A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
Max WeberRead
Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs - these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of efficiency and clarity in bureaucratic systems.
Max Weber highlights the essential attributes of an effective bureaucratic administration, where precision, speed, and clarity combine to reduce costs and improve functionality. He argues that an optimal bureaucracy is characterized by tight organization, clear hierarchies, and the ability to execute tasks without unnecessary friction, ultimately leading to more effective governance and administrative practices.
Themes
BureaucracyEfficiencyAdministrationClarityManagement
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a business seminar discussing best practices in management.
More from Max Weber
All quotes →'Culture' is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance.
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The modern view of criminal justice, broadly, is that public concern with morality or expediency decrees expiation for the violation of a norm; this concern finds expression in the infliction of punishment on the evil doer by agents of the state, the evil doer, however, enjoying the protection of a regular procedure.
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The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.
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The purely emotional form of Pietism is, as Ritschl has pointed out, a religious dilettantism for the leisure class.
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Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.
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This awful catastrophe is not the end but the beginning. History does not end so. It is the way its chapters open.
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