The Thatcher governments centralized and reformed the state, and destroyed traditional social structures (including at the heart of the British establishment, in the organization of the City, or in the legal and medical profes- sions), social solidarities, and institutions. They encouraged actors to behave like egois- tic, rational individuals. Establishing rewards and penalties makes it possible to pilot changes in individual and organizational behaviour. According to Max Weber, the ‘bureaucratic revolution’ changes individuals ‘from without’ by transforming the conditions to which they must adapt (Le Galès and Scott, 2008). Bureaucracy is a force for social change, for the destruction of traditional social systems and the creation of new systems, with all that that entails in terms of violence and resistance. Bureaucratic rationalization is wholly compatible with modernization of the economy. It makes behaviour more predicta- ble and helps create social order organized on the basis of calculation and efficiency.