Analyzing the Holocaust, Nixon Presidency, and Trump Era - Paper Example

Part A: How does Rubenstein apply Weber’s theory of bureaucracy to the Holocaust?

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Rubenstein applies Weber’s theory of bureaucracy to the Holocaust by presenting the meaning or definition of the word bureaucracy in action rather than the definition in a dictionary. Rubenstein described the Jews and others who died in the Holocaust as victims of a tragic historical event and the victims of bureaucracy (Richard 1975). According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, they were considered victims of bureaucracy and not victims of a totalitarian state; a totalitarian state relates to centralized authority by an authoritarian leader or hierarchy. However, Weber emphasized “the fully developed bureaucratic mechanism,” he was aware that actual bureaucracies rarely reach the level of efficiency of the “ideal type” he had created. But, he showed clearly that bureaucracy was a machine capable of effective action and was as indifferent to “all completely personal or elements which escape calculation” as any other machine (Richard 1975). The Germans (Nazi) were capable of creating a society of total domination due to the support of their police and civil service bureaucracies, and since they held millions of men whose sufferings and lives were of utterly no consequence to any secular, power or sacred; those men were as good as dead once brought to the camps (Richard 1975).

Rubenstein made his readers aware of how so many people intentionally engaged in the appalling acts of violence against humanity and without hesitation. He presented a formula and a clear description of Max Weber’s viewpoints and how it was all possible for Germany’s bureaucratic domination and the impacts of such power. Max Weber believed that political domination or power would rest with whoever dominated the bureaucratic apparatus due to its undeniable superiority (Richard 1975). As a tool for the organization of human action, Nazi Germany mastered the management principles and power, as was in Hitler’s concentration camps’ plan. Hitler managed to replace the existing camps with a more impersonal, systematized terror camps. Hitler and Nazi Germany were able to establish and achieve order in the camps by implementing bureaucracy principles. They established specialization, giving a meaning of set responsibilities and tasks each individual or office will do or follow, making their work more straightforward and more effective in following directions. They designated some people to ensure the written rules and regulations established were being followed; this ensured that individuals knew their duties to make it easier for their allotted task to be accomplished; they also created recordkeeping of the rules, regulations, procedures, and disciplinary actions (Richard 1975).

The Nazis had built a society of total domination with preconditions such as (a) a capable bureaucratic administration of governing with absolute immunity to the human needs of the prisoners; (b) a supply of prisoners with continuous replenishment; (c) the death sentence imposition on every the prisoners. Once identified as a Jew by the German state bureaucracy, one was deprived of all their personal property and citizenship rights and eliminated altogether. The destructive process required the cooperation of each of the German society sectors (Richard 1975). Therefore, the bureaucrats drew up the decrees and definitions; the churches provided evidence of Aryan descent; the postal authorities conveyed the news of definition, deportation, denaturalization and expropriation; business organizations suspended their Jewish workers and took over “Aryanized” properties; the railroads transported the victims to their area of execution, a site made available to the SS and the Gestapo by the Wehrmacht. The whole process required and received the support of every major religious, social, and political institution of the German Reich.

Part B: How did he apply it to the Nixon Presidency?

Rubenstein applies Weber’s theory of bureaucracy to the Nixon presidency by providing the meaning of modern bureaucracy in action. Rubenstein explains how Nixon was tempted to expand the power available to him because of his inability to effectuate his program through the normal political processes. He showed his readers how harshly the Nixon administration dealt with their political opponents (Richard 1975). However, those who had opposed him had done nothing more than exercising their normal right to take a stand on political issues. Some of the excessively harsh statements made about welfare by members of the Nixon administration and their supporters contained a note of resentment and even racial hostility.

Rubenstein explains how the Nixon presidency shared numerous characteristics with the totalitarian rulers of the twentieth century: (a) at the beginning of the second term, the Nixon administration had openly demonstrated its contempt for the legislative branch and its intention to deprive the federal bureaucracy of any residual independence. In the period immediately after his reelection in 1972, when the opposition was at its lowest point, Nixon intensified rather than diminished his overt hostility to his opponents both within and outside of government (Richard 1975).

Nixon had an unfortunate tendency not to distinguish between appropriate methods in dealing with domestic political opponents and foreign adversaries. One of the gravest threats to constitutional government posed by foreign ventures is the possibility that government leaders might ignore constitutional restraints and employ the kind of “dirty” tactics they customarily use against foreigners in dealing with domestic opposition. The domestic spying activities and the raid on the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, by members of the extralegal White House “plumbers” unit are examples of the use of CIA trained personnel and the CIA itself, in domestic political conflicts.

If not by physical terror, Nixon sought to secure consent to his program, then certainly by the beginnings of bureaucratic terror (Richard 1975). For instance, his attempts to utilize the Internal Revenue Service to harass political opponents and public personalities whose lifestyles or political commitments were distasteful to him. In addition to tax harassment, there were other attempts at bureaucratic harassment, such as the threat to revoke the licenses of television stations owned by the Washington Post. The intent of the threatened punitive action was clear: opponents were warned’ that there were heavy penalties involved in opposing Richard Nixon. Therefore, with Weber’s theory of bureaucracy, Rubenstein shows the readers how the Nixon administration intended to use fear to replace debate and persuasion. Besides, Nixon had established a category of citizens, the so-called “enemies’ lists,” who were subject to punitive government action despite them breaking no law and for whom there was no legal justification for any government hostility (Richard 1975).

It may seem a long way from the improper use of the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI, the CIA, and other federal agencies to harass opponents to a society of total domination. Still, Nixon had taken several important steps in that direction.

Part C: How do you think Rubenstein would apply Weber’s theory of bureaucracy to the actions of President Trump today?

As Rubenstein stated, it would be soothing to believe that the abuses of power in the Nixon presidency were due wholly to his moral and political faults. Unfortunately, the abuse of power never ended with Richard Nixon’s presidency. Rubenstein would have applied Weber’s theory of bureaucracy to explain President Trump’s actions as the bureaucracy that Trump sought to use to expand the power available to him because of his inability to effectuate his program through the normal political processes (Richard 1975). Rubenstein explains Weber’s work concerning essential insights and the modern state’s institutional compositions and the character traits constituting a successful politician. For Weber, “maturity” interpreted in terms of balance, or the fruitful mediation of the tensions between conflicting policies, characterizes both the prosperous state and politician. Currently, American history is about both the resilience of the institutional systems and the president’s character traits, it is especially illuminating. Therefore, modern governance bureaucratization can be partially inevitable or normatively ambivalent.

As stated, Rubenstein would have explained Trump’s actions as a form of expanding power available to him. For instance, during the 2016 campaign, Trump urged the criminal prosecution of Hillary Clinton, his political rival, and later drove William Barr (his loyal attorney general) to investigate over the Mueller investigation. Rubenstein would say that the president may have the mandate to do anything he wishes when he controls the attorney general's office (Chafetz 2019).

Rubenstein would also consider the special counsel’s investigation that started early in Trump’s presidency as a form of bureaucratic pushback. Rubenstein can describe the act of Attorney General Jeff Sessions of distancing himself from overseeing the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election as he was adhering to bureaucratic ethics of impartiality and also gesturing that there would be some connection between the investigation and White House. Besides, Trump fired James Comey, FBI Director, who had attested before Congress that his agency was investigating Russia and the Trump campaign links (Chafetz 2019).

Another instance of bureaucracy is proved by Trump’s criticism of his own intelligence community, the National Security Council, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the State Department for trying to undermine him (Fukuyama 2020). The Federal Reserve, together with its chairman, Jerome Powell, has been regular targets of a president seeking the department to inflate the money supply to boost his reelection chances. President Trump has also meddled to overturn the military’s punishment of Edward Gallagher (Navy SEAL) and sought to intervene in a Defense Department’s decision to award a multibillion-dollar deal to Microsoft instead of Amazon, the target of his ire (Fukuyama 2020).

A local outstation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was also attacked for opposing the president’s false statement that Hurricane Dorian was threatening Alabama. Trump’s contempt for public service is shown in many senior positions like that of the secretary of defense, which has been left unfilled for long periods (Fukuyama 2020). Most recently, Trump tweeted criticisms regarding sentencing guidelines given after the conviction of his associate Roger Stone, resulting in the resignations of four prosecutors that were involved in the case. Trump also appointed a political supporter as director of national intelligence despite him having no intelligence background and just because he did not like the IC’s perception that Russia was meddling in the 2020 election (Fukuyama 2020).

Despite the instances of bureaucracy given in the essay, none of this suggests that the Trump presidency has not significantly improved national policy. Nor is it to suggest that the United States bureaucratic resistance will last indefinitely. However, Trump’s eagerness to take action to undermine or weaken bureaucratic resistance tends to get far less attention. In other words, it attempts to de-mature the nation by attacking bureaucratic competence or independence that could have the most severe outcomes by eliminating the rationalistic bureaucratic impediment to unchecked charismatic political rule (Fukuyama 2020).