Overcoming And Its Limits

This dissertation tries to clarify the western bureaucracy theories from the three aspects of organization, politic and ethic. The organization aspect in bureaucracy, according to Max Weber, Robert.k.Merton, Michel Crozier and the New Public Management, is characterized by hierarchy, impersonality and rationalism with the essential blemish at heels. In the aspect of politic, the reflection on the theory of Max Weber, Robert Michels and the democratic administration theory illuminates the confliction between bureaucracy and political democracy, which may be displayed that the political democracy is depreciated and even disabled by bureaucracy with its centralization of power and hierarchy. In ethical aspect, the problem caused by bureaucracy is disclosed by Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman and Habermas, which demonstrates itself as alienation of human beings. A number of important values are looked for by modern bureaucracy: Efficiency and effectiveness of administration in organization, democracy and equality in politic, and the individual liberty and moral responsibility in ethic. But unfortunately, bureaucracy couldn't achieve the harmony between such values in each other. The maximum of efficiency may always degrade the democratic value, and as counterpart the justification of every advice and argument in public realm may produce inefficiency in administration. The prevailing of impersonality may destroy the individual liberty and personality, but to emphasize the individualism in consequence would never construct a modern standard bureaucracy of impersonality and rationalism on the whole.In order to resolve such fundamental problems, "Banishing bureaucracy" is put forward in the theory of New Public Management, public participation is emphasized by democratic administration theory, and equal dialogue in public realm philosophizes in the theory of Hannah Arendt and Habermas, but all such theoretical efforts are received only by predicament. The reformation of "Banishing bureaucracy" in western society governed by capital and technical rationalism couldn't overcome the essential irrationalism on the whole in bureaucracy, besides making it more reasonable formally. Democratic administration in globalization era, taking the economical value as its perpetual telos, demonstrates itself only as a balance of conflicting private profit, and the veritable political democracy is still in need. The equal dialogue in public realm presupposes the individual's responsibility for judgment of moral and values, and the individual political action. But such dialogue is crippled by the deprivation of political judgment and the restriction of liberty to private realm.Such conflictions of these values deny the neutrality of bureaucracy as an administrative tool, which factually is inseparably combined with modern values distributing in politic, economy and social culture. The wanting for efficiency in administration, democracy in politic and liberty of individual shows the consideration and criticism of bureaucracy reality, and expresses the will for ideal politic in modern society. Utopian may seemed to be, such reflective theories can still converge into an everlasting energy for bureaucracy advancement, lightening the telos of social development and directing our action in political and administrative affairs for perfection.