Political Machines

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Max Weber's speech on politics as a vocation in which he defined the political machine as a creation of the modern, pluralistic democratic state. The paper describes the political machine, unlike a purely charismatic individual leader, as a functional bureaucracy that attempts, however imperfectly, to serve the popular interest through the use of an institutional framework.

From the Paper:

"Because America has traditionally allowed for far less coercive forms of government than has Europe and because of America's sprawling size, government of the burgeoning industrial populace was less cohesive from the beginning, and also less responsive in terms of social services-concerns the machines addressed in a consistent fashion through their bureaucracies. Moreover, ordinary people like fictional composite of real life politicians George Washington Plunkett could rise to power-through corruption yes, but also the dispensing of political favors and incentives to the disenfranchised- through the Tammany-Hall political machine of the Democratic party in New York City, and thus become 'self made men' in government as well as industry."

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