Weberian Thought

Weberian Thought

Right	Section	Contents
Freedom of Expression	Philosophical Origins	Regarded as one of the founders of the field of sociology, the influence of Max Weber (1864-1920) on contemporary thinking about politics and society has been immense. Throughout an extensive body of work, perhaps the main theme of Weber’s thought is the rapid political and economic evolution that European society was undergoing in his lifetime, and the question of how freedom can still exist in this increasingly rationalized and bureaucratized new order. When describing his fears for the survival of freedom in the modern world, Weber refers to “individually differentiated conduct” and “individualistic freedom” being curtailed by the process of rationalization (Levine 1981, 16). Since expressing oneself and one’s sentiments is what individualized (i.e., unique to and illustrative of one’s personal qualities) conduct fundamentally consists of, Weber’s concern for individual autonomy can be translated as a concern for freedom of expression. However, one significant difference between Weber and other philosophers of freedom, from John Locke to John Rawls, is that Weber does not think of freedom in terms of rights that one is entitled to. For Weber, freedom of expression is akin to the agency to express ideas and bring them to fruition: it is less a right everyone has simply by virtue of being born, and more a quest to fulfill. Not only that, but Weber’s ultimate focus is on the state rather than the individual: while his goal is the realization of individual expression, he regards this goal as something to be achieved through developments on a national or societal level, instead of on a personal one. Politics, for him, is “a uniquely human activity, one with the potential both to create and to manifest the responsibility and dignity of individuals in an increasingly secularized world” (Warren 1988, 31). In his 1919 address “Politics as a Vocation,” Weber begins his exploration of how politics functions in the modern day with his famous formulation that a state is defined by its monopoly on the legitimate use of force: “the modern state is a compulsory association which organizes domination” (Weber 1919, 4). This view certainly lacks the idealism of theories grounded in the idea that the state is under a social contract with its people to uphold their rights. Nevertheless, what is often missed is that Weber’s theory requires not just for the state to be more powerful than any competitors who might also seek to exert force, but for it to exercise power in a way that is (or at least widely recognized as) normatively legitimate. This discussion of state legitimacy would, it should be noted, have felt particularly prescient to audiences in Weber’s native Germany. Weber delivered his address only a year after the end of World War I, when the monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm II had been broadly discredited by the devastating loss of the war, and the German people had found themselves living in a vaguely democratic republic that many on both the right and left felt had no grounds to claim their allegiance. In “Politics as a Vocation,” Weber presents three possible sources of legitimate authority: one based on tradition, one on a system of rules or laws, and one on a leader’s “extraordinary and personal gift of grace (charisma)” (Weber 1919, 2). It is this last one that is of most interest concerning how freedom of expression fits into Weber’s views. According to Weber, charismatic legitimacy consists of “absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership.” Historically, it has been displayed by “the elected war lord, the plebiscitarian ruler, the great demagogue, or the political party leader” (Weber 1919, 2). Charismatic legitimacy is, therefore, most relevant to Weber’s vision of the fulfillment of freedom of expression through the state – one where both leaders and those under them interact with politics as a vocation, or (per his term) a calling, a word with distinctly religious connotations. Weber further defines a calling by distinguishing between ‘occasional’ and vocational political engagement: “we are all ‘occasional’ politicians when we cast our ballot or consummate a similar expression of intention, such as applauding or protesting in a ‘political’ meeting, or delivering a ‘political’ speech, etc. The whole relation of many people to politics is restricted to this” (Weber 1919, 5). Political expression requires politicians or other politically engaged people to approach politics as a vocation – as a spiritual mission that one lives to fulfill. However, to Weber, charismatic leadership alone is insufficient for the popular will to be expressed. Although Weber is cognizant of the problems of bureaucracy, he recognizes that a charismatic leader ultimately needs an effective state apparatus to carry out their promises. To him, “the bureaucratic state order is especially important; in its most rational development, it is precisely characteristic of the modern state” (Weber 1919, 4). The seeming contradiction can potentially be resolved if one considers that throughout his works Weber invokes two distinct types of freedom, each of which interact differently with the inescapable process of the rationalization and bureaucratization of society. One is ‘situational’ freedom, referring to external constraints on one’s movements or actions; the other is freedom in the much more expansive sense of autonomy, or “the condition in which individual actors choose their own ends of action” (Levine 1981, 16). While it is easy to imagine how the rise of factory jobs and big government would restrict situational freedom, Weber believes that the modern state’s effect on personal autonomy is actually positive. This conception of autonomy can be more broadly defined as the ability to be guided by one’s own ideas; Weber calls it “a series of ultimate decisions through which the soul…chooses its own fate” (Levine 1981, 21). It can thus be said that to have autonomy, by Weber’s definition, is to have freedom of expression. In “Politics as a Vocation,” Weber identifies a state bureaucracy as ultimately critical for the state to enable citizens’ political aspirations to come to fruition – for citizens to have autonomy, in the sense of choosing their own fates. Weber expounds on this idea in other writings on bureaucracy, as in his statements that bureaucratic organization “has usually come into power on the basis of a leveling of economic and social differences,” and that it “inevitably accompanies mass democracy” (Gerth and Mills 1946, 224). This is because mass democracy necessitates “the characteristic principle of bureaucracy: the abstract regularity of the execution of authority” (Gerth and Mills 1946, 224). Weber further elaborates on this with phrases like “‘equality before the law’ in the personal and functional sense,” the “horror of ‘privilege,’” and “the principled rejection of doing business ‘from case to case’” (Gerth and Mills 1946, 224). In today’s terms, this concept might be summarized as the rule of law: having institutions in place to ensure the state effectively and consistently carries out its functions. Weber certainly seems right that a bureaucracy in this sense would be a precondition for popular expression. As an example, in “Politics as a Vocation,” he approvingly cites the 1883 Civil Service Reform Act as creating a professional bureaucracy in the United States, replacing the “spoils” system where successive administrations distributed offices based on political allegiance (Weber 1919, 7). Nonetheless, Weber’s account of freedom of expression, where the effective operation of the state serves as the avenue for expression of public sentiments, still seems lacking in other ways. Under Weber’s conception of the state, the people’s voice is only expressed indirectly: “the demos itself, in the sense of an inarticulate mass, never 'governs' larger associations; rather, it is governed, and its existence only changes the way in which the executive leaders are selected and the measure of influence which the demos, or better, which social circles from its midst are able to exert upon the content and the direction of administrative activities by supplementing what is called 'public opinion'” (Gerth and Mills 1946, 225). Then again, this may not have been as much of a concern for Weber. For Weber, political expression entails a progression towards political maturity; the realization of the people’s aspirations is more of a responsibility on their part than a right. Indeed, throughout his body of work, Weber displays a deep pessimism about the political capacities of the German people. According to him (as he wrote in the 1890s), if there is any hope, it lies in the economically ascendant but politically unassertive bourgeoisie: the decaying aristocracy can no longer be trusted with power, while the working classes are led by those who “have no organic connection with the class they claim to represent” and whose “revolutionary posture in fact acts against the further advancement of the working class towards political responsibility” (Giddens 1972, 17). Giddens goes on to explain Weber’s viewpoint thus: “Weber saw as the principal question affecting the future of Germany [as] that of whether the economically prosperous bourgeoisie could develop a political consciousness adequate enough to undertake the leadership of the nation. … there could be no question of refounding German liberalism upon a 'natural law' theory of democracy. He rejected, moreover, the classical conception of 'direct' democracy, in which the mass of the population participate in decision-making.” Ultimately, “in the modern state, leadership must be the prerogative of a minority: this is an inescapable characteristic of modern times. Any idea 'that some form of democracy’ can destroy the ‘domination of men over other men’ is ‘utopian’” (Giddens 1972, 18). Perhaps an even bigger problem with Weber’s freedom of expression is that he necessarily views the expression of the popular (which is to say, majority) will as entailing the expression of the individual will. In his address, he never considers situations where they might not, in fact, be one and the same – where an individual might dissent from the majority. Weber’s inattention to the protection of minority views is a consequence of his lack of discussion of individual rights, or indeed of any other limits on government power (like independent legislative and judicial branches, or even regular competitive elections). He may have died before he could see them, but the 20th century would provide numerous examples of how the unfettered state is anything but conducive to freedom, by any definition of the term. While the aim of “Politics as a Vocation” may just be to explain how the state functions and acquires legitimacy, its failure to consider any substantial limits on what the bureaucratic state can do is ultimately a second reason why it is lacking as an account of freedom of expression. In his book, Mommsen describes Weber’s view thus: “Max Weber considered the natural-law justification of democracy and the liberal constitutional state to be outmoded and an insufficient basis for a modern theory of government. The ‘rights of mankind’ were… ‘extremely rationalized fanaticisms.’” Weber acknowledged that the principle of human rights had done much good, but felt its value was limited in the modern reality: “[Weber] believed that he believed that the axioms of natural law were no longer providing clear directions for a just social order under the conditions of higher capitalism. He also felt that ‘the old individualist principles of inalienable human rights’ had lost much of their power of persuasion under the conditions of modern industrial society. He did not hesitate, on occasion, to set them aside” (Mommsen 1984, 392-393). Another review describes these shortcomings in Weber’s vision of freedom of expression as less flaws in Weber’s reasoning, and more “symptoms of real challenges for democratic theory” (Warren 1988, 31). Weber may very well have been correct in his preoccupation with the inadequacies of democracy in modern society. Nonetheless, as Warren puts it, “these conflicts would have been less had Weber elaborated his liberal commitments in substantially democratic directions rather than the elitist direction he in fact chose” (Warren 1988, 32). As the world learned from bitter experience, the problems of democracy can only be addressed by expanding democratic participation and rights, to as wide a range of people as possible, and not by restricting them. There is much in Weber’s political thought that is insightful, and even prescient. In his warnings of the dangers that a hyper-rationalized society posed to freedom of expression, Weber stands out from the Enlightenment thinkers who came before him, for whom rationalization must invariably lead to freedom by liberating humanity from the tyranny of dogma and superstition (Levine 1981, 5). That being said, even if it may have seemed reasonable at the time and much of the criticisms of it come with the benefit of hindsight, his account of freedom of expression is incomplete, in that it only envisions an indirect political expression for the vast majority of citizens, and neglects to recognize the need to protect dissenting voices from the state through robust limits on state power. References: Gerth, Hans H., and C. Wright Mills. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946. Giddens, Anthony. Politics and Sociology in the Thought of Max Weber. London: Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1972. Levine, Donald. “Rationality and Freedom: Weber and Beyond.” Sociological Inquiry, 51, no. 1 (1981): 5-25, https://claremont.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/pdf/668358.pdf Mommsen, Wolfgang. Max Weber and German Politics, 1890-1920. Translated by Michael Steinberg. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Warren, Mark. “Max Weber’s Liberalism for a Nietzschean World.” The American Political Science Review, 82, no. 1 (1988): 31-50, https://www-jstor-org.ccl.idm.oclc.org/stable/pdf/1958057.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ab0b313bfe50f0c00080b3af5edb29a18&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1 Weber, Max. 1919. “Politics as a Vocation.” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited and translated by Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 77-128. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946, http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/class%20readings/weber/politicsasavocation.pdf
Freedom of Religion	Philosophical Origins	Max Weber is best known for his work on sociology, economics, and religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While most of his work focused explicitly on the socio-economic dynamics that define post-industrial western capitalism, his work on religious influences within capitalist systems provides some insight into his thoughts on religious toleration and diversity. He does not write broadly of rights or freedoms within a political society, but his thoughts on religion in general seem to indicate a tacit support for basic religious toleration. Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of his better-known works, in which he addresses the apparent advantages that Protestants enjoy within a capitalist system over members of various other Christian and non-Christian religious traditions. As in other works Weber seems to regard religious diversity within various nations as something of an inevitability, and as a result he does not address freedom of religion as a concept, much less as a right. However, one small passage in his introduction to The Protestant Ethic which implies that Weber held a deep personal respect for all the world’s religious sects. He stated that: “The question of the relative value of the cultures which are compared here will not receive a single word. It is true that the path of human destiny cannot but appal him who surveys a section of it. But he will do well to keep his small personal commentary to himself, as one does at the sight of the sea or of the majestic mountains, unless he knows himself to be called and gifted to give them expression in artistic or prophetic form.” (Weber, 36) It is difficult to surmise what exactly Weber would have thought about essential rights and freedoms of the citizen because he never explicitly addresses them in his work. However, passages like this one seem to indicate that at the very least, he would not have approved of religious intolerance within a political society. Another theme in Weber’s work which implies that he would at least oppose a society’s enforcement of religious homogeneity is his apparent ambivalence toward religious belief in general. His focus throughout The Protestant Ethic remains more on the social influences of various religious traditions, rather than the doctrines and dogmas of the faiths themselves. This becomes obvious when he writes that the capitalist system “no longer needs the support of any religious forces, and feels the attempts of religion to influence economic life, in so far as they can still be felt at all, to be as much an unjustified interference as its regulation by the State” (Weber, 62). Given the fact that Weber clearly did not view religious dogma as a necessary influence on post-industrial capitalist society, one might conclude that Weber would have viewed any attempt to limit religious freedom as an frivolous endeavour. At the very least, Weber might have been ambivalent toward religious homogeneity within political society, and therefore more likely to support religious freedom as a basic concept, if not a right. References: Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Florence: Routledge, 1930.
Voting Rights and Suffrage	Philosophical Origins	Through the democratic process in which citizens elect their representatives to government, Weberian Thought held the promise that it would be possible to rewrite the historically authoritarian regime of Prussia (Germany at Weber’s time) perpetuated by Junkers, wealthy conservative landowners, and monarchists before the war. (Maley, 2011, p.76). Weber envisioned his model as a counterpoint to both the left's Social Democrats and the right's monarchists and Junkers. According to Weber, equal suffrage meant equal universal voting rights for working classes who had historically been barred from voting. In his writings on equal suffrage in modern citizenship, he clearly states that equal suffrage is “closely related to the equality of certain fates which the modern state as such creates” (Weber, 1994, p. 105). He explicitly focuses on returning soldiers’ rights, and argues that the equality of the modern state functions in the way that people are equal before death, because the “most basic needs [of physical existence] on the one hand and, on the other, that most solemn and lofty fact of all are encompassed by those equalities which the modern state offers all its citizens in a truly lasting and undoubted way: sheer physical security and the minimum for subsistence, but also the battlefield on which to die” (Weber, 1994, p.105, para.2) Weber does not emphasize on women’s suffrage, he does, however, say that women should have the right to vote as long as “they too are ‘fighting’ the war if they do their duty” (Weber, 1994, p.78, line.14). Moreover, in “Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology”, Weber notes that “the woman is dependent because of the normal superiority of the physical and intellectual energies of the male” (Weber, 1978, p. 1007) . The Weberian Thought on voting was aiming to correct historical gender and class inequities or might at least mitigate the most severe exclusions of women, the urban working class, and the rural peasantry from power and government. Weber's ideas for equal suffrage might be viewed as a partial erasing of historical discriminatory markings. Weber's suggestions have a deeper element to them than the more neutral sounding ‘counterweight’ to bureaucratic dominance (Weber, 1994, p.104). Equal suffrage emerged as a valuable counterbalance to both types of inequity. Weber saw that the inequities created by capitalism might be just as persistent as those created by prior, more feudal social systems. Against both, Weber advocated for a ‘positive politics’ in which “equal voting rights” means that the individual “is not considered in terms of the particular professional and family position he occupies, nor in relation to the differences of material and social situation, but purely and simply as a citizen” (Weber, 1994, p.103). During the Russian revolution, enraged workers, students, and returning soldiers took to the streets in protest of the existing regime's ruler, Tsar Nicholas II, who had obstructed their enfranchisement and rights prior to the war and then ordered mass slaughter on the battlefield. Weber recognized their outrage at the collapsing regime, but he dismissed their demands for more revolutionary, far-reaching reform as immature. Although Weber understood the anger of Russian revolutionists against the crumbling regime, he saw it as immature and ‘childish’ (Maley, 2011, p. 99). Weber was concerned that under the Russian revolutionary circumstances of 1918– 19, people would respond out of anger and rage, which would be doubly harmful. In “Parliament and Government in Germany under a New Political Order”, Weber had already wondered “whether such explosions unleash yet again the familiar and usual fear of the propertied classes; in other words, it depends on whether the emotional effect of undirected mass fury produces the equally emotional and equally undirected cowardice of the bourgeoisie” (Weber, 1994, p. 232) In his wartime newspaper writings, Weber made a strategic case for the Social Democratic Party's participation as a disciplined working-class party. Though Weber considered the working class to be too “immature” to take on the role of a ruling class, he praised the discipline and self-control of the Social Democrats' political partners, the trade unions. He said approvingly that “organizations like the trade unions, but also the Social Democratic Party, create a very important counterbalance [not only against the right, but] to the rule of the street which is so typical of purely plebiscitary nations and so prone to momentary and irrational influences” (Weber, 1994, p. 231). References: Maley, T. ( 2011) . Democracy and the Political. In Democracy & the Political in Max Weber's Thought (pp. 77-120). Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press. Retrieved July 16, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt2ttgq2.7 Weber, M. ( 1994) . Weber: Political Writings. United States: Cambridge University Press. Weber, M. ( 1978) . Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. University of California Press.