Medium and small rural bourgeoisie dominate the bureaucratic career in modern Europe

Evidence

The first problem to be studied is the following: does there exist, in a given country, a widespread social stratum in whose economic life and political self-assertion (effective participation in power, even though indirectly, by “blackmail”) the bureaucratic career, either civil or military, is a very important element? In modern Europe this stratum can be identified in the medium and small rural bourgeoisie, which is more or less numerous from one country to another—depending on the development of industrial strength on the one hand, and of agrarian reform on the other. Of course the bureaucratic career (civil and military) is not the monopoly of this social stratum; however, it is particularly well suited to the social function which this stratum carries out, and to the psychological tendencies which such a function produces or encourages. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 838

Categorization

• XREF: Provides the class-base analysis of bureaucracy that later critical-theory readings on state administration may build on.