CREON’S SECRETARIES: THEORIES OF BUREAUCRACY AND SOCIAL ORDER IN 18TH AND EARLY 19TH CENTURY PRUSSIA by Roger Michael Michalski A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Don J. Herzog, Chair Professor Arlene W. Saxonhouse Professor George P. Steinmetz Associate Professor Mika T. LaVaque-Manty Associate Professor Elizabeth R. Wingrove © Roger Michael Michalski 2009 DEDICATION To all Antigones ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In writing this dissertation I fear that I have incurred more debts than I can repay. I will begin the happy task by thanking some of the people that have made the last couple of years the best of my life. First, I would like to thank James Johnson for introducing me to political theory. Without him I would have never gone to graduate school. Second, I would also like to thank the librarians at the University of Michigan, Columbia University, Emory University, the University of Zurich, the New York Public Library and the British Library. Without exception, they have been immensely courteous and helpful. Third, I would like to thank my dissertation committee: Mika LaVaque-Manty for his attention to issues large and small, Arlene Saxonhouse for her grace and perspective, Don Herzog for his humor and encyclopedic knowledge, George Steinmetz for his insights and flexibility, and Elizabeth Wingrove for her patience and tact. But most of all I would like to thank my staunchest supporter, fiercest critic, best friend, and the love of my life: my wife Melissa. Whatever good there is in this dissertation, it is there because of her. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION............................................................................................................ II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................................................................... III CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................... 1 Dürrenmatt...................................................................................................................................................................................5 Theories of Social Order .........................................................................................................................................................7 Plan of the Work........................................................................................................................................................................8 Methodology............................................................................................................................................................................ 14 A Quick Aside on Translations .......................................................................................................................................... 20 II. INVENTING THE LOGIC OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE SPHERE.................. 23 1. “A Game of Arbitrariness” - The case of the Müller Arnold.....................................................................27 2. Forging Creon’s Secretaries: The Structural Transformation of the Public Bureaucracy................36 (i) Buying Positions ............................................................................................................................................................... 39 (ii) Inheriting Positions ......................................................................................................................................................... 42 (iii) Payments........................................................................................................................................................................... 50 (iv) Establishing the Science of Cameralism.................................................................................................................. 55 3. Cameralism..........................................................................................................................................................58 (i) Justi ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 70 (ii) Procedures.......................................................................................................................................................................... 75 (iii) “Arbitrariness under the Banner of Justice”........................................................................................................... 84 (iv) Codifying the Law – The Case of the Other Miller.............................................................................................. 89 (v) Suing the King .................................................................................................................................................................. 94 III. CRITICS .......................................................................................................... 102 4. Blue Flowers and the Fear of Living Lackadaisically............................................................................... 109 (i) The Primacy of Passions...............................................................................................................................................114 (ii) Of Ends and Means.......................................................................................................................................................117 (iii) The Poetic Imagination...............................................................................................................................................120 5. The Personalized State.................................................................................................................................... 126 (i) Drawing the Queen.........................................................................................................................................................129 (ii) Of Queens and Guillotines..........................................................................................................................................138 iv 6. The Organic and the Mechanic..................................................................................................................... 146 (i) Humans as Machines .....................................................................................................................................................149 (ii) Horror, Laughter, Wonder: The Tools of the Trade............................................................................................151 (iii) Machines in the Halls of Justice ..............................................................................................................................157 (iv) The State and Society as Machines and Organisms...........................................................................................159 7. In Search of a Moral Core ............................................................................................................................. 167 (i) The Longing for Totality ..............................................................................................................................................170 (ii) Total Revolution ............................................................................................................................................................177 (iii) Antigone in Weimar ....................................................................................................................................................182 IV. EXPERIMENTS: PARTICIPATORY CITIZENSHIP..................................... 189 8. The Reformers, the Immediate Context of the Reforms, and the Reforms Themselves .................... 195 (i) Bureaucracy as a Vocation...........................................................................................................................................195 (ii) Jena and the Lack of Procedures...............................................................................................................................205 9. The Nassauer Denkschrift.............................................................................................................................. 211 (i) Taking Apart the Machine............................................................................................................................................216 (ii) Death by a Thousand Administrative Reforms.....................................................................................................221 10. Solutions for Weak States ........................................................................................................................... 235 (i) Problems and Goals........................................................................................................................................................241 (ii) “For a Nation of Cheaters and Criminals” .............................................................................................................245 (iii) The Problems of the Created Citizen......................................................................................................................256 (iv) “Political Irreligiosity” ...............................................................................................................................................270