The Nature, Conditions, and Development of Bureaucratic Herrschaft

Beamte are organized into professional tracks, according to the levels of authority in the hierarchy of the government offices [Behörde], which are available from the lowest level, being the lowest paid and least important, to the highest level. Naturally, the average Beamte seeks to establish fixed rules that determine promotions, in a way that is as mechanistic as possible–if not—if not for the advancement through the different Amt, then for an increase in pay level based on “seniority.” Potentially, a system of subject certification is in place, with advancement based on the exam grade, which becomes a lifelong “indelible characteristic”¹⁰ of the Beamte.
The goal of strengthening the “Right to the Amt,” together with the tendency to develop its own professional Stand” and the drive to make the Beamte financially secure leads to the development of Ämter as sinecures for those who are qualified through educational certification [Bildungspatent].¹¹ The necessity to factor in the general personal and intellectual qualifications, independent of the often minor criterion of the educational certificate [Bildungspatent], led to a situation where just the highest political Ämter, specifically the ministerial positions, are generally assigned without reference to an educational certification [Bildungspatent].

The Prerequisites for and Side Effects of Bureaucratization

The social and economic prerequisites for the modern form of Amt are the following:
Monetary and Financial (Development of the Monetary Economy)
The development of the monetary economy, as far as the practice of awarding Beamte salaries—which is the rule today—is considered. The development of the monetary economy is of fundamental importance for the entire habitus¹² of bureaucracy.Yet the monetary development is not the crucial reason for the existence of bureaucracy.
Indeed, this can be seen by comparing great distinctive historic examples of developed bureaucracies, which include the following:
a. Egypt in times of the New Kingdom, where there was a strong patrimonial influence.
b. The later Roman Principate, especially the Diocletian Monarchy [284–305 AD] and the resulting Byzantine political system, which also had strong patrimonial and feudal influences.
c. The Roman Catholic Church, increasingly since the end of the thirteenth century,
d. China from the time of Shi Hoang Ti [259–210 BC] up to the present day, which has strong patrimonial and prebendal influences.
e. In a more and more pure form, the modern European states and increasingly all public administrative bodies, since the emergence of royal absolutism.
f. The large modern capitalistic companies; the larger and more complex the company, the more the development of company bureaucracy.
Cases (a)–(d) are, to a great degree and often the largest extent, based on systems of paying the Beamte in kind. Nevertheless, all four show many distinctive features and effects of bureaucracy. Thus, the historic model for all later bureaucracies—Egypt at the time of the New Kingdom—is at the same time one of the greatest examples of an organization based on a barter economy. However, this coincidence of bureaucracy and barter economy in Egypt is explained in this case by quite peculiar conditions and circumstances. Indeed, all of the substantial restrictions that need to be accounted for when considering these systems as belonging to “bureaucratism” are precisely there due to the barter economy. Hence, a certain degree of monetarized economy is generally a prerequisite for bureaucratic administration, if not for its original emergence, then for its continuing persistence. Indeed, as history shows then, without monetary development, the essence of the bureaucratic structure changes profoundly and will be turned into a wholly different structure.
For thousands of years in Egypt and China, fixed in-kind payments to Beamte were allotted from the master’s storehouses and granaries or out of his ongoing revenue. This payment method also played an important role in the late Roman monarchy and elsewhere. This easily results in a first step toward the appropriation of tax sources and its use as private property by the Beamte. Furthermore, such payments in kind protected the Beamte against often severe fluctuations in a currency’s purchasing power. However, if earnings based on in-kind taxes arrived irregularly—as typically occurred when the master’s power waned—then the Beamte, authorized or not, directly took what was owed to him from the tax liabilities (imposed tributes) of the people over whom he had jurisdiction.
The idea to protect the Beamte against currency fluctuations seems obvious, whether it be by modifying or transferring the fees—and thus also the taxing power—or dedicating the master’s parcels for profitable use of the Beamte. Every central authority that is not tightly organized is tempted to pursue such solutions, either voluntarily or forced by the Beamte.
To pursue this solution, the Beamte takes an amount that equals his salary directly from the taxes of the people and delivers the surplus [directly to the Ruler]. As this contains obvious temptations and, therefore, mostly yields unsatisfactory results for the Ruler, a fixed salary for the Beamte is established. This was done frequently in the past for the German Beamte, or on a bigger scale, in the Satrapy administrations of the East. In this case, the Beamte renders a specified amount of taxes [to the central authority] and keeps the surplus.¹³
The Beamte in this system, in effect, becomes the owner of a “leasing operation.” It may even occur that a legal Amt’s leading relationship is then awarded to the highest bidder. From the standpoint of a private economy, the conversion from a Villikation system to a lease system is the most important of many examples.¹⁴ With such a lease, the master specifically passes on the task of converting the in-kind earnings into money onto the Beamte, who was either a leaseholder or receives regularly a fixed amount of money. That is the system many Oriental proconsuls in Antiquity used. They farmed out the responsibility for collecting tax revenues to the Beamte in systems of “tax farming,” instead of collecting the taxes on their own. As a result, it opened up the most important advancement for putting finances in order, by developing a budgeting system [Etatisierung]. Living from hand to mouth from incalculable in-kind government income that was not rationalized (e.g., calculable) was typical for the earlier stages of every government budget before it was replaced by firm preliminary estimates for income and also of the expenses. But, the problem is that the Ruler pursuing this route forgoes the control and full exploitation of the tax base for his own use. Depending on the degree of relative freedom the Beamte or the leaseholder of an Amt is given, the Ruler endangers the sustainability of the tax base. This might be exploited recklessly by the Beamte or leaseholder because, as capitalists, they do not have the same permanent interest that a Ruler does. So the Ruler seeks to protect himself against such dangers by putting regulations in place.
The concrete form of lease and transfer of the tributes can therefore differ a lot, and depending on the power relations between the sovereign and the leaseholder, either the Ruler’s interest in a sustainable tax base is strengthened, or the leaseholder’s interest in free exploitation of the tax sources gains greater weight.
Among other examples, the tax-leasing system of the Ptolemaic Empire rested on the various effects that the motives discussed above had on each other. There was an interest in eliminating fluctuating revenues, establishing budgets, securing the subjects productivity by protecting them against uneconomical exploitation, and controlling the leaseholders’ revenue used to gain the maximum tax revenues for the state. Nevertheless, in the Ptolemaic Empire, the leaseholder (e.g., the tax farmer) still was a private capitalist, just as he was in Ancient Greece and Rome. The taxes, however, were already collected bureaucratically and were subject to control by the state. This meant that the leaseholder’s profit was only a share of the surplus above the value of his lease (which is de facto a guaranteed sum), while his risk is that the taxes fall below the value of his lease.
When a sovereign finds himself in a situation where he needs not only a regular income but even more so financial capital (e.g., for waging a war or repaying debts), the purely economic conception of offices [Amt] as private source of revenue for the Beamte may directly lead to the purchasing of Amt. This has been a general and regular practice in the modern states, in the Papal States, as well as in France and England. This practice existed in systems of sinecures as well as for very serious Ämter (e.g., for officers’ commissions) and lasted well into the nineteenth century. In isolated cases, the economic purpose of such a situation changes insofar that the buying price for an Amt will partly, or fully, exhibit the characteristics of a security deposit that guarantees the Beamte’s loyalty. But this was not the rule.
All in all, the pure type of bureaucratic organization always breaks down whenever the sovereign transfers his own entitlements to dues, taxes, or services for the personal utilization and exploitation of the Beamte. In this situation, the ownership to the Amt shifts to the Beamte.
The most extreme case is when the relationship between the duty of the Amt and the way reimbursement is shaped develops in such a way that the Beamte does not need to pay tribute at all from the income sources he took on from the sovereign. In this case, he has the sole right to use this income for his own purposes. His only duty is to render service to his sovereign, the character of which could be personal, military, political, or church related. Thus, we want to define the organization of the Amt by “sinecures” and “prebends” as follows: the Beamte is given either
a. rental income that is paid in kind, or
b. land that is mainly of economic use, or
c. other sources of rental income that are mainly of economic use.
These assets are given to him in exchange for the fulfillment of real or notional duties of the Amt. To secure the fulfillment of these duties, the Ruler determines that these incomes are permanently allocated to the Beamte.
The transition from such an organization by sinecures and prebends to the salaried Beamte is fluid. Indeed, the economic base for the priesthood during Antiquity and the Medieval Ages, and even into modern times was based on the “prebendal” system. Nevertheless, the same type of system has also existed in all areas of life at most times.
For example, in Chinese sacred law, the specific sinecure character of all Ämter affected the ritual period of mourning for the leader of the household. During that time, the mourners were forced to abstain from enjoying any of his possessions. Originally, this was based on a superstitious assumption that the recently deceased owner had ill will. This fear led the mourning Beamte to abstain from his Amt during the mourning period because, in the prebendal system, the Amt was seen as a form of rental income provided by the deceased leader of the household.
One step further from the pure type of salaried bureaucracy is attained when not only economic rights are endowed to the Beamte, but also the authority to govern. In return, he has to provide personal services to the Ruler. But the endowed rights to govern may vary. For example, a political Beamte may be endowed with rights that are similar to those of a landlord, or the endowed rights are more similar to those connected to an official Amt. In both cases, and even more so in the latter one, the specific characteristics of a bureaucratic organization is completely destroyed. This happens in the stage when feudal structures are the organizing principles underpinning governance [Herrschaft].
All types of endowment for a Beamte that involve payment in kind for any type of exploitation of natural resources tend to loosen bureaucratic mechanisms and systems. These types of endowment particularly weaken the hierarchal subordination of the Beamte. In contrast, the hierarchical subordination of Beamte reached its strictest development in the discipline of the modern Beamte. The Beamte of the Occident employed by contract nowadays show the highest levels of precision.¹⁵ In the past, similar perfection of service was only possible when also the personal subordination of the Beamte was absolutely unquestioned (i.e., when the administration was carried out by slaves, or by employees who were effectively treated like slaves). And even then, to attain such a high level of precision needs aggressive and forceful domination.
For example, during Antiquity, among the countries based on in-kind economy, the Egyptian Beamte were slaves of the Pharaoh––not necessarily under law, but de facto. Likewise, the Roman landlords liked to entrust slaves at least with the direct accounts management, because they had the authority to torture them. In China, similar goals were achieved by liberal use of bamboo canes as a means of discipline. However, the chances are low that these direct means of coercion will be effective in the long run.
From experience, we know that other factors ensured the success and survival of the firmly mechanized bureaucratic machine. Factors like secure salaries in connection with a career that does not depend purely on chance or caprice are more effective; tight discipline and control, which, nonetheless, respect the Beamte’s sense of honor, are also effective. Also, this includes the development of a Stand-like honor system, and the possibility to voice public criticism. Under these conditions, bureaucratic apparatuses will function much more reliably than under all systems of legalized enslavement.
In fact, the pride of the Beamte in the honor of his Stand together with his willingness to submit without reservation to a superior is not only viable, but also desirable. It is desirable because self-esteem and pride are consequences of submission, and therefore become an inner compensation for the Beamte’s self-esteem. The same applies to officers in the army. The purely “objective” professional character of the Amt separates the Beamte’s private sphere from the tasks of his Amt as a matter of principle. This facilitates the Beamte’s incorporation into objective terms and conditions of discipline-based mechanisms. These objective terms are fixed and prescribed once and for all.
In other words, the full development of a monetary economy is not necessarily an indispensable precondition for bureaucratization. But bureaucratization—in the sense of a specifically enduring process—is nonetheless still contingent on one condition: in order to prevail, it needs a enduring source of income. If income is not generated from private profits, as it is done with the bureaucratic organization of large modern and privately owned enterprises, or if they are not generated through prescribed dues as in manorial systems, a stable taxation system is the necessary precondition for enduring bureaucratic administration. And for well-known reasons, the only solid basis for a tax system is a fully developed monetary economy.
Therefore, the administration’s bureaucratization has often been developed to a lot higher degree in urban communities that have a fully established monetary economy (city-states¹⁶) rather than in “territorial states” of the same time, which were a lot bigger [but did not have a well-established monetary economy].
However, as soon as the territorial states developed a regulated taxation system, the bureaucracy advanced to a much higher level than in the city-states. As long as the city-states remained reasonably small, a plutocratic and collegial system run by Honoratioren was the most adequate.