Most large corporations are run bureaucratically, as are most large churches, political parties and trade unions. This idea of bureaucracy is somewhat different from the everyday picture, which is usually of a government department such as the tax office. Government departments are indeed good examples of bureaucracy, but so are large corporations. The key is the way work is organised. The bureaucratic structure is left unchanged.
Bureaucracy seems so common that people sometimes think it is the only way to organise work.
But there are some other ways. Members of families are not replaceable cogs. The same applies to some small businesses, where personal relationships take precedence over official lines of authority. Some other nonbureaucratic ways of organising work are feudal estates, a free market of individual workers, and self-managing collectives. Bureaucracy as a modern phenomenon Bureaucracies are so common that it is tempting to think that they are inevitable and have always been the standard way of organising work.