Weber Seminar paper

The origins of the word bureaucracy are that it is a French word, borrowed into German, to refer to an office/the workings of an office within a government. It is a servant, a means by which the government/monarchy/ruling class asserts itself. The ones who derived the word intended it to mean that the servant was becoming the master. Bureaucracy developed from times in the middle ages where force had to be asserted by the most powerful person directly. Now force is asserted through a chain of command, with messages being relayed to and from the focal point of power. These messages themselves are acted upon because of the “prestige” that the most powerful possess, it is known that to disobey one level of authority you disobey the whole and therefore the punishment would be like you offended the king himself. Weber points out that this bureaucracy has transcended it’s use in politics to be used in a whole manner of ways, for example it’s used in businesses and schools.  He also states that it is a truly pervasive feature in modern societies and that it can only grow in importance. Weber states many points that would make up the perfect bureaucracy. Firstly the economic point is that the bureaucrats within the bureaucracy will have to have a salary. This means that they are separated from property insofar as they are exempt from prebends/beneficiaries. Prebends and beneficiaries are like sources of income that can be derived from something. For example if you inherit a house then the income that you could receive renting it would be a prebend.In Weber’s mind bureaucrats would not be able to own anything like this, they would have to be restricted to the salary that they were given by the government or business or whatever institution they’re employed by. They cannot accept gifts or charge their own price for their business. The thinking behind this is that by having an official source of income they will follow the rules. The modern bureaucrat does not own his job. This is in oppositions to many other lines of work where the worker owns the job, which was common with most army and navy positions in Europe in the late 19^th century. Nor does the bureaucrat own the means of his work, for example they do not own the computers or the furniture that they use in their job, once again this can be related to the army of the 19^th century, where the soldiers were expected to supply their own weapons and food for the campaigns. Weber believed that to be a bureaucrat it had to be a lifetime, lifelong profession. There would have to be absolute dedication so that the best skills would be established. Since the bureaucrats would be staying in the line of work for life they would be the best and therefore most efficient. Here Weber also stresses the importance of good education. The almost overriding feature in Weber’s mind is the impersonality. Everything is done for professional reasons and not for personal reasons, this ties in to the not owning of the means of production because there is no personal attachment and by using the items the bureaucrats feel they owe who they’re working for. Weber narrows down bureaucracy’s into three types:  rational, traditional and charismatic. The charismatic bureaucracy works because there is a personal devotion to the leader. Traditional works because it’s always been and no one thinks to disobey it. Rational works because it’s the rule of law, it takes place in a society that obeys the law because they recognise the moral codes. Weber distinguishes the ‘zweckrationell’ from the ‘wertrationell’, or the goal-rational from the value-rational. The goal rational is when you use whatever course of conduct that will best ensure your ends. The ends always justify the means. Bureaucracy plays the same role in Weber’s account of the development of the modern society, as division of labour does in Adam Smith’s account. Weber’s account is more in depth almost because it shows the entire structure that the division follows, from the top right down to the bottom. Weber views bureaucracy in the same way that Marx views capitalism, as a respected enemy. Weber sees that bureaucracy is everywhere but unlike Marx, Weber does not see an end to bureaucracy, it’s inescapable. Though he did not believe that he would be successful he still rallied against bureaucracy. He compared the role of a bureaucrat with that of a politician. If a bureaucrat is given a task that he morally objects to he can question it with his superior but if his superior insists then the bureaucrat must follow the instruction as if they agreed with it at their most basic moral level. If a politician is told to do something that they morally disagree with then they are expected to sacrifice their jobs to make sure they don’t morally bankrupt themselves.

CCRC decision

I’m uncertain as to whether the CCRC made the right decision with the Warner case. On the one hand I think that with the amount of cases that the CCRC has to deal with then in their experienced eyes this may seem like a case where it’s most likely that Warner is guilty of murdering the Pools. But seeing it from an outside, objective viewpoint I’m not certain that there is clear enough evidence that he did.

                There is definitive evidence that Warner was inside the house, which he admits to, but only very small amounts of evidence that he was ever upstairs, where he claims not to have been. The evidence for him being upstairs is that some fibres matching those of his jumper and Caucasian hair were found upstairs. I can’t help but think that were he upstairs, stabbing an elderly couple, there would be more physical evidence that he was there. Similarly I think it possible that since there wasn’t a great amount of evidence saying he was upstairs that the fibres could’ve got there through contamination of evidence. Warner’s jumper was downstairs in the house, so fibres could have been transferred while collecting evidence.

                There is also a second suspect in the form of Mr Smith. Smith’s fingerprints were found on the scene but the CCRC says that there was no reasonable reason for him to be in the house. There was no connection between Smith and the Pools and he would not have come into contact with them through his work, which was as a fireman. Smith had a history as a peeping tom and in March 2004 Smith appeared in court for allegations of harassment. Smith also worked as a Police officer so could potentially know how to make a crime scene appear as if he’d never been there. There is also the case that Warner claims that the front door to the house was already open, hence his decision to rob the house. This could imply that someone had either already been inside the house, or were still inside. Since Warner apparently never went upstairs, where the two bodies were found, he could have missed them.

                However, this is all speculative and on the 6^th of February 2008 the CCRC decided not to refer Warner’s case to the court of appeal because they believed that there was no real chance of his case being overturned. This again highlights the difference between the way the CCRC operates and my view of the case. The CCRC has to work in accordance with the Real Probability test, whereas I’m viewing the case from a viewpoint not restricted by codes of conduct or practice. Therefore I believe that there is potentially sufficient evidence for the Warner case to be taken to the Court of appeal, but understand why, because of  the methods of the CCRC, his case was taken no further.

The Dreyfus Affair

The Dreyfus Affair was a key moment for journalism. It established the potential power of journalist to keep tabs on the powerful and is therefore a particular high point in Journalism. Dreyfus was unlucky enough to be at the heart of one of the most controversial court cases ever.

 France in the late 19^th century was devastated by the Franco-Prussian war. This war was carefully constructed by Bismarck, who tempted Napoleon into the war with no allies and no plan. The Ems telegraph was released by Bismarck and humiliated the French so much that they had to go to war. Napoleon was defeated and captured at Sedan in 1871. France prided itself in its military and they were beaten by an “upstart” Prussia. Bismarck played the French very well, he tempted them into a war, crushed them and once the Prussians had won he forced France to pay compensation for the war. As well as compensation, France also had to give up the two regions of Alsace and Lorraine. France surrendered but Paris refused to give in. Prussia, which now became Germany, therefore laid siege to Paris. Roughly 2 million people stayed in Paris, the rich people fled but the majority stayed. The problem was feeding all of the people still in Paris; there are stories of people eating horses, rats and even breaking into the zoo to eat the animals in there. Paris finally relented and to prove that they had won and broken the French, the Germans marched through Paris. France is therefore humiliated and Germany is a rising power.

                Then came a definitive moment in history, the Paris Commune. Parisians admitted defeat, Germans marched then left and the rich people returned to the city. The rich, who were the landlords to the poor, tried to charge their tenants rent for the time they spent under siege. The heavily armed populace of Paris decided that they weren’t taking it. They threw out the government and for the briefest moments it came close to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Lenin called it the festival of the oppressed. The people set up a council to determine how they were going to live, women had a lot of power and set up many of the rules. The political makeup of the commune was mainly radicals, people of the left and socialists. Marx thought it was finally the end of capitalism. The French army surrounded the city and started shelling it, just as the Germans had. People were once again running out of food but at the same time people were planning out what their idea of the perfect society would be. Women of the commune came up with some amazing things such as nurseries, stopping work at night, establishing the right of workers to take over factories and run businesses as well as female suffrage. It had phenomenal potential even though it only lasted a few weeks. The rulers of Europe did not want this to even be an idea in people’s heads and therefore it was ruthlessly destroyed, as if to send a message to workers of the world. When the army took control 20,000 to 30,000 people were executed. Women were paid close attention to and the government claimed that they had been setting fire to rich people’s houses; the real reason was because they were playing a large role in the leadership. The Paris Commune established two things, that what Marx had written about may well be possible, but also that the governments and monarchies of the world were not benign and would crush you if you stepped out of line. France was a wounded animal after the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune. They desperately needed a victory to get them over this and return the faith of the people. What they needed was a scapegoat, and as usual with history, the most obvious scapegoat took the form of the Jews.

France was very militaristic and was paranoid about what would happen in Europe. Nations were building up power; spying and espionage began taking a greater role in global politics. France could not trust itself since the Paris Commune and therefore spied on itself. The Dreyfus Affair set the right against the left. The army, the Catholic Church and monarchists were the anti-Dreyfusards and the Republicans, socialists and Jews were the Dreyfusards. Germany and France were deadly enemies, watching each other like hawks. A secret document was found in a waste paper basket in the German embassy. The French thought they had to find who was passing this information onto the Germans. The Army immediately implicated Captain Dreyfus. Dreyfus was intelligent, Jewish and from Alsace. He was framed, court marshalled and found guilty of treason, he was stripped of his military rank and sent to Devils Island in 1894 under the evidence that his handwriting looked slightly similar to the handwriting on the note. They also claimed that they had more evidence but they couldn’t release it, since they claimed it was classified, the defence barrister was also shot before the trial. When evidence was examined it was found that the real culprit was a man called Esterhazy. When the evidence was taken to Esterhazy’s superiors they conceded but said that Dreyfus was a Jew and that his fate was not as important as that of France. Esterhazy was put on trial but found innocent. Emile Zola, a famous French Journalist, was so incensed by this that he wrote an article called “J’accuse”, in this he named the men who wrongly convicted Dreyfus and said exactly what they were guilty of. This was a very brave thing to do since there were so many conspiracies at the time which implicated the Jews into a whole manner of crimes. The sheer amount of public hate for Dreyfus also made it an incredible thing to write. This was a game changer, it caused supporters of Dreyfus to band together under the “J’accuse” banner. The government wasn’t having any of it and they went to convict Zola of libel, who promptly fled to London. There was a huge anti-Jewish feeling at the time and many riots. The government got a man called Henry to forge documents implicating Dreyfus, but the forgeries were laughably bad and Henry later slit his throat in prison. However he was still hailed as a martyr to the right and his heroic forgery. Dreyfus was brought back for a second court martial, there was no evidence against him, lots of evidence that he was innocent yet he was found “guilty with extenuating circumstances” he was granted a pardon and released very quietly many years later.

The Dreyfus Affair had the effect of hardening the far right wing of French politics. Action Francoise came into being. At the time they were viewed as ridiculous but in World War 2 they came into power. They were so extreme that even the Nazi’s had to tell them to back down.

Bulletin Audio

Audio

Radio Bulletin

Hello there, it’s half past the hour and here’s your local news roundup. A recent study sanctioned by Winchester City Council has found that visitors and residents of Winchester support the many street markets held on the High Street. We’ve conducted our own research into this and received mixed results. It appears that people enjoy the diversity of what’s on offer; however they also find that the stalls can make the street fairly crowded. [PLAY VOXPOP] Nevertheless Winchester’s market is flourishing and attracting visitors to the city. Many people who we asked in our research were just visiting for the day and a large proportion of them approved of the market.

On a shadier note, a large, bronze eagle statue has been stolen from the Army flying museum in Middle Wallop, near Stockbridge. The statue was taken from the memorial garden of the Museum sometime between 6pm Friday evening and 7.30am Saturday morning. The eagle is valued at approximately £9,000 and police are urging anyone driving past the memorial garden, along the A343, at the time to report any suspicious behaviour.

 And finally, a Winchester high-street coffee shop has won a national award. Caracoli, which has branches in Alresford, Guildford and Winchester, has won the Telegraphs “Best Small Shops in Britain” award for the food category. Caracoli offers an interesting fusion between coffee shop and deli, which is obviously a hit with customers and critics alike. Caracoli’s Caroline Watton let us know how this award has affected business. [PLAY AUDIO]

That’s it for news; check back in an hour for more.

Caracoli Audio

Caracoli Interview

third radio story

A Winchester high-street coffee shop has won a national award. Caracoli, which has branches in Alresford, Guildford and Winchester, has won the Telegraphs “Best Small Shops in Britain” award for the food category. Caracoli offers an interesting fusion between coffee shop and deli, which is obviously a hit with customers and critics alike. We found out how this award has affected business at Caracoli.