If one considers the contexts in which Weber talks of the state and state institutions, then we encounter images and analogies that belong to a quite particular field of metaphor. The modern state appears to be a machine, mechanism, apparatus, enterprise or factory. Rational law can be predicted "like a machine"¹; the work done by judiciary and administration are calculable "like a machine,"² the bureaucracy works "like any machine,"³ its officials are links in an "unceasingly running machine"⁴ and political parties are nothing but "machines."⁵