ABSTRACT
The "internal contradictions" of bureaucracy are indeed chronic; they are incurable. Most sociologists of bureaucracy are unwilling to look even at a deep historical time-frame, much less an evolutionary one. Thus, the attribute that most distinguishes bureaucracy may be one that is a both a latecomer in evolutionary terms, and a an afterthought in motivational and cognitive terms. We can create an entity like "Yugoslavia" with an effective and efficient bureaucracy, and we can give it a king or a dictator and a flag and a national anthem and, yes, a bureaucratic unity. "Helping buddies" can totally subvert the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy reached its apogee among the Northern European industrial countries. Despite all the social and psychological studies then, why do we not seem able to determine why bureaucracy fails as a matter of principle! People ask, why, when bureaucracy fails, do we act like savages? The answer is because we are savages—Palaeolithic, stone-age, hunting and feuding savages.
