ntroduction: The Iron Law of Liberalism and the Era of Total Bureaucratization

Nowadays, nobody talks much about bureaucracy. But in the middle of the last century, particularly in the late sixties and early seventies, the word was everywhere. There were sociological tomes with grandiose titles like A General Theory of Bureaucracy [1], The Politics of Bureaucracy [2], or even The Bureaucratization of the World [3], and popular paperback screeds with titles like Parkinson’s Law [4], The Peter Principle,[5] or Bureaucrats: How to Annoy Them.[6]

There were Kafkaesque novels, and satirical films. Everyone seemed to feel that the foibles and absurdities of bureaucratic life and bureaucratic procedures were one of the defining features of modern existence, and as such, eminently worth discussing. But since the seventies, there has been a peculiar falling off.