Legitimate authority and bureaucracy

In their daily lives, people deal with a variety of issues. The goal of leadership is to improve the lives of its people and lessen their suffering. To find potential solutions to the issues that the people in society faced, the critical theorists employed critical reasoning or thinking. The application of logic, calculation, or logical methods in social acts by individuals to further their interests is referred to as rationality. The evolution of society depends on the logical system since it serves as a proper guideline for what people should do and how they should live their lives. Rationality aims at eliminating the use of the traditions, emotions, and values as the motivators for behavior in any particular environment. Reasoning, calculations, and use of systematic methods help giving knowledge to the people to be able to make the right decisions in the society and avoid any conflicts of interests.

Totalitarian society is one in which the government runs all the control of the public and private life in place. The authority in this type of political system lies in the hands of the state. In this kind of regime, it is headed by a leader who is a dictator (Weber, 1947, pp. 328-340). The US is not a totalitarian society due to the following factors;

It has two political parties giving the citizens alternatives, unlike the totalitarian society which is characterized with a single party.

It is a democratic government where the decisions of the people are respected unlike the total control by the military in the totalitarian society.

The police use the right procedures to maintain law and order unlike the use of terror as a control tactic.

People in the US have the freedom to access different means of communication such as the newspapers, televisions, computers, etc. without any total control by the government.

People jointly participate in deciding how the state is run by the leaders as they have the constitutional right to elect them through voting.



QN 2

Interactions among people according to Blau was shaped by the reciprocal exchange of rewards which included both the tangible and intangible. Blau's aim was examining the nature of the interpersonal interactions with the objective of explaining the dynamics of exchange of relations that arose from individuals and group in their pursuit to be able to meet their respective needs. Blau wanted to build a theoretical bridge to link the sociological studies explaining the daily activities of the people and the structural dimension of the societies which would include the political systems, economic systems, etc. (Appelrouth, & Edles, 2008, pp. 453-473).

Human beings always feel good when others appreciate them. Interactions with other people are based on what all the parties expect from each other. If the relationship is mutual, they will both contribute to the success of the interaction. In case an interaction benefits one party the other party may not have an interest in the cause of the communication. Favor and social approval act as motivators to the success of any interaction between different parties. It is encouraging and motivating for the parties in to benefit from any social exchange. Rewards among the parties motivate them to deal with the intention of the interaction accordingly and achieve the intended final results. People enter into any communication with the sole aim of meeting their needs or interests, and any attempts to aid in achieving this objective is always accepted and appreciated. Favors and social approval also act as accelerators to the interaction process among different parties pursuing different interests (Weber, 1947).

References

Appelrouth, S., & Edles, L. D. (2008). Classical and contemporary sociological theory: Text and readings. Pine Forge Press, 455-473.

Weber, M. (1947). Legitimate authority and bureaucracy. The theory of social and economic organization, 328-340.

Weber, M. (1947). Max Weber: The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (translated by AM Henderson and Talcott Parsons