on or other means. In nonbureaucratic social structures, administrative functions and duties are delegated based on social preference and rank. This usually meant that one social group exploited another for position, power, or resources. In a bureaucratic state, paid professional labor replaced the inherited avocational administration historically assumed by the privileged classes and nobility.
A fully established bureaucracy is one of the hardest social structures to destroy, according to Weber. Once established, the bureaucratic machine is permanent. Bureaucracy has been, and still is, a power for whoever controls the apparatus. Under equal conditions, a bureaucracy which is methodically ordered and led is superior to any assault. Further, where the bureaucracy has been completely established and fully functional, a form of power and collaboration exists between the bureaucracy and the governed that is practically unbreakable (Goldstone, 1994, p. 35). Professional bureaucrats are held to their activity by the very existence of the bureaucracy. In most cases, bureaucrats are single cogs in an ever-moving mechanism which prescribes for each position a fixed course of action. Officials are entrusted with specialized tasks and responsibilities. Normally, the machinery of the bureaucracy cannot be either put into motion or stopped by any individual but must be stopped from the top. The individual bureaucrat is linked to all the other functionaries who are integrated into the system. They share a common interest in assuring that the system continues to function and that their bureaucratic authority continues to be exercised over the society.
Members of the society cannot easily dispense with or replace the bureaucratic apparatus of authority once it exists. The system is based on expert training, a functional specialization of work, and an attitude set for habitual mastery and completion of single, methodically in...