"Utopian Bureaucracy: Collective Empowerment or Tyrannical Control?”

Abstract

The evolution of social structures has led to the development of many styles of government, one of them being bureaucracy. One might think that assigning a larger number of people to more specific tasks allows for increased involvement with the governance of your own society, and therefore a decreased chance of corruption or tyranny. While this may be true, these potential benefits come with a dark disfiguration of the individuals within this system, altering the development of their own humanity. This danger to humanity has been identified by a number of influential figures, including Thomas More and Hannah Arendt. More’s description of a fictional society in Utopia offers a frightening picture of bureaucracy implemented in the most extreme sense, with every emphasis and priority focused on the commonwealth and no real value placed in the individual. Arendt’s powerful essay On Violence offers definitions of violence, power, and components of human nature that exemplify why a society such as Utopia could never exist in reality. While the bureaucratization of public life can insure that citizens are held accountable to equal standards and performance of roles, if left unchecked by the need for human individuality it can become unapologetically structured to the point that laws are molding the people rather than being molded by the people.