Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2009
HANDOUT FIVE: MAX WEBER
Max Weber was preoccupied with three issues: the role of ideas in history,
the nature of power, and the methodology of the social sciences. We shall first
examine his analysis of ideas by looking at his classic work on the "Protestant
Ethic," a work that is but one part of a multi-volume study of religion. We shall
then turn to selected writings on power--on how it is organized as authority and
how it is distributed among various social groups. Finally we shall examine an
essay in which Weber attempts to determine the proper role of factual claims and
value judgments in the study of human beings.
Unlike Marx, Weber identifies capitalism not as the central feature of
modern western societies but as one aspect of a larger process of
rationalization. His discussion of these trends can be found in his work on both
ideas and power. Bureaucracy, capitalism, and Protestantism are all phenomena
of rationalization.
Weber never really defines "rationalization," so we will have to puzzle it
out for ourselves. You may start with the following preliminary definition: An
activity or enterprise is "rational" in Weber's sense to the extent that it is
systematically and self-consciously organized around the pursuit of an explicit
goal. Or more simply, "rational" life is life organized as a means to an end. The
antithesis of "rational" in this sense would probably be "traditional," not
irrational.
Weber did not use rational and rationalization as terms of praise. He
was quite ambivalent about rationally organized action and a totally rationalized
society. Consequently, his account of the uniquely rational features of western
societies at the beginning of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
does not imply that western societies are better than non-western ones, only
different.
A warning from the start: Weber is often very hard to read. His mind
was full of ideas that he wanted to get on paper as quickly as possible, and he
often paid scant attention to such niceties as coherent presentation or lucid
sentence structure. Some of his essays on power are models of how not to write
a paper. I have gotten so frustrated with Webers writing that at one point I
actually graded Science as a Vocation as if it were a paper for this course.
By the way, you might tuck the following quote from Weber away in the
back of your mind:
One can measure the honesty of a contemporary scholar, and above all, a
contemporary philosopher, in his posture toward Nietzsche and Marx....
Our intellectual world has to a great extent been shaped by Marx and
Nietzsche.
(3) Finally, on the most specific level, the book asks where do the ideas
that justify capitalism come from. Weber finds the answer in the three-sided
relationship between modern capitalism (a way of organizing economic life), the
spirit of capitalism (the set of ideas that justifies modern capitalism), and the
Protestant Ethic (a religious attitude toward this world and the next). What are
these things and what precisely is the relationship between them?
In addition, keep the following questions in mind as springboards for class
discussion:
(1) Why did Weber have to write a whole book to explain how the
ideas justifying modern capitalism develop? Does not the spirit of capitalism
appeal simply to natural human greed? Alternatively, doesn't capitalism itself
produce the ideas that justify it; that is, doesn't the mode of production shape
consciousness? Why does Weber answer no to these questions?
(2) What were the fundamental beliefs about salvation among
Calvinists and related early Protestant sects? How did these beliefs about
distinctly other-worldly things end up affecting the very worldly life of
capitalism?
Steps in Webers Argument
PESC presents a systematic argument. The key to reading it is figuring
out where you are in that argument at each point in the text. You might find the
following outline helpful in working through Webers argument. Page numbers
are to the Dover edition.
1. Distinctive features of western capitalism. Pp. 13-24
2. Focus on one key part of western capitalism, the ethos or spirit, the
willingness to engage in rational conduct. Pp. 26-27 (see also 90-92)
3. The spirit of capitalism: hard work and success as a moral duty;
acquisitiveness or striving for success based on self-denial. Pp. 48-54
Why does Weber focus on Ben Franklin? As he describes himself in his
Autobiography, Franklin was by no means a religious man. He didnt
attend religious services. He espoused a generic religion that selfconsciously steered away from the dogmas of any specific religion. At the
same time, however, he set out to pursue moral perfection in a systematic
way. He created a list of 13 virtues and a weekly grid for keeping track of
how well he did regarding each. He rationalizes his moral life.
4. Why the emergence of the spirit of capitalism is problematic. Pp. 55-75
5. Calvinist views of salvation. Pp. 99-105
POWER
Weber was concerned with how the nature and organization of power was
changing in modern western societies. It was becoming "rationalized," of course,
but there is more to it than that. His often abstract efforts to conceptualize power
are aimed at this issue. Basically, Weber distinguishes authority from other kinds
of power. He then looks at different kinds of authority and at different bases of
non-authoritative power.
Because Webers writings on power are especially obtuse, I am providing
a fairly detailed run through his analysis.
WEBER ON POWER
1. Power
2. Two general forms of domination
3. The state
4. Three ways of legitimating political power
5. Bureaucracy
6. Classes and status groups
7. Trends in the organization of power
8. Rationalization
1. Power or domination in the broad sense of the term is at work in most social
relationships, Weber argued. That is, in most relationships someone has the
capacity to get others to obey commands or otherwise act in certain ways even when
they (the others) may not want to. (selection from Economy and Society, p. 942, in
course reader)
2. Broadly speaking, Weber identifies two forms of power: domination based on a
constellation of interests and domination by virtue of authority. (see pp. 941-948)
The first kind of power refers to any situation in which a power relationship is based
on one party controlling a resource that others need. Webers examples are mostly
economic, though this kind of power occurs in other situations as well: A central
bank that monopolized credit could dictate the terms of loans to businesses, who
would accept these terms because it would be in their interests to do so. Or, a cartel
of brewers could dictate the terms on which tavern owners bought beer and resold it
to the public. The second kind of power refers to any situation in which someone
has the right to command and others, the duty to obey. (But note that the motivation
for obedience is not the issue.) If the central bank were able to put its directors on
the board of the debtor corporation, it would then exercise authority over that
corporation. If the brewer cartel bought all the taverns and then hired the former
owners as managers, it would then exercise authority over them. We live most of
our lives in relationships in which someone has authority (families, schools,
workplaces, the state, etc.) pp. 943-944, 946-947
--The examples Weber gives suggest that he sees a historical trend in modern
western societies from power based on a constellation of interests to power based
on authority. Indeed what Marx describes as proletarianization, the transformation
of independent craftspersons into paid workers, and what Weber describes as the
rationalization of the textile industry (Protestant Ethic, pp. 66-67) involve this kind of
shift in power.
3.
The State.
--While Weber is concerned with power in every part of social life, he often
focuses on political power.
-- He argues that political power in modern western societies and the
contemporary world generally takes a specific form he calls the state: A state is a
political organization that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate
use of physical force within a given territory. (Gerth and Mills, p. 78, 82-83)
This is government in the form that we take for granted. We assume that one
and only one entity has this kind of power in a specific territory. Places in the
world that have no state usually register in our minds as anomalies. We talk
about civil war, revolutions, failed states.
--Weber is not saying that states always use violence. Some may use it a lot;
others not all. His points are that a monopoly of the right to use force in a
territory is what distinguishes the state from any other social institution, and that
states are the typical form political power takes in the contemporary world.
--Webers definition says nothing about how the state is organized or its leaders
chosen. A state may be democratic or dictatorial. Such terms refer to how
leaders are chosen.
--In the contemporary world, most political struggles are over who controls a
state
--States dont just happen; they are built. Part of the process of statemaking is
centralization of control over what Weber calls the means of administration,
warfare, and financial organization. (p. 82) Put another way, this means that
officials, soldiers, and tax collectors become direct employees of the state, rather
than acting as independent contractors. Note that Weber sees a direct parallel
between this process and what Marx described as the proletarianization of
independent producer. (again, p. 82)
4. Weber argues that all political power seeks legitimacy and that there are three
ways of legitimating such power: charismatic, traditional, and legal-rational.(7879) The last of these is most important, because it leads Weber into a discussion
of bureaucracy.
5. Weber argues that states and all large organizations, private or public, tend to
take a bureaucratic form. Bureaucracy is a complex concept, but at the least it
includes the following features:
--all activities are carried out according to formal laws
--there is a clear hierarchy of command and a clear division of labor
--the offices or jobs of a bureaucracy are separated from the person who
occupies them. This means that ideally how the job is done is determined
by impersonal rules. It also means that the official is paid a salary rather
than being allowed to profit directly from his position
--officeholders are generally hired based on formal criteria such as
educational credentials and exams.
--Most intriguing perhaps, Weber argues that bureaucracy encourages a
rationalist way of life. (p. 240) This means that it encourages a rational
matter-of-factness and the personality type of the expert. More
important, it encourages a kind of education that produces a system of
special examinations and the trained expertness that is increasingly
indispensable for modern bureaucracy.
[Keep in mind that bureaucracy carries a different meaning for Weber
than for us. To us, it implies inefficiency and unnecessary red tape.
Weber sees bureaucracy as the most efficient way to carry out routine,
everyday tasks, which is why large organizations tend to become
bureaucratic.]
6. Classes and Status Groups
There is a lot going on in Class, Status, and Party, which as well is a
spectacularly poorly written piece. Weber is attempting at least three things:
(1) He wants to decompose Marxs notion of social class. Marx saw social
classes simultaneously as an economic group (defined by relation to the means
of production), the primary basis for community and group identity, and the
primary basis for organized political action. Weber pulls these three elements
away from each other in the form of class, status, or party. (2) Weber identifies
three levels of social action: mass, communal and societal. (3) Weber separates
out three power hierarchies: economic (based on class), social (based on
status), and political. The class/status/party distinction is meant to carry out all
three of these projects.
[A note on mass, communal, and societal forms of action: Imagine you
go to a football game. It starts raining, and everyone puts up umbrellas.
That is mass action: A number of individuals responding at the same time
to the same condition. Then, you look around you and see a large
number of people wearing t-shirts saying Williams sucks. That would
be communal action, based on a common identity and consciousness (in
this case as Amherst students). Finally, at half time the band comes out
(well, maybe there isnt a band at Amherst games, I dont know) and
marches around the field, playing rousing tunes. That is societal action,
because it is organized.]
Lets focus on his analysis of class and status groups.
Class
Webers notion of class seems a lot like Marxs in that he roots it in
property relations. Class is defined by common life chances based on what one
has to sell in a market of some kind. The basic distinction is between having
property and not having it.
Note, however, that he immediately distinguishes different forms of
property and different kinds of labor, immediately complicating Marxs concept.
(182)
Note too that he also distinguishes several forms of class struggle based
on markets for commodities, credit, and labor. (184-186) He sees a historical
trend to struggles over the price of labor, though, and hence Marxian-type
conflicts between employers and workers.
Finally he argues that classes are not always the basis for group identity
or organized group action. They are not necessarily communities, Weber says.
(183-184) The concept of class interest is ambiguous in this respect. (183)
If Weber complicates Marxs notion of class, he also narrows it, because
he defines it only with regard to markets. Master-slave or lord-serf relations
therefore do not qualify as class relations in Webers lexicon.
Status Group
The term status group refers to groups that share a common claim on
social prestige, a common lifestyle, and a common identity. In a fully developed
status group, individuals would marry and live within their group. Status groups
are inherently communities.
Such groups may be rooted in any shared social characteristic: class,
race, ethnicity, religion, occupation, etc.
Societies are usually stratified into hierarchies of status: Some groups
get more prestige and social honor than others. However, status groups may
simply form separate social worlds. Webers discussion of caste and ethnicity
make the point. Ethnic group distinctions can be horizontal. (Perhaps the
French and English in Canada would be an example?) But often they are
value and (2) what ideas the professor should or should not profess in the
classroom. Both these issues speak to the general question of what kinds of
issues science can legitimately address. Weber in essence says that scholars as
scholars should not address questions of value. Why Not? (If you find this
essay especially confusing, see my comments at the end of the handout.)
Weber analysis of fact and value assumes certain trends in the
development of knowledge in the west. He refers to the intellectualization and
rationalization of the knowledge and the disenchantment of the world. (p.
139). What does he mean by this?
Finally, keep in mind that although Webers sets out to explain what is
science is good for (why it is a worthy vocation), he spends most of his lecture
telling us what it isnt good for. So, what is science good for, according to
Professor Weber?
I find Science as a Vocation an especially frustrating, though illuminating,
essay. See the imaginary letter to Weber that follows.
Its worth recalling at this point the various kinds of rationalization of which
Weber has spoken: modern capitalism, certain forms of Protestantism,
bureaucracy, and now rationalized knowledge or science. Modern western
society has grown from these multiple processes.
because it seems to imply that there are definitive answers to these big
questions.
Your third answer is that the lecture room confers on the professor a
special kind of power. There is no one of comparable stature to challenge his
moral proclamations.
Finally, you point out that once questions of value are raised in a
classroom, more mundane questions of fact fall by the wayside. That is, once
the professor addresses questions he cant answer, he tends to drop the
questions he can answer.
Again, these are intriguing, thoughtful arguments. I wonder, however, how
a professor can avoid making value judgments. Recall that in your previous
paper for this course you argued at length that all human inquiry is inherently
value-laden. How do you reconcile these two claims?
More important, we are now more than 20 pages into this essay without
an answer to your basic question: What is science good for?
On pp. 150-152, you finally give your answers: First, science contributes
to the technology of controlling life. Second, it contributes methods of
thinking, the tools, and the training for thought. Third, most important, science
can provide clarity. It can help us think more systematically about the nature of
various goals in life and about the relations between ends and goals. It can help
the student give himself an account of the ultimate meaning of his own conduct.
Put more simply, as you say, the scholar/teacher can help bring about selfclarification and a sense of responsibility. (152)
I agree with you that these are not trifling things and that the teacher who
accomplishes these goals stands in the service of moral forces.
Finally, on the bottom of p. 152, you provide a cogent summary of your
overall argument. This should have come much sooner as a way of framing
your argument.
Again, Max, this is a thoughtful, even brilliant paper. You are clearly an
exceptionally bright student. Your poor writing skills do not do you justice. Id be
happy to work with you on them.
B+
Sincerely,
Professor Himmelstein