Grandstand. The theme of bureaucracy reappears regularly, in various forms, at each presidential election, often to wish for its disappearance. After the “start-up nation”, in 2017, this time we will retain an ephemeral anti-bureaucracy candidacy [celle du philosophe libéral Gaspard Koenig], calling for a country finally freed from its administrative burdens. Each time, the cause brings together under its banner various concerns: the ultraliberals and the libertarians “enemies of the state” ; those who want “release energy” entrepreneurship from the administrative yoke; supporters of new public management ; those who observe – often rightly – certain bureaucratic dysfunctions.
However, this “anti” or “post”-bureaucratism thrives on two misunderstandings, which research in the science of organizations helps to dissipate. First misunderstanding, or implied too little denial: bureaucracies are necessarily public. However, if we go back to the fundamentals of Max Weber (1864-1920), father of the concept, a bureaucracy is a hierarchical organization structured by formalized rules, which organizes the coordination of work with a view to producing a good or a common service.
Any organization, whether public or private, which exceeds a very modest size (i.e. any start-up or SME which begins to grow) and which is based on hierarchies (of ” managers”) and formalized rules, is therefore a bureaucracy. Whoever calls for less bureaucracy therefore also addresses private companies.
Second misunderstanding: we generally reduce bureaucracy to its excesses, systematically forgetting its advantages. Certainly, there is no question of denying its well-known dysfunctions: rigidity, lack of innovation, demotivation of employees, loss of meaning, “meetingitis”, excessive paperwork, absurd decisions, etc. But bureaucracy cannot be reduced to this famous “iron cage”: it is, above all, a mode of organization which, compared to the organizations based on serfdom or slavery that preceded it, represents progress. , both in terms of the efficiency of the productive system and well-being and dignity at work.
Surprising vitality
When it comes to efficiency, there is hardly a better way to coordinate the work of hundreds or even thousands of individuals in a structured and efficient way. In matters of well-being, the bureaucracy guarantees a certain fairness of treatment and social protection. We are not required to obey the arbitrariness of a superior who may prove to be despotic, unjust or simply inconstant, because we obey rules considered to be rationally legitimate. In addition, you are free to do what you do outside of time and place of work: there is a strict separation between private and professional life.
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