decisive reason for the advance of bureaucratic organization has always been its purely technical superiority over every other form of organization. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 151

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• XREF: Captures how Adorno appropriates Weber’s bureaucracy thesis (from Theory of Social and Economic Organization) to ground his own account of administered culture.