-------------------------------------------------

Demands of the question
Byoutline it means we have to state and clearly explain the characteristics of bureaucracy and then on part b of the question we have to highlight and intensely discuss the Marxist perspective on bureaucratic organisations that patently criticise Weber`s ideal type as the best organisational form.
The chief advocate of bureaucracy, weber (1947) simply defined bureaucracy as an organization characterized by hierarchy of full time paid officials. Moyo (1992) also defined t as a formal arrangement of functions, duties and technical competence while Schaefer (2006) referred to bureaucracy as a component of formal organization that uses rules and hierarchical ranking to achieve efficiency and lastly Ritzer (2015) defined it as a highly rational organisation, especially one that is highly efficiency. Thereby it is the essence of this presentation to outline and explain the characteristics of bureaucracy which are as follows
Division of labour
Schaefer (2006:136) defined division of labour as the fragmentation of work into smaller and smaller tasks i.e specialised experts perform specific tasks. Dzimbiri (2015:7) also defined as a feature which suggest that each person do some part of an overall job to allow for perfection and therefore efficiency. Through specific tasks people are more likely to become highly skilled and carry out a job with maximum efficiency hence focusing on what one is well qualified to do, regularity, experience and expertise are harnessed leading to professionalism, specialisation, motivation and high productivity. A good example of this is the Midlands State University located in Gweru, Zimbabwe where there is a broader division of labour within academic sections, all the nine faculties are organised according to areas of specialisation for instance they have the Faculty of Social Science, humanities, education, science, engineering inter alia. They are then subdivided into departments. For social sciences they have the department of Human Resources Management, Psychology only to mention but a few which then now means some Lecturers in Social sciences will be specialising on different areas/subjects like Industrial Relations, Sociology ecetera. Moreover the there is also the Administrative or support side of the University which comprise of estate management, maintenance, human resources departments, finance management, student and academic affairs, security services only to mention but a few.
Hierarchy of Authority Also known as the chain of command and it can be defined as the vertical distribution of power and authority. Bureaucracies follow the principle of hierarchy that is each position is under the supervision of a higher authority hence authority ranks from highest to lowest position which means there will be obedience to office and not the individual as to be clearly explained and shown in the diagram of Midland State University hierarchy of Authority as an example. We can clearly note that at the top of the chain of command there is the Chancellor (President) with the highest authority directly followed by the Vice Chancellor (Mr Bhebhe) until we reach the student level. The hierarchy of authority in the administrative chain can also be demonstrated from the Vice Chancellor (VC) through the Deputy Vice Chancellors (DVC`s), Administration and Finance, directors of various sections to managers, assistant managers, faculty administrators, secretaries, clerical and support staff.

Written Rules and Regulations
Rules refer to regulations, laws and guidelines and regulations refer to the acts of regulating or the condition of being regulated. In bureaucracies there is an over emphasise on rules and regulations that govern the daily attendance, absenteeism, holidays, advances, loans, pay and discipline are outlined in terms of the Contract of Employment. The Malawi Public Service stipulates twenty-six acts of misconducts that include negligence, insubordination, absenteeism, incompetence, taking habit forming drugs, financial embarrassment, political activism inter alia (Dzimbiri 2015:10). When one violates one of the above it can lead to disciplinary procedures which may in turn lead to demotivation, withholding of increment, discharge, warning, transfer or dismissal.
Impersonality and rationality
Impersonality refers to the state or quality of being not personal or biased and rationality refers to the quality or state of being rational that is to say objectivity and agree with reason. Max Weber wrote that in bureaucracy, work is carried out “sine ira et studio” which means “without hatred or passion” Schaefer (2006) and Ritzer (2015). Bureaucratic norms dictate that officials perform their duties without giving personal consideration to people as individuals so as to guarantee equal treatment for each person. Weber recommended that managers are called to be “super” human and rise above “noise” to avoid putting emotions or feelings first in decision making process Dzimbiri (2015:58). For instance assuming that one of the lectures in the Social Science department at Midland State University who is supposed to teach a particular module is not attending his/her lecturers as mandatory in his/her Contact of Employment and at the end of the semester forces students to sign the attendance form which would then serve as evidence that he/she delivered services hence full salary for him/her. As a result if caught by the management rational decisions are to be made which can affect negatively.
Employment based on Technical qualifications
Within bureaucracy, hiring is based on technical qualification rather than favouritism or nepotism and performance is measured against specific standards. Ideally it values technical and professional competences. University Faculty members for example are ideally hired and promoted according to their professional qualifications, including degrees earned and research published, rather than because of whom they know according to Schaefer (2006:138). People are appointed on the bases of open and competitive interviews, measurable qualification and experience thus this ensures that the people are not employed through back door or as a result of nepotism Peters(2010).
Separation of private and official duties
Ritzer(2015) went on to give the above mentioned as another characteristic of bureaucracy.
Immorality of the organisation
How people come and go whilst the organisation does not die with the leader as well as might be the case with charismatic leadership

PART B OF THE QUESTION
The emergence and growth of bureaucracy, the non-propertied officialdom of various organizations, over the last two hundred years has been the subject of considerable discussion among social scientists. Conventional, bourgeois sociology argues that bureaucratic hierarchies are an unavoidable feature of modern societies, whose size and complexity preclude any possibility of popular democratic control over political, economic and social life as according to Mandel (2005)
On a perspective analysis of the Marxists we can note that they generally argue that capitalism is being upheld in many aspects of the society thus preventing capitalism from extinction. They submit that the bourgeoisie (ruler) aim at maximising their profits by maintaining substantial level of wages thereby exploiting the workers (ruled) and ultimately enforces two main classes in the society that is the Haves and the Have notes. Their arguments clearly buttress how bureaucratic organisations maintain classes, weaken and divide workers, creates an iron cage only to mention but a few.
The emergence of bureaucracies in both the mass working class parties and unions under capitalism and in the post-capitalist societies is rooted in the reproduction of the social division of labour between mental-supervisory and manual labour. Whether the product of the episodic character of working class struggle under capitalism, or profound material scarcity in the case of twentieth century post-revolutionary societies, the persistent division between “head” work and “hand” work gives rise to a layer of full-time officials who administer either mass parties and unions or the post-capitalist state apparatus. In other words, most Russian revolutionaries saw the problem as one of bureaucratic inefficient administration and bad-decision making by incompetent officials.
Corporate bureaucracy is not a product of state interference in the free market, but of the concentration and centralization of capital, the growth of the world market, and with it, the development of monopoly control of entire industries and markets by handfuls of giant transnational corporations. A common critique of socialism is that capitalism is far more efficient and less bureaucratic. In this generation the MNCs controls the system of economy for the maximize profits at very little cost as result it gives clear evident of Marxist argument on bureaucracy , it assigns its own goals to the state. It maintains the social division in order to confirm and justify its own status as a particular and privileged body in society
Decisions should be taken at the level at which they can most easily be implemented. And they should be taken at the level where the greatest percentage of people actually affected by them can be involved in the decision-making process. The bureaucracy lacked either the whip of competition that ensures that each capitalist firm continuously reduces necessary labour through mechanisation however, in bureaucratic society for it is the opposite decisions are done at the highest level and done by the bosses hence not giving room for development to the lower class which is the proletariat ultimately, the post-capitalist bureaucracies were incapable of consolidating a prosperous, attractive and stable alternative to capitalism. One of Mandel’s major contributions has been his elaboration of Trotsky’s insights into the limits of bureaucratic central planning:
Externally, the ruling bureaucracies’ sought to subordinate the struggle of working people in other countries to the defence of socialism in one country. Mandel extended Trotsky’s analysis of the disastrous results of giving priority to the defence of some “socialist fatherland” abroad over the actual struggles of the workers and oppressed at home substitutionist ideology of the ruling bureaucracies provided ready made justifications for the brutal repression unleashed against the working class purges of the 1930s, the uprisings in East Germany, Poland and Hungary in the 1950s, against the Prague Spring in 1968, the mass strikes in Poland in 1971 and 1981, and the students and workers in Tiananmen Square in 1989. For the bureaucratic regimes, only the party, not the workers, were the ultimate guarantors of true interests of the proletariat.
Normative Marxism advocates for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism that would lead to socialism, before eventually transforming into communism after class antagonisms and the state cease to exist. Marxism influenced social democratic and labour parties as well as some moderate democratic socialists, who seek change through existing democratic channels instead of revolution, and believe that capitalism should be regulated rather than abolished.
Regarding the issue of division of labour, the fragmentation of work into smaller and smaller tasks can divide workers and remove any connection they might feel to the overall objective of the bureaucracy.In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Friedrich (1984) cited in Schaefer (2006) charged the capitalist system evidenced in bureaucratic organisations of reducing workers to mere “appendage of the machine” Freur (1989). Such a work arrangement produces extreme alienation that is to say a condition of estrangement or separation from the surrounding society. Marx and other theorists went on further to argue that restricting workers to very small tasks also weakens their job security since new employees can be easily trained and replace them. This ensures exploitation and substantial levels of wages to the workers and maximum profits to the employers as specialisation brings efficiency which results in high productivity as the worker will be working like a machine.
To add on division of labour also weakens the ruled according to the Marxists as it can cause trained incapacity. This is when workers become so specialised that they develop blind spots and fail to notice the obvious problem. Despite the fact that this obviously results inefficiency we can patently see that it can cause bureaucratic divisions and lack of unity among employees as evidenced by the example coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 in Schaefer (2006:137). The American FBI and CIA failed to detect the terrorists` elaborately planned operation mainly because the two departments jealously guided leads information from each other. This in a bureaucratic organisation would guarantee no worker revolution that might end capitalism upheld in bureaucracies
Moreover other Marxist, Michels (1962) cited in Schaefer (2006) and also in Peters (2010)] as another critique to bureaucracy. They criticised bureaucratic organisations regarding the issue of strong emphasis on written rules and regulations as well as division of labour. Michels in his book “political parties” he submitted that “he who say organisation says oligarchy” which is the rule by the few. Due to overzealous conformity to rules and regulations which require one to be obedient and abiding to the organisation`s rules it means employees will always uphold the employers interest as they are the one who make the rules for instance regarding strike . For example the June 2015 situation where by over 32 thousand workers lost their jobs through high court judgement which was made to protect the interests of the employers who are through political leaders. Draconian pieces of legistilature are also a tool to oppress the poor according to Marxist through taxes, fees and while income is derived from social surplus of human labour.
In conclusion, the forgoing presentation made it clear that the major characteristics of bureaucracy are division of labour, emphasise on written rules and regulations, employment based on qualifications, impersonality and formal communication. It also clearly buttressed the Marxist critiques on bureaucratic organisations on how it causes alienation, rule by the few, enforces class differentials among many other issues clearly highlighted in the forgoing presentation above.
THANK YOU

Reference list
Berry, J.W (2002) Cross Cultural Psychology: Research and Applications
@ https://books.google.co.zw/books?isbn, (Accessed 25/04/16).
David Mandel, (1992)The Rise & Fall of Soviet Democracy," Against the Current 37 .online A Marxist-Leninist View of Bureaucracy | Red Star Vanguard https://theredstarvanguard.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/a-marxist-leninist-view-of-bureaucracy/ 48-49.
Peters, G. B (2010), The politics of Bureaucracy, 6th Edition , New York: Routeledge.
Schaefer, R. (2006), Sociology: A Brief Introduction, 6th Edition, Newyork: McGraw Hill.
Ritzer, G. (2015), Introduction to Sociology, Canada: Sage Publications.