Bureaucratization of public service increased worker alienation by eliminating paternalistic rewards.
Evidence
Public service work, particularly in street-level bureaucracies, has become more bureaucratic over time. Civil service and other developments have made worker recruitment more universalistic. This development may also have affected the extent to which workers are able to help clients and see the results of their efforts because treatment of clients has also become more universalistic. Congruity between the social background of workers and clients does not have the same place in public service interactions as it used to. The fabled paternalism of social workers and school teachers in the past may have functioned to give street-level bureaucrats a sense of responsibility and reward for outcomes, even if these gratifications were founded on inequalities and favoritism. Thus the bureaucratization of public service may have been accompanied by increased worker alienation. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 595
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Whyte’s and Braverman’s labor-process accounts in the surrounding alienation discussion, and to the reader’s core question about how administrative structure changes outpace cultural/narrative change. — connects to: Bureaucratization eroded the paternalism that once rewarded frontline workers — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 595; Public employers chose pay and sanctions over restructuring alienating work — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 598; Civil service protections and tenure-based benefits trap discontented bureaucrats in their jobs. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1059
- SEED: A counterintuitive angle for an essay: the bureaucratization meant to make public service fairer may have stripped workers of the felt responsibility that motivated discretionary care for clients.
Broader Connections
- Bureaucratization eroded the paternalism that once rewarded frontline workers
#expands(0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 595