Abstract
By tracing the inter-relationships among the concepts "modern industrialism," "bureaucracy, " and "ideology, " a general ideology of modern administration emerges. This ideology is anchored in a concept of technical rationality which treats solely means arranged in such a way as to attain most efficiently and effectively ends which are understood as " given." This ideology ascribes the attribute of rationality to organizations, not to men. Here a contradiction arises in thought (for what is efficient and effective for the organization may be the reverse for its members) and in the administrative practice guided by this thought (what are referred to as the "internal" and "external" contradictions). By reviewing American and Soviet administrative literature, a pattern of parallel responses to the contradiction in administrative practice is reconstructed. These "special" ideologies of administration resolve symbolically the contradictions noted in practice and explain to administrators how and why they should perform in the face of inconsistencies in their role.
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