Max Weber, an expert in the bureaucracy

Max Weber was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist whose ideas influenced social theory, social research, and the entire discipline of sociology.

Weber described many ideal types of public administration and government in his masterpiece "Economy and Society". His critical study of the bureaucratisation of society became one of the most enduring parts of his work. It was Weber who began the studies of bureaucracy and whose works led to the popularisation of this term.

Weber in the economic level, regarded himself primarily as a "political economist", and all of his professorial appointments were in economics, though today his contributions in that field are largely overshadowed by his role as a founder of modern sociology. As an economist, Weber belonged to the "youngest" German historical school of economics. The great differences between that school's interests and methods on the one hand and those of the neoclassical school (from which modern mainstream economics largely derives) on the other, explain why Weber's influence on economics today is hard to discern.


The importance nowadays is the concept of bureaucracy because today the governments in the form of manage use this model. But the bureaucracy is not always the best form, because it involves excessive hierarchization.

The first time I heard Weber was before studying Public Administration. I was looking for some text that involved Protestantism with the economy and I found his book "Die Protestantische Ethik und der 'Geist' des Kapitalismus" (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism). It is very interesting what expresses in his work and from there I learned more about him.