Article 1 - Growth of the bureaucracy and societal structure
Generally speaking, the modern concept of the bureaucracy is accompanied by its establishment and expansion and gradual step by step maturation.
Moreover the appearance of the bureaucracy is the product of absolute monarchy’s victory over feudalism（封建分立）and social stratification.
Prussia is not an exception. The modern Prussian bureaucratic structure is the modern Prussian nation, precisely to say the Prussian monarch （君王）depriving the consequences that come with surrounding self-sovereign, those ‘independent’ with the right to execute and administrate warfare and financial instruments, and those with use of political capital.
It becomes what American scholar Samuel P. Huntington described as the first step in the process of ‘ political rationalisation where a single authority replaces previous multiple authoritative structures’.
It is on this foundation, according to the European enlightenment ideals of rationalism and bourgeois liberalism, along with the concept of the rule of law, develops and refines the state institution to fit rationalism even more.
The modern Prussian state’s brith and development process is also that of the actual Prussian bureaucracy’s formation and expansion process.
Because these court officials struggling against deprivation in the government while also serving the king, through replacing the monarch in administrating governmental affairs they are earning their living and also living an ideal life.
The bureaucratic societal structure early on was quite simple, and in the pre-modern hierarchal society, royalty held absolute control over the nation’s administration and leadership positions, but with the coming of the new age and the development of the bureaucratic system, the sources of bureaucracy in society accordingly shifted.
In the 1780s, in order to protect the absolutism era monarch regime’s dominant governing role, the monarch had to search for politically useful classes other than royalty and promote them to positions of power.
Their ability to read and right suited the requirements needed to required a functioning state apparatus, and most importantly they could be used to compete with the nobility.
hus according to English sociologist Anthony Giddens, ‘the bureaucracy was the natural enemy of the nobility’, and was the Crown’s tool against the nobility.
Yet under normal circumstances, the monarch could not at once completely replace the bureaucracy, or else it would weaken the its authority, and most importantly it could have incited the nobility’s resistance, as after all they were the cornerstone of the regime.
Thus to the monarch, the wisest solution was to promote single individuals and not entire societal groups, missing the new and old in bureaucracy, thus whole bureaucracy could be used for themselves.
Then in the 19th century on the advent of the capitalist era and with changes in the economy , the societal structure changed significantly and regime’s composition also accordingly adjusted.
The population of capitalists and other business classes grew, starting to take up a majority of the bureaucracy.
But Prussia’s political system had its own uniqueness - so long as the monarchy remained, the nobility’s “strategic position” in bureaucracy would not be lost.
Part 1 - Modern bureaucracy’s formation and development
1. Centralisation of administration
Bureaucracy is not a natural born phenomenon.
In feudal times, the concept of the nation had yet to be formed, and the “nation’s” bureaucracy was still primitive.
Otto Hintze, pointing to 1537 Brandenburg - Prussia’s royal house Hollenzollern’s Elector Joachim II’s (r. 1535-1571) “court regulation” （”Hofordnung”) promogulation, believes Prussia’s modern administrative history began in the 1630s.
But in strict terms, this was not an actual government regulation, but merely regulations for daily court life*.
Because it mainly involves palace meals, living quarters, storage depots, and even waste disposal matters, it primarily deals with matters of the palace.
At that time, the state** did possess an administrative organ, as the Senate Chamber （Ratstube）was a prototype of the later state’s administration.
The Ratstube was typically composed of couple senators, led by the prime minister (Kanzler) would convene senate meetings daily, report and divide tasks, taking care of the kingdom’s administrative tasks.
Administrative tasks then were generally relatively simple, for example dealing with their subject’s disputes and simple economic matters.
The state’s economy only required one accountant and a few financial managers, who would receive supervision under the Senator’s of the Ratstube, then return to the high minster of the inner court’s (Hofmarschall) leadership.
Because of the insignificance of taxes and tariffs, the aforementioned state’s economic matters were nothing more than the court and royal land’s income, expenses and budgets.
There was no difference between the court and the state, the prince’s household matters and the state’s tasks were of the same vein.
Post 16th century, the bureaucracy started to develop in the central and local governments.
Firstly, the prince, in order to expand personal benefits intensified public acitivites, intensifying the internal exchanges within the state, thus the bureaucracy started to expand, accordingly birthing the division of labour.
In 1562 Prussia released the “court regulations” to reflect this type of change. The regulation no longer mentioned the Kanzler and Ratstube’s required duties, but soley the guide to the court‘s affairs.
The Prime Minister and Ratstube’s arranged duties for the first time started to be transferred to the government’s oversight, that is ‘instruktion’ rather than “Hofordnung” (the original “court regulation”) was issued.
The Kanzler and the Hofmarschall duties started to seperate. Yet, the then intersection between the court and the government’s administrative tasks were still a significant phenomenon.
For example, the then most important court officials often could participate in the privy council and other administrative institution’s meetings, and economic powers still belonged to the court’s economic jurisdiction.
Yet as the state’s administration started to seperate from the court‘s governmental affairs anyway, bureaucrats working for the country also gradually left court affairs.
In 1604, in order to adjust to more and more complicated administrative affairs, particularly diplomatic affairs, Joachim Friedrich (r. 1598-1608) specially set a relatively stable new consultant agency - the privy council ("Geheimrat").
This was the first central government entity to be responsible for internal and external policy. The Kanzler would preside over the Geheimrat’s meetings, discuss almost all of state’s administrative and judiciary affairs within the court’s bailiwick that was still unfinished, in addition to communications within the state hierarchy.
Secondly, Prussia during hierarchal times was composed of multiple territories, like what Hinze mentioned to be the type of country formed and composed by a “union of all local authorities” , thus possessed said “dual system”.
Even though the princedoms served the kingdom, the lords still for the sake of local areas created their own specialised administrative agency.
While the state’s administrative agencies were being constructed, local level authorities were also expanding.
Each territory, for example the principalities of Brandenburg (勃蘭登堡), the Duchy of Prussia, Cleve-mark, etc all had their own local constitution, developed their own judiciary systems and administrative institutions.
Even if local authorities and the centralised government authority did not compete with each other, they at least on par with each other.
Yet, this level of separation could not be maintained in the long term.
From the 17th century onwards, Bureaucracy in the modern sense rose in Prussia, which was absolutism’s victory over feudalism and hierarchism, the practical result of dispersed authority being concentrated.
The Great Elector Frederick William was the first to use violence to block local levels from exercising power.
Because the struggles of the 30 Years war taught him to recognise that aggressive centralisation, a standing armed force and an administration effective and managing state matters was foundational to a great power’s ability.
To achieve this goal, the Geheimrat was to firstly be reorganized, according to the Geheimrat’s issue on 4th of December 1651. Where originally it was only the privy council of the Margrave of Brandenburg’s highest administrative agency, it was now the entire country’s central agency and truly started to play a role perpetuating centralisation.
In order to prevent prefunctory policies and personal autocracies, the Geheimrat promoted the collegiate principle (Kollegiatat), where all administrative matters must be collectively discussed by senators.
Because of the multitude of administrative matters, they were seperated into 19 departments according to the nature of each task, with each department allocated to a couple standing councillors.
The Great Elector intentionally reserved some power for himself, personally hosted Geheimrat meetings, and made the final decisions in government matters.
However, the then Geheimrat’s main tasks were still concentrated around foreign diplomacy, internal governance and military affairs, whereas the judicial power was still preserved in the hands of local courts, and the economy still did not count within the Geheimrat’s jurisdiction.
Administrative skills were evidentially not that sophisticated, and the department’s allocation of work lacked systematic and goal-oriented characteristics.
Employee’s work arrangements were not flexible, the councillor’s work was often varied from person to person.
Yet nonetheless, local governments did begin to slowly get used to the Geheimrat in Berlin’s leadership, acknowledged the presence of a supreme administration, and gradually submitted to the interests of the monarch.
Exhibiting the centralised authority was the most difficult.
The most important step was also for the central administrative authorities to advance towards and penetrate lower local authority in actual practice.
The population was the core of the country’s administration - the economy;
Because economic matters was vital to a despot as court life, bureaucracy and constructing an army needed economic support.
Originally military and palace expenses were mostly funded by Jews and palace’s meager allowance, but now with the continuously rising economic costs, they were running out of money, there was no choice but to reform.
In 1641 the Great Elector implemented reform to the tax system following the example set by the Netherlands.
The reform consisted of two main aspects:
First, it planned to raise the revenue of royal lands, secondly was to levy new taxes from the subjects.
The two largest sources of Prussia’s financial income were the income from royal lands and local tax revenue, which were always either regulated locally or simply directly locally managed.
Now, the areas and departments with the authority to independently collect taxes were to directly be put under the monarch’s control.
Reform inevitably was to incite aggressive local resistance, as the consequences of increasing fixed tax was loss to local political independence, decreasing their influence in public affairs and directly threaten the interests of the local noble class.
Reforming the tax system did not just reform the tax system itself but also triggered transformation in the administration on all fronts, from central to local levels.
The modern Prussian administration is developed exactly from the reforms to the economic system, formed from the process of altering the relationship between central and local authority.
* The term "条列“ used to refer to "government regulations" differs from the term "规章" used for "regulations of daily court life" as the former is associated with higher levels of the government （e.g. the actual administration).
** The author uses "邦国" in reference to Prussia which also means "state" but more of a smaller city-state, a primitve stage of a state
The term "hierarchy" is often used throughout, what the author is trying to indicate is the social/class stratification present (not feudalism) between the nobility and other classes. I couldn't find an ideal translation of it