In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Economy and Society, Max Weber described how bureaucracy uses what it knows. Its officials have the advantage of professional knowledge. Diese Überlegenheit des berufsmäßig Wissenden sucht jede Bürokratie noch durch das Mittel der Geheimhaltung ihrer Kenntnisse und Absichten zu steigern. “Every bureaucracy seeks to increase this superiority of the professionally informed even further by keeping its knowledge and intentions secret.” Weber added that the concept of the Amtsgeheimnis, official secrecy, is bureaucracy’s own invention, and that a poorly informed and therefore powerless parliament naturally suits it better.