SOCI 70 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Market Economy, Ideal Type, Oligarchy
Lecture 10
B. Organizations
1) Ideal types: model to better understand social world/benchmark to compare
reality/conceptual measuring rod
i. Weber – goal of sociology to provide definitions of social forms
ii. NOT an average, stereotype, perfection
- Bureaucracy characteristics (ideal type)
a. characteristics
1. division of labor
2. tasks are hierarchy organized
3. formal rules and regulations
4. characterized by impersonal relationships
5. rational/efficient
6. lifelong careers
7. governed by some sense of duty
b. Origins
• growth in # of people, complexity in tasks
• development of monetary economy
• attractive because they seem to be efficient and rational
c. Dysfunctions
• why it sticks around: if bureaucracy removed → chaos, organized
institutions are hard to destroy
• inegalitarian
• iron of oligarchy (will do anything to keep position at top)
• all bureaucracy develops oligarchic tendencies
• promote alienation, routine, repetitive fragmented tasks
d. Parkinson’s la: ork expands to fill aailale spae
• ex: meeting takes whole time
• take whole time for a test
e. McDonaldization (Ritzer)
• contemporary society is transformed by principles of fast food
restaurants, dominate American society and the rest of the world
• increasing prevalence in society
1. efficiency
2. calculability (quota)
3. predictability
4. control (standardize, minimize variables)
• ex: in education, healthcare
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