In sociology, the iron cage is a concept introduced by Max Weber to describe the increased rationalization inherent in social life, particularly in Western capitalist societies.
The "iron cage" thus traps individuals in systems based purely on teleological efficiency, rational calculation and control.
[2][3] Weber (in Parsons' translation) wrote: In Baxter's view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.'
[4]In his 1904 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber introduces the metaphor of an "iron cage": The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so.
For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order.
Instead, the worker must operate in a narrowly-defined specialization, and economic enterprises must continually strive to maximize profits and rationalize their production for the sake of efficiency.
[16] Bureaucracy puts us in an iron cage, which limits individual human freedom and potential instead of a "technological eutopia" that should set us free.
It also affects society's political order and governments because bureaucracies were built to regulate these organizations, but corruption remains an issue.
[citation needed] Bureaucracies may have desirable intentions to some, but they tend to undermine human freedom and democracy in the long run.
[40] Rationalization destroyed the authority of magical powers, but it also brought into being the machine-like regulation of bureaucracy, which ultimately challenges all systems of belief.
Weber argues that it is very difficult to change or break these bureaucracies, but if they are indeed socially constructed, then society should be able to intervene and shift the system.