Welcome to the iron cage

• A complex, multi-faceted social and historical process that takes on particular forms and leads to particular versions of rationality, depending upon historical and social circumstances
• places a premium on specialized technical and scientific knowledge, impersonality, control and calculability.
• Formal and substantive rationalization
  • Formal: policies and procedures (calculable, e.g., market economy, law, bureaucracy)
  • Substantive: rational policies (e.g., marriage promotion and poverty (as welfare policy)—the ends address means, even if it’s irrational for the ‘recipients’ and citizens)—what happens if it’s less scientific and technical (what is it based on? Different science about politics, power?)
  • e.g., cause and effect, drought in West Africa; abstinence-only programs (based on what?)
  • music: another example? Linear, predictable, 12 tones, cord progressions, keys, polyvocality (and complexity of compositions), standard rhythms, tempos, etc.
  • Religion—Weber and ‘salvation’ religions—versus, for instance, Eastern mysticism
  • traits
    • professionalization, calculability, formal rules, social coordination, control—bureaucracy
  • transformative—Randall Collins refers to rationalization as the master trend of history. Is it irreversible??
• Example: penetration of a cash economy—how does this change people’s lives?
  • Need for income
  • Importance of market, cash exchange
  • New goods, decisions to be made
  • Cash crops—decisions about farming having less to do with the land than with economics
  • Rationalization’s reach:
    • Bridewealth and commercialism in Africa—what kinds of things become part of a woman’s bridewealth in a market economy??
    • At one point, they were things a woman would need in her household–clothing, storage chest, kitchen utensils, pots, water vessels, some farming tools–all the things a woman needs to demonstrate she was ‘worth’ the bridewealth price (bridewealth is a transfer of wealth from groom to bride’s family; dowry, found more often in Asia, transfers wealth from bride to groom’s family, presumably as Asian women are someone less likely to be the primary farm laborers).
    • And now? Boom boxes, batteries, hair extensions, cosmetics–a whole galaxy of products are negotiated, down to the specific battery size, for instance.
    • Size, complexity and power drive rationalization, which then drives itself. In other words, as societies grow and become more complex, Weber says that new sorts of social arrangements and institutions will emerge that address the societal problem of social order.

Bureaucracy: organization, rationality 

• Weber describes the ‘ideal type’ or ideal typical bureaucracy–what sociologists call the ‘normative’ form, the way it should work. However, when bureaucracies are populated by pesky humans, rarely do they work as they may have been intended. You all understand this intuitively, if you’ve ever tried to get something done in an office and run into people who seem to hate their jobs to an extent that the only real pleasure they seem to derive from work is the dissatisfaction of the clientele. Some of the key traits of Weber’s ideal typical bureaucracy include:
  • Equal treatment for all employees. This is referred to as universalism, as opposed to particularism. If you’ve worked somewhere where the boss’ insufferable nephew was your immediate supervisor, and could do whatever he wanted, or where people who come in the door are treated differently based on whether they’re friends of the staff, you understand. Welfare agencies, in practice, should operate thusly: treating everyone equally who walks through the door. Until humans sit at the desks, anyway. So universalism means the rules of the workplace are there to be applied to everyone.
  • Reliance on expertise, skills, and experience relevant to the position. Science is a big part of bureaucracy. Think about a university faculty–we all have different disciplines, but even different areas of specialty within our disciplines. Doctors specialize early on. Some teachers only do elementary, vs middle or high school. Even football teams have undergone specialization, on the field and in the coaching staff. There are ‘special teams,’ players who only come in for a punt, kickoff or field goal, kickers who specialize in short- or long-range field goals, etc. In a complex social world, specialization is one way to deal with increasing amounts of information that very few people could master (however, it’s also wise to keep in mind that most social problems are poorly understood from any one disciplinary lens).
  • No extraorganizational prerogatives of the position (e.g., perks like taking supplies from the job); the position belongs to the organization, not the individual—it isn’t private property of the individual. For example, in some countries of the South, civil servants are grossly underpaid, and in many cases it is understood that they will supplement their incomes where they can with various forms of bribery, for instance stopping cars for some sort of real or imagined moving violation, a headlight out, etc. The job is in some ways private property. When the British government colonized India, they handed over taxing districts to individuals, under the presumption that anything they collected above and beyond the taxes to be paid to the colonial government was theirs to keep. Particularism, in that case, versus universalism.
  • Specific standards of work and output (school, syllabi, contracts, job descriptions, performance evaluations, etc.).
  • Extensive record keeping dealing with the work and output—This is how people within the hierarchically structured organization are held accountable, and how they know what they’re supposed to do.
  • Establishment and enforcement of rules and regulations that serve the interests of the organization. Think of the US Constitution–written, codified law–as a big example. Traditional societies rarely operate on written rules or laws, and may in fact be preliterate, but they have strong laws based in tradition nonetheless.
  • Recognition that rules and regulations bind managers as well as employees; thus employees can hold management to the terms of the employment contract (yeah, right!)
  • What’s wrong with all that?? Well, add humans to the mix, and the outcomes are somewhat less predictable.

Rationalization was seen by Weber as both an enabler and as a limiting factor. One can have too much, or not enough. For instance, Congress often uses the rules to prevent the other party from doing something. This is where the notion of ‘red tape’ comes into play–we may have all had that experience.

Contemporary examples include Henry Ford’s assembly line; research laboratories; sociotechnical systems (e.g., water, sewage, electricity, health care, defense, education, waste management, transportation, telecommunications); the Holocaust; government data mining projects (spying..), etc. Even bricklaying (Taylor’s time and motion studies).

Weber believed that rationalization, in a world growing increasingly complex, was unavoidable, inevitable. He called it the ‘iron cage.’ His explanation for the rise of capitalism involves a specific kind of ‘rationalized’ capitalism, that was consistent with the beliefs of the Calvinist religion, where adherents believed that industry and work ethic were the highest expressions of Gods wishes for humans, and those who practiced them diligently were likely the chosen ones (a sort of strange cause and effect cosmology, to be sure).