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Max Weber's concept of rationalisation
Max Weber (1864 - 1920) conceived of modernisation as a universal process of rationalisation that occurs as humanity becomes
disenchanted with religious worldviews. i[1] Whereas Marx had seen the rationalisation of society taking place by the development
of productive forces based on empirical knowledge Weber focused on social evolution. Habermas criticises them both for having
only a vague concept of societal rationality and overly simple concepts of social action. He goes back to the establishment of the
ideal of rationality in the Enlightenment with reference to the writing of The Marquis de Condorcet. In his Sketch for a Historical
Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1794, London 1955) Condorcet had seen Newtonian physics's methodology of
observation, experiment and calculation as a paradigm for the production of a knowledge which threatened to reduce previous
philosophical knowledge to the status of opinion.
Habermas argues that Weber's basic theoretical assumptions with regard to social action prejudiced his analysis in the direction of
the purposive rationality, which arises from the conditions of commodity production. This restricts his theory of action and the
liberatory potential of his widely accepted idea of rationality.
If action is defined as human behaviour with intention, or with subjective meaning attached, then Weber's theory of action is based
on the solitary acting subject and does not encompass the co-ordinating actions that are inherent to a social body.ii[2] This
individuated concept of action does not adequately account for the complex concept of rationality that is implied from Weber's
own cultural analyses.iii[3]
According to Weber, rationalisation creates three spheres of value as the differentiated zones of Science, Art and Law. iv[4] This
fundamental disunity of reason constitutes the danger of modernity. This danger arises not simply from the creation of separate
institutional entities but through the specialisation of cognitive, normative and aesthetic knowledge that in turn permeates and
fragments everyday consciousness. This all-pervasive 'rationalisation' is argued to have profoundly negative effects on
socialisation, social integration and cultural production.
This 'disunity of reason' implies that culture moves from a traditional base in a consensual collective endeavour to forms which
are rationalised by commodification and led by individuals with interests which are separated from the purposes of the population
as a whole. This 'purposive rational action' is steered by the 'media' of the state, which substitute for oral language as the medium
of the co-ordination of social action. There is then antagonism between these two principles of societal integration - language,
orientated to understanding, and 'media', which are systems of success orientated action.
The same 'disunity of reason' caused by the separation of science, morality and art means that cultural production moves from a
collective basis to a commodified basis led by individuals orientated to their own success rather than to a collective well being.
The Exploding Cinema collective is clearly in the language camp and keeps itself distanced from state 'media'. The point is that
for Exploding Cinema to be understood as part of this area of 'language' it needs to be seen as part of oral culture rather than the
literary culture of formal written discourse.
Following Weber, Habermas sees specialisation as the key historical development, which leads to the alienating, effects of
modernity that 'permeates and fragments everyday consciousness'. Exploding Cinema can be a seen as a site of reintegration: an
active audience; an MC as a live intermediary; an integration of live performance; a close alliance with other cultures of
resistance.v[5] But it also still sees itself within the separate category of 'film' even if this is marginalised. I have tried to reframe
Exploding Cinema activity by relating it to 'amateur film', a category which breaks the professional envelop and reconnects the
representation with everyday life - to make this connection, which is latent within Exploding Cinema practice, realised as
discourse. However this implies that a full evaluation of Exploding Cinema may first require a radical legitimation of the realm of
amateur film.
Habermas points out that the 'socio-psychological costs' of this limited version of rationality, which Lukacs calls reification, are in
the last count borne by individuals. They surface as widespread neurotic illnesses, addictions, psychosomatic disorders and
behavioural and emotional difficulties. Or they find more conscious expression in criminal actions, protest groups and religious
cults.vi [6] Lukacs thought that reification, although it runs deep, has a limit. This limit can be seen as the potential of rational
argument to be self-reflexive and transcend its occupational use by oppressive agencies. Habermas agrees with this optimistic
analysis in contrast to Adorno and Horkheimer, and thinks that freedom and ideals of reconciliation are ingrained in the
mechanisms of the linguistically mediated sociation of humanity.
History
The term was first coined by Max Weber, the “youngest” of the German Historical School of economics, in
his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The Protestant work ethic is often credited with
helping to define the societies of Northern Europe and other countries where Protestantism was strong (for
example, the Scandinavian countries, northern Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States of
America). In such societies, it is regarded by many observers as one of the cornerstones of national
prosperity. Such observers would say that people in countries with Protestant roots tend to be more
materialistic, perfectionist, and more focused on work as compared to people in many Catholic countries
(for example, Spain, Italy, and France) where the people had a more relaxed attitude towards work and were
less materialistic.
[edit] Criticism
Proponents of the notion of the "Protestant work ethic" claim that the term refers to its Protestant origin and
does not require Protestantism itself. As Ireland was ruled by a Protestant nation, while Japan modeled its
modernization on largely-Protestant nations like the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, they could
have received the secularized ethic from Protestants without accepting any religious underpinning to it.
Similarly, successful capitalist countries with relatively-large Catholic minorities such as the United States,
Australia, United Kingdom and New Zealand tend to be ignored in the analysis and lumped together as
Protestant, despite the strong influence and 'capitalist outlook' of Catholics in the business community in all
of these countries. Catholics make up the majority in much of Southern Germany (Bavaria has the highest
GDP of all German States, but this is a rather recent, post-WWII development).
The notion of the Protestant work ethic faced some criticism in the Twentieth century. The strongest of such
criticism was that it revolved mostly around the culture and history of Europe and did not take into account
societies that had never been Christian. Examples often cited are East Asian nations like Japan which have a
strong work ethic but never had more than a small minority of Protestants. Others feel that the recent
economic progress of Catholic nations like Ireland and Brazil makes the term at best of historical use.
The capitalist development of Catholic northern Italy and southwestern Germany before and during the
Protestant Reformation is also cited as a counterargument that other factors, including geographical and
political ones, were the main drivers for capitalist development, not Protestantism per se. Similarly, the deep
economic factors that gave rise to capitalist accumulation and development existed in Europe prior to the
Reformation in 1517 and owe little to any religious factor, but more to the unraveling of feudalism and the
functioning of governance institutions that strengthened property rights and lowered transaction costs.
The Protestant Ethic
Max Weber
Weber's concern with the meaning that people give to their actions allowed him to understand the
drift of historical change. He believed that rational action within a system of rational-legal authority
is at the heart of modern society. His sociology was first and foremost an attempt to explore and
explain this shift from traditional to rational action.
Weber believed that the rationalisation of action can only be realised when traditional ways of life are
abandoned. Modern people often have a difficult time realising the hold of tradition on pre-industrial
peoples. Tradition was overpowering in pre-modern societies. Weber's task was to uncover the forces
in the West that caused people to abandon their traditional religious value orientation and encouraged
them to develop a desire for acquiring goods and wealth.
After careful study, Weber came to the belief that the protestant ethic broke the hold of tradition
while it encouraged men to apply themselves rationally to their work. Calvinism, he found, had
developed a set of beliefs around the concept of predestination. It was believed by followers of Calvin
that one could not do good works or perform acts of faith to assure your place in heaven. You were
either among the "elect" (in which case you were in) or you were not. However, wealth was taken as a
sign (by you and your neighbours) that you were one of the God's elect, thereby providing
encouragement for people to acquire wealth. The protestant ethic therefore provided religious
sanctions that fostered a spirit of rigorous discipline, encouraging men to apply themselves rationally
to acquire wealth.
Weber studied non-Western cultures as well. He found that several of these pre-industrial societies
had the technological infrastructure and other necessary preconditions to begin capitalism and
economic expansion. The only force missing were the positive sanctions to abandon traditional ways.
While Weber does not believe that the protestant ethic was the only cause of the rise of capitalism, he
believed it to be a powerful force in fostering its emergence.
Weber and Marx
Weber's views about the inescapable rationalisation and bureaucratisation of the world have
some obvious similarities to Marx's notion of alienation. Both men agree that modern
methods of organisation have tremendously increased the effectiveness and efficiency of
production. Both agree that this has allowed an unprecedented domination of man over the
world of nature. Both also agree that the new world of rationalised efficiency threatens to
turn into a monster and dehumanise its creators.
But Weber disagrees with Marx's claim that alienation is only a transitional stage on the road to man's true
emancipation. Weber does not believe in the "inevitability" of socialism. However, if it came to pass he
thought that socialism would be even more bureaucratic and rationalised than capitalism--and thus even
more alienating to man. Weber believed that the alienation documented by Marx had little to do with the
ownership of the mode of production, but was a consequence of bureaucracy.
Marx asserted that capitalism has led to the "expropriation" of the worker from the mode of production.
How the modern worker is not in control of his fate, is forced to sell his labour (and thus his self) to private
capitalists. Weber countered that loss of control at work was an inescapable result of any system of
rationally co-ordinated production. Weber argued that men could no longer engage in socially significant
action unless they joined a large-scale organisation. In joining organisations they would have to sacrifice
their personal desires and goals to the impersonal goals and procedures of the organisation itself. By doing
so, they would be cut off from a part of themselves, they would become alienated.
Socialism and capitalism are both economic systems based on industrialisation --the rational application of
science, observation, and reason to the production of goods and services. Both capitalism and socialism are
forms of a rational organisation of social life to control and co-ordinate this production. Socialism is
predicated on government ownership of the economy to provide co-ordination to meet the needs of people
within society. If anything, Weber maintained, socialism would be even more rationalised, even more
bureaucratic than capitalism. And thus, more alienating to human beings as well.
To Max Weber, writing in the early 1900s, Marx's view was too simple - he agreed that different classes
exist, but he thought that "Status" or "Social Prestige" was the key factor in deciding which group each
one of us belongs to. So, where we live, our manner of speech, our schooling, our leisure habits, these, and
many other factors, decide our social class - he called these different aspects of the way we behave our
"Life-Style". Particularly important, he thought, was the way each person thinks about his/her "LifeChances" - if we feel that we can become a respected and highly valued member of wider society, then this
is likely to put us in a higher social class than some others e.g. a child who goes to a Private School, live in a
large house, has parents who are "professional" people, and has a "standard" BBC accent is likely (but not
certain) to feel that he/she has a greater chance of becoming generally respected than a child who is educated
in an inner city, crowded school, and who lives in a Council Estate, and who speaks with a regional accent.
Max Weber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people named Max Weber, see Max Weber (disambiguation).
Max Weber
German sociologist and political economist
Born 21 April 1864
Erfurt, Prussian Saxony
Died 14 June 1920 (aged 56)
Munich, Bavaria
Maximilian Carl Emil "Max" Weber (German pronunciation: [ˈmaks ˈveːbɐ]; 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920)
was a German sociologist andpolitical economist, who profoundly influenced social theory, social research,
and the remit of sociology itself.[1] Weber's major works dealt with the rationalization and so-called
"disenchantment" which he associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity.[2] Weber was, along with
his associate Georg Simmel, a central figure in the establishment of methodological antipositivism;
presenting sociology as a non-empirical field which must study social action through resolutely subjective
means.[3] He is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as one of the three principal architects
of modern social science,[4] and has variously been described as the most important classic thinker in the
social sciences.[5][6]
Weber is most famous for his thesis in economic sociology, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism. In this text, Weber argued that ascetic Protestantism particular to the Occident was one of the
major "elective affinities" in determining the rise of capitalism,bureaucracy and the rational-legal nationstate. Contrary to Karl Marx, Weber did not consider the development of capitalism in purelymaterial terms;
he instead emphasised religious influences embedded into culture.[7] The Protestant Ethic formed the
earliest work in Weber's broader project in the sociology of religion: he would go on to examine the religion
of China, the religion of India, and Ancient Judaism, with particular regard to the apparent non-development
of Capitalism, and to differing forms of social stratification.
In another major work, Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity which claims a
"monopoly on the legitimate use of violence", a definition that became pivotal to the study of modern
Western political science. His analysis of bureaucracy in his Economy and Society is still central to the
modern study of organizations. Weber was the first to recognize several diverse aspects of social authority,
which he respectively categorized according to their charismatic, traditional, and legal forms. His analysis of
bureaucracy thus noted that modern state institutions are based on a form of rational-legal authority. Weber's
thought regarding the rationalizing and secularizingtendencies of modern Western society (sometimes
described as the "Weber Thesis") would come to facilitate critical theory, particularly in the work of thinkers
such as Jürgen Habermas.
Weber was one of the key drafters of the ill-fated, post-World War I Weimar Constitution of Germany, and
specifically of the Article 48 which would have far-reaching consequences over the destinies of the country.
Contents
[hide]
•
1 Biography
•
2 Achievements
•
3 Sociology of religion
o
3.1 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
o
3.2 The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism
o
3.3 The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism
o
3.4 Ancient Judaism
•
4 Sociology of politics and government
•
5 Economics
•
6 As a critic of socialism
•
7 Critical responses to Weber
o
7.1 Influence from and on the Austrian school
o
7.2 Historical critiques
o
7.3 Critiques on Weber's historicism
•
8 See also
•
9 References
•
10 Further reading
•
11 External links
[edit]Biography
Weber was born in 1864, in Erfurt in Thuringia, Germany, the eldest of seven children of Max Weber Sr., a
wealthy and prominent politician in the National Liberal Party (Germany) and acivil servant, and Helene
Fallenstein, a Protestant and a Calvinist, with strong moral absolutist ideas.[8] Weber Sr.'s engagement with
public life immersed the family home in politics, as his salon received many prominent scholars and public
figures. Weber was strongly influenced by his mother's views and approach to life, but he did not claim to be
religious himself.
The young Weber and his brother Alfred, who also became a sociologist and economist, thrived in this
intellectual atmosphere. Weber's 1876 Christmas presents to his parents, when he was thirteen years old,
were two historical essays entitled "About the course of German history, with special reference to the
positions of the emperor and the pope" and "About the Roman Imperial period from Constantine to the
migration of nations".[9] At the age of fourteen, he wrote letters studded with references to Homer, Virgil,
Cicero, and Livy, and he had an extended knowledge of Goethe, Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer before he
began university studies. It seemed clear that Weber would pursue advanced studies in the social sciences.
Max Weber and his brothers, Alfred and Karl, in 1879
In 1882 Weber enrolled in the University of Heidelberg as a law student.[10] Weber joined his father's
duelling fraternity, and chose as his major study Weber Sr.'s field of law. Along with his law coursework,
young Weber attended lectures in economics and studied medieval history and theology. Intermittently, he
served with the German army in Strasbourg.
In the autumn of 1884, Weber returned to his parents' home to study at the University of Berlin. For the next
eight years of his life, interrupted only by a term at the University of Göttingen and short periods of further
military training, Weber stayed at his parents' house; first as a student, later as a junior barrister, and finally
as a dozent/professor at the University of Berlin. In 1886 Weber passed the examination for "Referendar",
comparable to the bar association examination in the British and American legal systems. Throughout the
late 1880s, Weber continued his study of history. He earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a doctoral
dissertation on legal history entitled The History of Medieval Business Organisations.[10] Two years later,
Weber completed his Habilitationsschrift, The Roman Agrarian History and its Significance for Public and
Private Law.[11] Having thus become a "Privatdozent", Weber was now qualified to hold a German
professorship.
In the years between the completion of his dissertation and habilitation, Weber took an interest in
contemporary social policy. In 1888 he joined the "Verein für Socialpolitik",[12] the new professional
association of German economists affiliated with the historical school, who saw the role of economics
primarily as the solving of the wide-ranging social problems of the age, and who pioneered large scale
statistical studies of economic problems. He also involved himself in politics, joining the left leaning
Evangelical Social Congress.[13] In 1890 the "Verein" established a research program to examine "the
Polish question" or Ostflucht, meaning the influx of foreign farm workers into eastern Germany as local
labourers migrated to Germany's rapidly industrialising cities. Weber was put in charge of the study, and
wrote a large part of its results.[12] The final report was widely acclaimed as an excellent piece of empirical
research, and cemented Weber's reputation as an expert in agrarian economics.
Max Weber and his wife Marianne in 1894
In 1893 he married his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger, later a feminist and author in her own right,[14]
who was instrumental in collecting and publishing Weber's journal articles as books after his death. The
couple moved to Freiburg in 1894, where Weber was appointed professor of economics at Freiburg
University,[11] before accepting the same position at the University of Heidelberg in 1896.[11] Next year,
Max Weber Sr. died, two months after a severe quarrel with his son that was never resolved.[15] After this,
Weber became increasingly prone to nervousness and insomnia, making it difficult for him to fulfill his
duties as a professor.[11] His condition forced him to reduce his teaching, and leave his last course in the
fall of 1899 unfinished. After spending months in a sanatorium during the summer and fall of 1900, Weber
and his wife traveled to Italy at the end of the year, and did not return to Heidelberg until April 1902.
After Weber's immense productivity in the early 1890s, he did not publish a single paper between early 1898
and late 1902, finally resigning his professorship in fall 1903. Freed from those obligations, in that year he
accepted a position as associate editor of the Archives for Social Science and Social Welfare[16] next to his
colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Werner Sombart.[17] In 1904, Weber began to publish some of his most seminal
papers in this journal, notably his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It became his most
famous work,[18] and laid the foundations for his later research on the impact of cultures and religions on
the development of economic systems.[19] This essay was the only one of his works that was published as a
book during his lifetime. Also that year, he visited the United States and participated in the Congress of Arts
and Sciences held in connection with the World's Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) at St. Louis. Despite
his successes, Weber felt that he was unable to resume regular teaching at that time, and continued on as a
private scholar, helped by an inheritance in 1907.[16] In 1912, Weber tried to organise a left-wing political
party to combine social-democrats and liberals. This attempt was unsuccessful, presumably because many
liberals feared social-democratic revolutionary ideals at the time.[20]
Max Weber in 1917
During the First World War, Weber served for a time as director of the army hospitals in
Heidelberg.[16][21] In 1915 and 1916 he sat on commissions that tried to retain German supremacy in
Belgium and Poland after the war. Weber's views on war, as well as on expansion of the German empire,
changed throughout the war.[20][21][22] He became a member of the worker and soldier council of
Heidelberg in 1918. In the same year, Weber became a consultant to the German Armistice Commission at
the Treaty of Versailles and to the commission charged with drafting the Weimar Constitution.[16] He
argued in favor of inserting Article 48 into the Weimar Constitution.[23] This article was later used byAdolf
Hitler to institute rule by decree, thereby allowing his government to suppress opposition and obtain
dictatorial powers. Weber's contributions to German politics remain a controversial subject to this day.
Weber resumed teaching during this time, first at the University of Vienna, then in 1919 at the University of
Munich.[16] In Munich, he headed the first German university institute of sociology, but ultimately never
held a personal sociology appointment. Weber left politics due to right-wing agitation in 1919 and 1920.
Many colleagues and students in Munich argued against him for his speeches and left-wing attitude during
the German Revolution of 1918 and 1919, with some right-wing students holding protests in front of his
home.[20] Max Weber contracted the Spanish flu and died of pneumonia in Munich on June 14, 1920.
[edit]Achievements
Weber's most famous work relates to economic sociology, political sociology, and the sociology of religion.
Along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim,[24] he is regarded as one of the founders of modern sociology.
In his time, however, Weber was viewed primarily as a historian and an economist.[24][25] The breadth of
Weber's topical interests is apparent in the depth of his social theory:
The affinity between capitalism and Protestantism, the religious origins of the Western world, the force of
charisma in religion as well as in politics, the all-embracing process of rationalization and the bureaucratic
price of progress, the role of legitimacy and of violence as offsprings of leadership, the 'disenchantment' of
the modern world together with the never-ending power of religion, the antagonistic relation between
intellectualism and eroticism: all these are key concepts which attest to the enduring fascination of Weber's
thinking.
– Radkau, Joachim Max Weber: A Biography 2005[26]
Whereas Durkheim, following Comte, worked in the positivist tradition, Weber created and worked – like
Werner Sombart, his friend and then the most famous representative of German sociology – in the
antipositivist, hermeneutic, tradition.[27] These works pioneered the antipositivistic revolution in social
sciences, stressing (as in the work of Wilhelm Dilthey) the difference between the social sciences and
natural sciences.[27]
We know of no scientifically ascertainable ideals. To be sure, that makes our efforts more arduous than in
the past, since we are expected to create our ideals from within our breast in the very age of subjectivist
culture.
– Max Weber Economy and society 1909[28]
Weber presented sociology as the science of human social action; action which he differentiated into
traditional, affectional, value-rational and instrumental.[29]
[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a
causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and theeffects which it produces. By 'action' in
this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent that the agent or agents see it as
subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the meaning actually intended
either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate
average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type
constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' to be thought of as somehow objectively 'correct'
or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such
as sociology and history, and any kind of priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics
whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.
– Max Weber The Nature of Social Action 1922, [30]
Weber began his studies of rationalisation in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he
argued that the redefinition of the connection between work and piety in Protestantism, and especially in
ascetic Protestant denominations, particularly Calvinism,[31] shifted human effort towards rational efforts
aimed at achieving economic gain. In Calvinism in particular, but also in Lutheranism, Christian piety
towards God was expressed through or in one's secular vocation. Calvin, in particular, viewed the expression
of the work ethic as a sign of "election". The rational roots of this doctrine, he argued, soon grew
incompatible with and larger than the religious, and so the latter were eventually discarded.[32] Weber
continued his investigation into this matter in later works, notably in his studies on bureaucracy and on the
classifications of authority into three types—legitimate, traditional, and charismatic. In these works Weber
described what he saw as society's movement towards rationalization.
What Weber depicted was not only the secularization of Western culture, but also and especially the
development of modern societies from the viewpoint of rationalization. The new structures of society were
marked by the differentiation of the two functionally intermeshing systems that had taken shape around the
organizational cores of the capitalist enterprise and the bureaucratic state apparatus. Weber understood this
process as the institituionalization of purposive-rational economic and administrative action. To the degree
that everyday life was affected by this cultural and societal rationalization, tradional forms of life - which in
the early modern period were differentated primarily according to one's trade - were dissolved.
– Jürgen Habermas Modernity's Consciousness of Time, [2]
It should be noted that many of Weber's works famous today were collected, revised, and published
posthumously. Significant interpretations of his writings were produced by such sociological luminaries as
Talcott Parsons and C. Wright Mills. Parsons in particular imparted to Weber's works a functionalist,
teleological perspective; this personal interpretation has been criticised for a latent conservatism.[33]
[edit]Sociology of religion
Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion started with the essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, which grew out of heavy "field work" among Protestant sects in America, and continued with
the analysis of The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, The Religion of India: The Sociology of
Hinduism and Buddhism, and Ancient Judaism. His work on other religions was interrupted by his sudden
death in 1920, which prevented him from following Ancient Judaism with studies of Psalms, Book of Jacob,
Talmudic Jewry, early Christianity and Islam.[34] His three main themes were the effect of religious ideas
on economic activities, the relation between social stratification and religious ideas, and the distinguishable
characteristics of Western civilization.[35]
His goal was to find reasons for the different development paths of the cultures of the Occident and the
Orient, although without judging or valuing them, like some of the contemporary thinkers who followed the
social Darwinist paradigm; Weber wanted primarily to explain the distinctive elements of the Western
civilization.[35] In the analysis of his findings, Weber maintained that Calvinist (and more widely,
Protestant) religious ideas had had a major impact on the social innovation and development of the
economic system of Europe and the United States, but noted that they were not the only factors in this
development. Other notable factors mentioned by Weber included the rationalism of scientific pursuit,
merging observation with mathematics, science of scholarship and jurisprudence, rational systematization of
government administration, and economic enterprise.[35] In the end, the study of the sociology of religion,
according to Weber, merely explored one phase of the freedom from magic, that "disenchantment of the
world" that he regarded as an important distinguishing aspect of Western culture.[35]
[edit]The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Main article: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Cover of the original German edition of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des
Kapitalismus) is his most famous work.[18] It is argued that this work should not be viewed as a detailed
study of Protestantism, but rather as an introduction into Weber's later works, especially his studies of
interaction between various religious ideas and economic behaviour. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, Weber put forward the thesis that calvinist ethic and ideas influenced the development of
capitalism. In this work, he relied on a great deal of statistics from the era, which indicated the
predominance of Protestants among the wealthy, industrial, and technical classes relative to Catholics. He
also noted the shift of Europe's economic center after the Reformation away from Catholic countries such as
France, Spain and Italy, and toward Protestant countries such as the Netherlands, England, Scotland and
Germany. This theory is often viewed as a reversal of Marx's thesis that the economic "base" of society
determines all other aspects of it.[31] Christian religious devotion had historically been accompanied by
rejection of mundane affairs, including economic pursuit.[36] Why was that not the case with Protestantism?
Weber addressed that paradox in his essay.
According to Weber, one of the universal tendencies that Christians had historically fought against, was the
desire to profit. After defining the spirit of capitalism, Weber argued that there were many reasons to look
for the origins of modern capitalism in the religious ideas of the Reformation. Many observers, such as
William Petty, Montesquieu, Henry Thomas Buckle, John Keats, and others had commented on the affinity
between Protestantism and the development of the commercial spirit.[37]
Weber showed that certain types of Protestantism – notably Calvinism – favored rational pursuit of
economic gain and worldly activities which had been given positive spiritual and moral meaning.[31] It was
not the goal of those religious ideas, but rather a byproduct – the inherent logic of those doctrines and the
advice based upon them both directly and indirectly encouraged planning and self-denial in the pursuit of
economic gain. A common illustration is in the cobbler, hunched over his work, who devotes his entire
effort to the praise of God. In addition, the Reformation view "calling" dignified even the most mundane
professions as being those that added to the common good and were blessed by God, as much as any
"sacred" calling could. This Reformation view, that all the spheres of life were sacred when dedicated to
God and His purposes of nurturing and furthering life, profoundly affected the view of work.
To illustrate and provide an example, Weber quoted the ethical writings of Benjamin Franklin:
Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits
idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon
that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. ... Remember, that
money is theprolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so
on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred
pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and
quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that
murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.(Italics in the original)
Weber noted that this is not a philosophy of mere greed, but a statement laden with moral language. Indeed,
Franklin claimed that God revealed to him the usefulness of virtue.[38]
To emphasize the work ethic in Protestantism relative to Catholicism, Weber noted a common problem that
industrialists faced when employing precapitalist laborers: agricultural entrepreneurs would try to encourage
time spent harvesting by offering a higher wage, with the expectation that laborers would see time spent
working as more valuable and so engage it longer. However, in precapitalist societies similar attempts often
resulted in laborers spending less time harvesting. Laborers judged that they could earn the same amount as
previously, while spending less time working and having more leisure. Weber also noted that societies
having more Protestants were those that have a more developed capitalist economy.[39]
It was particularly advantageous in technical occupations for workers to be extremely devoted to their craft.
To view the craft as an end in itself, or as a "calling" would serve this need well. This attitude was wellnoted in certain classes which have endured religious education, especially of a Pietist background.[40]
Weber stated that he abandoned research into Protestantism because his colleague Ernst Troeltsch, a
professional theologian, had initiated work on the book The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches and
Sects. Another reason for Weber's decision was that the essay had already provided the perspective for a
broad comparison of religion and society, which he continued in his later works.[41] The phrase "work
ethic" used in modern commentary is a derivative of the "Protestant ethic" discussed by Weber. It was
adopted when the idea of the Protestant ethic was generalised to apply to the Japanese people, Jews and
other non-Christians.
[edit]The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism
Main article: The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism
The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism was Weber's second major work on the sociology of
religion. Weber focused on those aspects of Chinese society that were different from those of Western
Europe and especially contrasted with Puritanism, and posed a question why capitalism did not develop in
China. In Hundred Schools of Thought Warring States Period, he concentrated on the early period of
Chinese history, during which the major Chinese schools of thoughts (Confucianism and Taoism) came to
the fore.[42]
By 200 BC, the Chinese state had developed from a loose federation of feudal states into a unified empire
with patrimonial rule, as described in the Warring States Period.[42] As in Europe, Chinese cities had been
founded as forts or leaders' residences, and were the centres of trade and crafts. However, they never
received political autonomy and its citizens had no special political rights or privileges. This is due to the
strength of kinship ties, which stems from religious beliefs in ancestral spirits. Also, the guilds competed
against each other for the favor of the Emperor, never uniting in order to fight for more rights. Therefore, the
residents of Chinese cities never constitute a separate status class like the residents of European cities.[43]
Early unification of the state and the establishment of central officialdom meant that the focus of the power
struggle changed from the distribution of land to the distribution of offices, which with their fees and taxes
were the most prominent source of income for the holder, who often pocketed up to 50% of the revenue. The
imperial government depended on the services of those officials, not on the service of the military (knights)
as in Europe.[43]
Weber emphasised that Confucianism tolerated a great number of popular cults without any effort to
systematise them into a religious doctrine. Instead of metaphysical conjectures, it taught adjustment to the
world. The "superior" man (literati) should stay away from the pursuit of wealth (though not from wealth
itself). Therefore, becoming a civil servant was preferred to becoming a businessman and granted a much
higher status.[44]
Chinese civilization had no religious prophecy nor a powerful priestly class. The emperor was the high
priest of the state religion and the supreme ruler, but popular cults were also tolerated (however the political
ambitions of their priests were curtailed). This forms a sharp contrast with medieval Europe, where the
Church curbed the power of secular rulers and the same faith was professed by rulers and common folk
alike.
According to Confucianism, the worship of great deities is the affair of the state, while ancestral worship is
required of all, and the multitude of popular cults is tolerated. Confucianism tolerated magic and mysticism
as long as they were useful tools for controlling the masses; it denounced them as heresy and suppressed
them when they threatened the established order (hence the opposition to Buddhism). Note that in this
context, Confucianism can be referred to as the state cult, and Taoism as the popular religion.[45]
Weber argued that while several factors favored the development of a capitalist economy (long periods of
peace, improved control of rivers, population growth, freedom to acquire land and move outside of native
community, free choice of occupation) they were outweighed by others (mostly stemming from religion):
technical inventions were opposed on the basis of religion, in the sense that the disturbance of
ancestral spirits was argued to lead to bad luck, and adjusting oneself to the world was preferred to changing
it.
sale of land was often prohibited or made very difficult.
extended kinship groups (based on the religious importance of family ties and ancestry) protected its
members against economic adversities, therefore discouraging payment of debts, work discipline, and
rationalisation of work processes.
those kinship groups prevented the development of an urban status class and hindered developments
towards legal institutions, codification of laws, and the rise of a lawyer class.[42]
According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism represent two comprehensive but mutually exclusive
types of rationalisation, each attempting to order human life according to certain ultimate religious beliefs.
Both encouraged sobriety and self-control and were compatible with the accumulation of wealth. However,
Confucianism aimed at attaining and preserving "a cultured status position" and used as means adjustment to
the world, education, self-perfection, politeness and familial piety. Puritanism used those means in order to
create a "tool of God", creating a person that would serve the God and master the world. Such intensity of
belief and enthusiasm for action were alien to the aesthetic values of Confucianism. Therefore, Weber states
that it was the difference in prevailing mentality that contributed to the development of capitalism in the
West and the absence of it in China.[46]
[edit]The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism
Main article: The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism
The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism was Weber's third major work on the
sociology of religion. In this work he deals with the structure of Indian society, with the orthodox doctrines
of Hinduism and the heterodox doctrines of Buddhism, with modifications brought by the influence of
popular religiosity, and finally with the impact of religious beliefs on the secular ethic of Indian society.[47]
The ancient Nepalese social system was shaped by the concept of caste. It directly linked religious belief and
the segregation of society into status groups. Weber describes the caste system, consisting of the Brahmins
(priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors), the Vaisyas (merchants) and the Shudras (labourers). Then he describes
the spread of the caste system in Nepal due to conquests, the marginalisation of certain tribes and the
subdivision of castes.[47]
Weber pays special attention to Brahmins and analyzes why they occupied the highest place in Nepalese
society for so many centuries. With regard to the concept of dharma he concludes that the Indian ethical
pluralism is very different both from the universal ethic of Confucianism and Christianity. He notes that the
caste system prevented the development of urban status groups.[48]
Next, Weber analyses the Hindu religious beliefs, including asceticism and the Hindu world view, the
Brahman orthodox doctrines, the rise and fall of Buddhism in Nepal, the Hindu restoration, and the
evolution of the guru. Weber asks the question whether religion had any influence upon the daily round of
mundane activities, and if so, how it impacted economic conduct. He notes the idea of an immutable world
order consisting of the eternal cycles of rebirth and the deprecation of the mundane world, and finds that the
traditional caste system, supported by the religion, slowed economic development; in other words, the
"spirit" of the caste system militated against an indigenous development of capitalism.[48]
Weber concludes his study of society and religion in India by combining his findings with his previous work
on China. He notes that the beliefs tended to interpret the meaning of life as otherworldly or mystical
experience, that the intellectuals tended to be apolitical in their orientation, and that the social world was
fundamentally divided between the educated, whose lives were oriented toward the exemplary conduct of a
prophet or wise man, and the uneducated masses who remained caught in their daily rounds and believed in
magic. In Asia, noMessianic prophecy appeared that could have given "plan and meaning to the everyday
life of educated and uneducated alike." He argues that it was the Messianic prophecies in the countries of the
Near East, as distinguished from the prophecy of the Asiatic mainland, that prevented Western countries
from following the paths of China and India, and his next work,Ancient Judaism was an attempt to prove
this theory.[49]
[edit]Ancient Judaism
Main article: Ancient Judaism (book)
In Ancient Judaism, his fourth major work on the sociology of religion, Weber attempted to explain the
"combination of circumstances" which resulted in the early differences betweenOriental and Occidental
religiosity.[50] It is especially visible when the innerworldly asceticism developed by Western Christianity
is contrasted with mystical contemplation of the kind developed in India.[50] Weber noted that some aspects
of Christianity sought to conquer and change the world, rather than withdraw from its imperfections.[50]
This fundamental characteristic of Christianity (when compared to Far Eastern religions) stems originally
from ancient Jewish prophecy.[51] Stating his reasons for investigating ancient Judaism, Weber wrote that
Anyone who is heir to the traditions of modern European civilization will approach the problems of
universal history with a set of questions, which to him appear both inevitable and legitimate. These
questions will turn on the combination of circumstances which has brought about the cultural phenomena
that are uniquely Western and that have at the same time (…) a universal cultural significance.[50]
Further on he adds:
"For the Jew (…) the social order of the world was conceived to have been turned into the opposite of that
promised for the future, but in the future it was to be overturned so that Jewry could be once again dominant.
The world was conceived as neither eternal nor unchangeable, but rather as being created. Its present
structure was a product of man's actions, above all those of the Jews, and God's reaction to them. Hence the
world was a historical product designed to give way to the truly God-ordained order (…). There existed in
addition a highly rational religious ethic of social conduct; it was free of magic and all forms of irrational
quest for salvation; it was inwardly worlds apart from the path of salvation offered by Asiatic religions. To a
large extent this ethic still underlies contemporary Middle Eastern and European ethic. World-historical
interest in Jewry rests upon this fact. (…) Thus, in considering the conditions of Jewry's evolution, we stand
at a turning point of the whole cultural development of the West and the Middle East".[51]
Weber analyzes the interaction between the Bedouins, the cities, the herdsmen and the peasants, including
the conflicts between them and the rise and fall of the United Monarchy. The time of the United Monarchy
appears as a mere episode, dividing the period of confederacy since the Exodus and the settlement of the
Israelites in Canaan from the period of political decline following the division of the monarchy. This
division into periods has major implications for religious history. Since the basic tenets of Judaism were
formulated during the time of Israelite confederacy and after the fall of the United Monarchy, they became
the basis of the prophetic movement that left a lasting impression on the Western civilization.[52]
Weber discusses the organization of the early confederacy, the unique qualities of the Israelites' relations to
Yahweh, the influence of foreign cults, types of religious ecstasy, and the struggle of the priests against
ecstasy and idol worship. He goes on to describe the times of the Division of the Monarchy, social aspects of
Biblical prophecy, the social orientation of the prophets, demagogues and pamphleteers, ecstasy and politics,
and the ethic and theodicity of the prophets. Weber notes that Judaism not only fathered Christianity and
Islam, but was crucial to the rise of modern Occident state, as its influence were as important to those of
Hellenistic and Roman cultures. Reinhard Bendix, summarizing Ancient Judaism, writes that
free of magic and esoteric speculations, devoted to the study of law, vigilant in the effort to do what was
right in the eyes of the Lord in the hope of a better future, the prophets established a religion of faith that
subjected man's daily life to the imperatives of a divinely ordained moral law. In this way, ancient Judaism
helped create the moral rationalism of Western civilisation.[53]
[edit]Sociology of politics and government
In political sociology, one of Weber's most significant contributions is his Politics as a Vocation essay.
Therein, Weber unveils the definition of the state that has become so pivotal to Western social thought: that
the state is that entity which possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force,[54] which it may
nonetheless elect to delegate as it sees fit. In this essay, Weber wrote that politics is to be understood as any
activity in which the state might engage itself in order to influence the relative distribution of force. Politics
thus comes to be understood as deriving from power. A politician must not be a man of the "true Christian
ethic", understood by Weber as being the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount, that is to say, the injunction to
turn the other cheek. An adherent of such an ethic ought rather to be understood to be a saint, for it is only
saints, according to Weber, that can appropriately follow it. The political realm is no realm for saints. A
politician ought to marry the ethic of ultimate ends and the ethic of responsibility, and must possess both a
passion for his vocation and the capacity to distance himself from the subject of his exertions (the
governed).[55]
Weber distinguished three pure types of political leadership, domination and authority:
1.
charismatic domination (familial and religious),
2.
traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism), and
3.
legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy).[56]
In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they can be
analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[57] He also notes that the instability of charismatic
authority inevitably forces it to "routinize" into a more structured form of authority. Likewise he notes that
in a pure type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a master can lead to a "traditional revolution". Thus
he alludes to an inevitable move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic
structure.[58] Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social evolutionism theory. This ties
to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.
Weber is also well-known for his critical study of the bureaucratisation of society, the rational ways in
which formal social organizations apply the ideal type characteristics of a bureaucracy. It was Weber who
began the studies of bureaucracy and whose works led to the popularization of this term.[59] Many aspects
of modern public administration go back to him, and a classic, hierarchically organized civil service of the
Continental type is called "Weberian civil service", although this is only one ideal type of public
administration and government described in his magnum opus Economy and Society (1922), and one that he
did not particularly like himself – he only thought it particularly efficient and successful. In this work,
Weber outlines a description, which has become famous, of rationalization (of which bureaucratization is a
part) as a shift from a value-oriented organization and action (traditional authority and charismatic authority)
to a goal-oriented organization and action (legal-rational authority). The result, according to Weber, is a
"polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in an "iron
cage" of rule-based, rational control.[60] Weber's bureaucracy studies also led him to his analysis – correct,
as it would turn out, after Stalin's takeover – that socialism in Russia would lead to over-bureaucratization
rather than to the "withering away of the state" (as Karl Marx had predicted would happen incommunist
society).[61]
[edit]Economics
While Weber is best known and recognized today as one of the leading scholars and founders of modern
sociology, he also accomplished much in other fields, notably economics, although this is largely forgotten
today among orthodox economists, who pay very little attention to his works. The view that Weber is at all
influential to modern economists comes largely from non-economists and economic critics with sociology
backgrounds. During his life distinctions between the social sciences were less clear than they are now, and
Weber considered himself a historian and an economist first, sociologist distant second.[24][25]
From the point of view of the economists, he is a representative of the "Youngest" German historical school
of economics.[62] His most valued contributions to the field of economics is his famous work, The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. This is a seminal essay on the differences between religions
and the relative wealth of their followers. In contrastSombart located the rise of capitalism successively in
the Enlightenment ideal of reason and control of nature, Judaism and urbanization. Weber's other main
contribution to economics (as well as to social sciences in general) is his work on methodology: his theories
of "Verstehen" (known as understanding or Interpretative Sociology) and of antipositivism (known
ashumanistic sociology).[62]
The doctrine of Interpretative Sociology is one of the main sociological paradigms, with many supporters as
well as critics. This thesis states that social, economic and historical research can never be fully inductive or
descriptive as one must always approach it with a conceptual apparatus, which Weber termed "Ideal
Type".[62] The idea can be summarized as follows: an ideal type is formed from characteristics and
elements of the given phenomena but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one
particular case. Weber's Ideal Type became one of the most important concepts in social sciences, and led to
the creation of such concepts as Ferdinand Tönnies' "Normal Type".
Weber conceded that employing "Ideal Types" was an abstraction but claimed that it was nonetheless
essential if one were to understand any particular social phenomena because, unlike physical phenomena,
they involve human behaviour which must be interpreted by ideal types. This, together with his
antipositivistic argumentation can be viewed as the methodological justification for the assumption of the
"rational economic man" (homo economicus).[62]
Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification, with Social class, Social status and party (or
politicals) as conceptually distinct elements.[63]
Social class is based on economically determined relationship to the market (owner, renter, employee
etc.).
Status is based on non-economical qualities like honour, prestige and religion.
Party refers to affiliations in the political domain.
All three dimensions have consequences for what Weber called "life chances".[63]
Weber's other contributions to economics were several: these include a (seriously researched) economic
history of Roman agrarian society, his work on the dual roles of idealism andmaterialism in the history of
capitalism in his Economy and Society (1914) which present Weber's criticisms (or according to some,
revisions) of some aspects of Marxism. Finally, his thoroughly researched General Economic History (1923)
can be considered the Historical School at its empirical best.[62]
[edit]As a critic of socialism
In the final years of his career Weber became vocal critic of socialism, both in European and Bolshevik
variants. He saw Lenin's ideal of applying hierarchical mode of organization in thefirm on society at large as
an attempt to universalize serfdom. He believed that workers in socialist society still would work in
hierarchy, but this time in much worse form of it, fused with government power.[citation needed]
Weber developed a critique of socialism as an economically impossible system.[64] Weber stated that when
socialism abolishes private property in the means of production, it would at the same time abolish market
prices and monetary calculation of cost and profit, and that way make a rational planned economy
impossible.[citation needed] Socialist central planners can resort to calculation in-kind, but this type of
economic coordination would be grossly inefficient. According to Weber, the main reason why a socialist
in-kind mode of economic calculation cannot work is because it is unable to solve the problem of imputation
(i.e. to determine the relative price of capital goods):
In order to make possible a rational utilization of the means of production, a system of in-kind accounting
would have to determine "value"-indicators of some kind for the individual capital goods which could take
over the role of the "prices" used in book valuation in modern business accounting. But it is not at all clear
how such indicators could be established, and in particular, verified; whether, for instance, they should vary
from one production unit to the next (on the basis of economic location), or whether they should be uniform
for the entire economy, on the basis of "social utility," that is, of (present and future) consumption
requirements? [...] Nothing is gained by assuming that, if only the problem of a non-monetary economy
were seriously enough attacked, a suitable accounting method would be discovered or invented. The
problem is fundamental to any kind of complete socialization. We cannot speak of a rational "planned
economy" so long as in this decisive respect we have no instrument for elaborating a rational "plan".[65]
[edit]Critical responses to Weber
[edit]Influence from and on the Austrian school
This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and
removed. (September 2008)
During his own lifetime, Weber was critical of the neoclassical[dubious – discuss] economic approaches of
authors such as Carl Menger and Friedrich von Wieser, whose formal approach was quite different from his
own historical sociology. The work of these authors eventually led to the creation of the Austrian School of
economics. This includes followers of Friedrich von Hayek and, more recently, authors Daniel Yergin and
Joseph Stanislaw. In their pro-globalization book Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy,
they attack Weber for claiming that only Protestantism could lead to a work ethic, pointing to the "Tiger
Economies" of Southeastern Asia.
However, in these debates, it is easy to overlook that the methods advocated by these later generations of the
Austrian School are heavily indebted to the work of Weber. His "action sociology", as they called it, was a
frequent topic in the "Mises Circle", an influential group headed by Ludwig von Mises, a key figure in the
Austrian School. Among the attendees was a student of Mises, the philosopher of sociology Alfred Schutz,
who sought to clarify Weber's interpretive approach in terms of the analytic phenomenology of Edmund
Husserl. Hence, although Schutz's work, especially The Phenomenology of the Social World (1932), is in
effect a profound critique of Weber's method, it is nevertheless an attempt to further it. Hayek also
frequently attended these discussions, and the subjective method advanced in his The Counter-Revolution of
Science: Studies in the Abuse of Reason (1952) reflects these influences. Ludwig Lachmann, a later member
of the Austrian School, made explicit the Austrian School's indebtedness to the Weberian method.
Interestingly, given their methodological and sociological differences, Weber and Mises were not only
acquainted, they shared an admiration for each other’s work. Mises considered Weber a "great genius" and
his death a blow to Germany. Likewise, Weber comments that Mises’s Theory of Money and Credit is the
monetary theory most acceptable to him[66]. Weber accepted Ludwig von Mises's criticism of socialist
economic planning and added his own argument. He believed that under socialism workers would still work
in a hierarchy, but that now the hierarchy would be fused with government. Instead of dictatorship of the
worker, he foresaw dictatorship of the official.
[edit]Historical critiques
The economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism did not begin with the Industrial Revolution but in
14th century Italy.[67] In Milan, Venice, and Florence the small city-stategovernments led to the
development of the earliest forms of capitalism.[68] In the 16th century Antwerp was a commercial center
of Europe. It was also noted that the predominantly Calvinist country of Scotland did not enjoy the same
economic growth as Holland, England, and New England. In addition, it has been pointed out that Holland,
which was heavily Calvinist, industrialized much later in the 19th century than predominantly Catholic
Belgium, which was one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution on the European mainland.[69]
Emil Kauder expanded Schumpeter's argument by arguing the hypothesis that Calvinism hurt the
development of capitalism by leading to the development of the labor theory of value. Kauder writes "Any
social philosopher or economist exposed to Calvinism will be tempted to give labor an exalted position in
his social or economic treatise, and no better way of extolling labor can be found than by combining work
with value theory, traditionally the very basis of an economic system."[70] In contrast, Catholic areas that
were influenced by the late scholastics were more likely to adhere to the subjective theory of value.
Rebuttal of such criticisms look not at small areas such as Holland and Belgium, or between the Mercantilist
capitalism of Venice and industrial capitalism proper, but at the larger "blooms" of capitalism, where its
beginnings had also taken permanent and decisive hold.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009 )from kenyatta
univasity
[edit]Critiques on Weber's historicism
In his book Natural Right and History, German-American classicist Leo Strauss criticized Max Weber as a
main proponent of historicism along with G.W.F. Hegel and others.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a book written by Max Weber, a German economist
and sociologist in 1904 and 1905 that began as a series of essays. The original edition was in German and
was entitled: Die protestantische Ethik und der 'Geist' des Kapitalismus. An English translation was made
in 1930 by Talcott Parsons, and several editions have been released.
Weber wrote that capitalism evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large
numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in
trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant ethic was a force behind
an unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that led to the development of capitalism. This idea is also
known as "the Weber thesis".
Contents





1 Book contents
2 Table of contents (from the 1958 Scribner's edition, translated by Parsons)
3 Spirit of capitalism
4 See also
5 Related books

6 External links
Book contents
The book is not a detailed study of Protestantism but rather an introduction into Weber's later studies of
interaction between various religious ideas and economics.
In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber argues that Puritan ethics and ideas influenced
the development of capitalism. Religious devotion, however, usually accompanied a rejection of worldly
affairs, including the pursuit of wealth and possessions. Why was that not the case with Protestantism?
Weber addresses this apparent paradox in the book.
He defines spirit of capitalism as the ideas and esprit that favour the rational pursuit of economic gain.
Weber points out that such a spirit is not limited to Western culture if one considers it as the attitude of
individuals, but that such individuals — heroic entrepreneurs, as he calls them — could not by themselves
establish a new economic order (capitalism). The most common tendencies were the greed for profit with
minimum effort and the idea that work was a curse and burden to be avoided especially when it exceeded
what was enough for modest life. As he wrote in his essays:
In order that a manner of life well adapted to the peculiarities of the capitalism… could come to
dominate others, it had to originate somewhere, and not in isolated individuals alone, but as a way of
life common to the whole groups of man.
After defining the "spirit of capitalism," Weber argues that there are many reasons to find its origins in the
religious ideas of the Reformation. Many observers like William Petty, Montesquieu, Henry Thomas
Buckle, John Keats, and others have commented on the affinity between Protestantism and the development
of commercialism.
Weber shows that certain types of Protestantism favoured rational pursuit of economic gain and that worldly
activities had been given positive spiritual and moral meaning. It was not the goal of those religious ideas,
but rather a byproduct — the inherent logic of those doctrines and the advice based upon them both directly
and indirectly encouraged planning and self-denial in the pursuit of economic gain.
Weber traced the origins of the Protestant ethic to the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church assured
salvation to individuals who accepted the church's sacraments and submitted to the clerical authority.
However, the Reformation had effectively removed such assurances. From a psychological viewpoint, the
average person had difficulty adjusting to this new worldview, and only the most devout believers or
"religious geniuses" within Protestanism, such as Martin Luther, were able to make this adjustment,
according to Weber.
In the absence of such assurances from religious authority, Weber argued that Protestants began to look for
other "signs" that they were saved. Calvin and his followers taught a doctrine of double predestination, in
which from the beginning God chose some people for salvation and others for damnation. The inability to
influence one's own salvation presented a very difficult problem for Calvin's followers. It became an
absolute duty to believe that one was chosen for salvation, and to dispel any doubt about that: lack of selfconfidence was evidence of insufficient faith and a sign of damnation. So, self-confidence took the place of
priestly assurance of God's grace.
Worldly success became one measure of that self-confidence. Luther made an early endorsement of Europe's
emerging labor divisions. Weber identifies the applicability of Luther's conclusions, noting that a "vocation"
from God was no longer limited to the clergy or church, but applied to any occupation or trade.
However, Weber saw the fulfillment of the Protestant ethic not in Lutheranism, which he dismissed as a
rather servile religion, but in Calvinistic forms of Christianity. The "paradox" Weber found was, in simple
terms:


According to the new Protestant religions, an individual was religiously compelled to follow a
secular vocation with as much zeal as possible. A person living according to this world view was
more likely to accumulate money.
The new religions (in particular, Calvinism and other more austere Protestant sects) effectively
forbade wastefully using hard earned money and identified the purchase of luxuries a sin. Donations
to an individual's church or congregation was limited due to the rejection by certain Protestant sects
of icons. Finally, donation of money to the poor or to charity was generally frowned on as it was
seen as furthering beggary. This social condition was perceived as laziness, burdening their fellow
man, and an affront to God; by not working, one failed to glorify God.
The manner in which this paradox was resolved, Weber argued, was the investment of this money, which
gave an extreme boost to nascent capitalism.
By the time Weber wrote this essay, he believed that the religious underpinnings of the Protestant ethic had
largely gone from society. He cited the writings of Benjamin Franklin, which emphasized frugality, hard
work and thrift, but were mostly free of spiritual content. Weber also attributed the success of mass
production partly to the Protestant ethic. Only after expensive luxuries were disdained, could individuals
accept the uniform products, such as clothes and furniture, that industrialization offered.
In his remarkably prescient conclusion to the book, Weber lamented that the loss of religious underpinning
to capitalism's spirit has led to a kind of involuntary servitude to mechanized industry.
The Puritan wanted to work in calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was
carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it
did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is
now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today
determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those
directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so
determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. (Page 181, 1953 Scribner's
edition.)
Weber maintained that while Puritan religious ideas had had a major influence on the development of
economic order in Europe and United States, they were not the only factor (others included the rationalism
in scientific pursuit, merging observation with mathematics, science of scholarship and jurisprudence,
rational systematisation of government administration and economic enterprise). In the end, the study of
Protestant ethic, according to Weber, merely explored one phase of the emancipation from magic, that
disenchantment of the world that he regarded as the distinguishing peculiarity of Western culture.
In the final endnotes Weber states that he abandoned research into Protestantism because his colleague Ernst
Troeltsch, a professional theologian, had initiated work on the book The Social Teachings of the Christian
Churches and Sects. Another reason for Weber's decision was that Troeltsch's essay had provided the
perspective for a broad comparison of religion and society, which he continued in his later works (the study
of Judaism and the religions of China and India).
This book is also Weber's first brush with the concept of rationalization. His idea of modern capitalism as
growing out of the religious pursuit of wealth meant a change to a rational means of existence, wealth. That
is to say, at some point the Calvinist rationale informing the "spirit" of capitalism became unreliant on the
underlying religious movement behind it, leaving only rational capitalism. In essence then, Weber's "Spirit
of Capitalism" is effectively and more broadly a Spirit of Rationalization.
The essay can also be interpreted as one of Weber's criticisms of Karl Marx and his theories. While Marx's
historical materialism held that all human institutions - including religion - were based on economic
foundations, The Protestant Ethic turns this theory on its head by implying that a religious movement
fostered capitalism, not the other way around.
Spirit of capitalism
The first, and probably most vital, feature of the spirit of capitalism was that it invested “economizing” with
high moral significance. The individual engages in capitalistic economizing not only for the expediency of
making a living, but in the expectation that such activity would test his inner resources and thus affirm his
moral worth. In this regard, the American novelist Walker Percy observed, “As long as I am getting rich, I
feel well. It is my Presbyterian blood.”
A major effect of this spirit, as Durkheim noted, is that the entrepreneur performs his tasks with an
earnestness of purpose that places them at the center of his life, and endows them with intrinsic dignity.
There is nothing degrading about them. Such an approach to monetary gain is markedly different from the
sordid passion of greed, for monetary gain was not to be used for luxury or self-indulgent bodily comfort,
but rather was to be saved, and accumulated. Neither could the resulting frugality be mistaken for
miserliness, as the accumulated resources were to be reinvested in worthy enterprises. The spirit of
capitalism constituted a sort of moral ‘’habitus’’ which burdened the possessor of money with a steward’s
obligation toward his own possessions.
Likewise, the individual entrepreneur isn’t allowed to become overly absorbed into or preoccupied with
himself. His existence revolves around an objective concern outside himself, which unceasingly demands
his devotion and thus, becomes a test of his self-worth. By its very nature, these economic practices require
reference to a goal; however, increase in capital becomes the ultimate point of reference.
Ultimately, the point of the spirit of capitalism is to attribute moral significance to entrepreneurial activity
and lend meaning to the existence of those committed to it.
MAX WEBER: Basic Terms (The Fundamental Concepts of Sociology)
Definitions of Sociology and Social action:
Sociology is a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action to arrive at a casual
explanation of its course and effects. Sociology seeks to formulate type concepts and generalized
uniformities of empirical processes. (History, on the other hand, is interested in the causal analysis of
particular events, actions or personalities.)
Action is human behavior to which the acting individual attaches subjective meaning. It can be overt or
inward and subjective. Action is social when, by virtue of the subjective meaning attached to it by the acting
individual(s), it takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby guided. Social action may be oriented
to past, present, or predicted future behavior of others. Others may be concrete people or indefinite
pluralities.
Not all action is social: if it ain't oriented to the behavior of others, it ain't social. Also, it is not merely action
participated in by a bunch of people (crowd action) or action influenced by or imitative of others. Action can
be causally determined by the behavior of others, while still not necessarily being meaningfully determined
by the action of others. If I do what you do because it's fashionable, or traditional, or leads to social
distinction, its meaningful. Obviously the lines are blurred (pp 113-114), but it's important to make a
conceptional distinction.
Modes of Orientation of social action:
Uniformity of social action = action which is wide-spread, frequently repeated by the same individual or
simultaneously performed by many individuals and which corresponds to a subjective meaning attributable
to the same actors.
Usage: probability of a uniformity in the orientation of social action, when the probability is determined by
its actual practice ('it is done to conform with the pattern).
Custom: usage when the actual performance of the action rests on long familiarity. Non- conformance is
sanctioned externally.
Action can also be uniform if the actor acts in his self-interests. The uniformity rests insofar as behavior is
determined by purely rational actions of actors to similar ulterior expectations.
Types of Social Action, identified by mode of orientation:
1) rational orientation to a system of discrete individual ends. individuals can choose and adjudicate between
both means and ends, though these considerations may be with reference to other absolute values.
2) rational orientation to an absolute value, involving conscious belief in the absolute value entirely for its
own sake and independent of prospects for external success. Can choose b/t means, but only with relation to
absolute,
fixed
end.
Absolute
values
are
always
irrational.
3) affectional orientation. If this is uncontrolled reaction to some exceptional stimulus, it is not meaningful -grey
areas.
4) traditional orientation. If this is strict imitation, it is not meaningful -- grey areas.
THE METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY
There are 2 kinds of meaning: 1) actually existing meaning in a given concrete case of a particular actor, or
average or approximate meaning attributed to a given number of actors; and 2) theoretically conceived pure
types of subjective meaning attributed to hypothetical actor(s) in a given type of action (like an ideal type).
The line between meaningful action and reactive behavior w/o subjective meaning is blurry.
The basis for understanding meaning may be either rational (logical or mathematical -- clear intellectual
grasp of things) or emotionally empathetic or artistically appreciative (though sympathetic participation we
grasp the emotional context in which the action took place).
For purposes of ideal type analysis, it's convenient to treat irrational (from the point of view of rational
pursuit of a given end) action as deviation from a conceptually pure type of rational action. We compare this
analytically clear type to empirical reality, and that increases our understanding of how actually action is
influences by irrational factors. The more sharp and precise the ideal type (and thus the more abstract and
unrealistic) the more useful it is in clarifying terminology and formulating classifications and hypotheses.
Some phenomena are devoid of subjective meaning. What is intelligible about an object is its relation to
human action in its role either of means or of end, a relation which actors can be said to be aware of and to
which their action has been oriented. If you can't make this relation (for example a hindering or favorable
circumstance) it's not meaningful in the sense we care about.
There are 2 kinds of understanding: 1) direct observational understanding of subjective mean of a given act
(eg, if i start to shout at you, you could directly observe my irrational emotional reaction by virtue of my
shouting). 2) explanatory understanding: we understand motive, or, what makes an individual do a particular
thing in a particular circumstance. Since we are interested in the subjective meaning of action, we must
place an action in the complex of meaning in which it took place.
A motive is a complex of subjective meaning which seems to the actor and/OR the observer an adequate
ground for the conduct in question.
In most cases, actual action goes on in a state of inarticulate half-consciousness or actually unconsciousness
of its subjective meaning. The ideal type case of meaning is where meaning is fully conscious and explicit:
this rarely happens in reality.
Adequacy on the level of meaning: a subjective interpretation of a coherent course of conduct when its
component parts in their mutual relation are recognized as a 'typical' complex of meaning. Eg, according to
our current norms of calculation and thinking, the correct solution to an arithmatical problem.
Casual adequacy: there's a probability it will always actually occur in the same way. Eg, statistical
probability, according to verified generalization from experience, that there would be a correct or incorrect
solution to the arithmatical problem. Depends on being able to determine that there's a probability a will
follow b.
Subjectively understandable action exists ONLY as the behavior of one or more individual human beings.
States, for instance, are results of particular acts of individual persons. There is no such things as a collective
personality that acts. These concepts of collective entities DO HAVE meanings in the minds of individual
persons, and so actors orient their actions to them as if they existed or should exist.
Functional analysis is a good starting point for sociology. We need to know what kinds of action is
functionally necessary for survival, and also for the maintenance of a cultural type and the corresponding
modes of social action. We are interested, though, in the subjective meaning of actions to component
individuals. The interesting question, then, is what motives determine and lead the individual members and
participants in this situation to behave in such a way that the situation came into being in the first place.
THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP
Social relationship: the behavior of actors in so far as, in its meaningful content, the action of each takes
account of the others and is oriented to the behavior of others. Mere group membership is not sufficient. The
relation of the actors may be solidary, or the opposite. Eg, a 'state' ceases to exist when there is no longer a
probability that certain kinds of meaningfully oriented social action will take place.
The subjective meaning need not be the same for all parties to the relationship. The relationship may be
temporary or long term. Its subjective meaning may change over time.
The
Concept
of
Legitimate
The validity of an order is the probability that people will orient their action to it.
Order
Types of Legitimate Order
Legitimacy
of
an
order
can
be
upheld
in
2
ways:
1) purely disinterested motives a) purely affectual, b) rational belief in absolute validity of an order as an
expression of ultimate values, c) religious attitudes, through belief in need to follow order for salvation
2) entirely through self-interest based on ulterior motives
Convention: system of order where infraction meets with sanctions of disapproval and orders are considered
binding.
Law: system of order where the above is enforced by a functionally specialized agency (e.g., the police).
A system of order with external sanctions may also be guaranteed by disinterested subjective attitudes. Eg, it
can be both morally wrong and illegal to murder.
Bases of Legitimacy
Legitimacy may be ascribed to an order by those subject to it in the following ways:
1)
tradition,
belief
in
legitimacy
of
what
has
always
existed.
2) affectual attitudes, legitimizing the validity of what is newly revealed or is a model to imitate
3)
rational
belief
in
its
absolute
value
4) legality. Readiness to conform with rules which are formally correct and have been imposed by accepted
procedure.
Submission to an order is almost always determined by a variety of motives.
MAX WEBER Class, Status, Party
All communities are arranged in a manner that goods, tangible and intangible, symbolic and material are
distributed. Such a distribution is always unequal and necessarily involves power. ''Classes, status groups
and parties are phenomena of the distribution of power within a community'' (927). Status groups makes up
the social order, classes the economic order, and parties the legal/political order. Each order affects and is
affected by the other.
Power
Power is the ''chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a social action even against
the resistance of others who are participating in the action'' (926).
Power may rest of a variety of bases, and can be of differing types. ''Economically conditioned power is not
identical with power... The emergence of economic power may be the consequence of power existing on
other grounds. Man does not strive for power only to enrich himself economically. Power, including
economic power, may be valued for its own sake. Very frequently the striving for power is conditioned by
the social honor it entails. Not all power entails honor.'' Power is not the only basis of social honor, and
social honor, or prestige, may be the basis of economic power.
''Power, as well as honor, may be guaranteed by the legal order, but... [the legal order] is not their primary
source. The legal order is rather an additional factor that enhances the chance to hold power or honor; but it
cannot always secure them'' (926-7).
Class
Class is defined in terms of market situation. A class exists when a number of people have in common a
specific casual component of their life chances in the following sense: this component is represented
exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income under conditions
of the commodity or labor markets.
When market conditions prevail (eg, capitalism), property and lack of property are the basic categories of all
class situations. However, the concept of class-interest is ambiguous. Collective action based on class
situations is determined by the transparency of the connections between the causes and the consequences of
the class situation. If the contrast between the life chances of different class situations is merely seen as an
acceptable absolute fact, no action will be taken to change the class situation.
A class in and of itself does not constitute a group (Gemeinschaft). ''The degree in which social action and
possibly associations emerge from the mass behavior of the members of a class is linked to general cultural
conditions, especially those of an intellectual sort'' (929). ''If classes as such are not groups, class situations
emerge only on the basis of social action.''
Status Groups and Honor
Unlike classes, status groups do have a quality of groups. They are determined by the distribution of social
honor. A specific style of life is shared by a status group, and the group itself is defined by those with whom
one has social intercourse. Economic elements can be a sort of honor; however, similar class position does
not necessitate similar status groups (see old money's contempt for the nouveau riche). People from different
economic classes may be members of the same status group, if they share the same specific style of life.
The way in which social honor is distributed in the community is called the status order. Criteria for entry
into a status group may take forms such as the sharing of kinship groups or certain levels of education. The
most extreme of a status system with a high level of closure (that is, strong restriction of mobility between
statuses) is a caste system. There, status distinctions are guaranteed no only by law and convention, but also
by religious sanctions.
Relationships between Class and Status group; between Class situation, Status Situation, and Stratification.
Status groups can sometimes be equal to class, sometimes be broader, sometimes more restrictive, and
sometimes bear no relation to class (duh). In most cases, status situation is the apparent dimension of
stratification: ''stratification by status goes hand in hand with a monopolization of ideal and material goods
or opportunities'' (935). Class situation can take precedence over status situation, however. ''When the bases
of the acquisition and distribution of goods are relatively stable, stratification by status is favored'' (935).
Technological and economic changes threaten stratification by status, and ''push class situation to the
foreground.... Every slowing down of the change in economic stratification leads, in due course, to the
growth or status structures and makes for a resuscitation of the important role of social honor'' (930).
Parties
''Parties reside in the sphere of power'' (938). ''Parties are... only possible within groups that have an
asssociational character, that is, some rational order and a staff of persons'' (938). Parties aim for social
power, the ability to influence the actions of others, and thus may exist in a social club, the state, or a cohort
of graduate students at the University of Chicago.
Parties may represent class or status interests, or neither. They usually represent a mix.
''The structure of parties differs in a basic way according to the kind of social action which they struggle to
influence.... [T]hey differ according to whether or not the community is stratified by class or status. Above
all else, they vary according to the structure of domination'' (938-9).
MAX WEBER The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
abbreviations: MWC = modern, western capitalism
Introduction
Though knowledge and observation of great refinement have existed elsewhere, only in the West has
rationalization in science, law and culture developed to such a great degree. The modern West absolutely
and completely depends for its whole existence, for the political technical, and economic conditions of its
life, on a specially trained organization of individuals, so that the most important functions of everyday life
have come to be in the hands of technically, commercially and above all legally trained government
officials. Nowhere else does this exist to such a degree as it does in the West.
The most fateful force in modern life is capitalism. The impulse to acquisition has existed always and
everywhere and has in itself nothing to do with capitalism. Capitalism is the pursuit of profit, and forever
renewed profit, by means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise. This enterprise must be continuous,
because in a capitalistic society, anyone who did not take advantage of opportunities for profit-making
would be doomed to extinction.
A capitalistic economic action rests on the expectation of profit by the utilization of opportunities for
exchange, on (formally) peaceful chances for profit. Where this is rationally pursued, calculations in terms
of money are made, whether by modern bookkeeping or more primitive means. Everything is done in terms
of balances of money income and money expenses. Whether the calculations are accurate, or whether the
calculation method is traditional or by guess-work affects only the degree of the rationality of capitalistic
acquisition.
Characteristics of modern Western capitalism: rational industrial organization (that is, attuned to a regular
profit and not to political nor irrational speculative opportunities for profit); separation of business from the
household; rational bookkeeping. Capitalistic adventurers (in search of booty, whether by war or
exploitation) have existed everywhere, but only in the modern West has developed... the rational capitalistic
organization of (formally) free labor.
The rationality of MWC is dependent on the calculation of technical factors, and so is dependent on the
development in science of the exact and rational experiment. C'ism did not cause this development: but, the
continuing development of this type science is supported by capitalistic interests in practical economic
applications.
The peculiar rationalism of Western culture extends to many fields -- science, mystical contemplation,
military training, law and administration. Each of theses fields may be rationalized in terms of very different
ultimate values and ends, and what is rational from one point of view may well be irrational from another.
The development of economic rationalism is partly dependent on rational technique and law, but it also
requires people to have a favorable disposition toward adopting certain types of practical rational conduct.
In this book, we will treat ONLY ONE SIDE OF THE CAUSAL CHAIN, the connection of the spirit of
modern economic life with the rational ethics of ascetic Protestantism.
Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification
Catholics show a stronger propensity to remain in their crafts, and become master craftsmen, while
Protestants are attracted to a larger extent to the upper ranks of skilled labor and administrative positions in
factories. Protestants own a disproportionate share of capital. All other things equal, Protestants have been
more likely to develop economic rationalism than Catholics. Weber seeks the explanation in 'the permanent
intrinsic character of their religion,' and not only in their temporary external historico-political situations.
The Reformation meant not the elimination of the church's control over everyday life, but a substitution of a
new form of control for the previous one. While the Catholic church was fairly lax, Calvinism 'would be for
us the most absolutely unbearable form of ecclesiastical control of the individual which could possibly exist.'
Protestantism must not be understood as joy of living or in any other sense connected with the
Enlightenment. Early Protestantism (e.g., Luther, Calvin) had nothing to do with progress in an
Enlightenment sense. Not all Protestant denominations had an equally strong influence on the development
of members' business acumen and spirit of hard work.
The Spirit of Capitalism
The spirit of capitalism is ''an historical individual: a complex of elements associated in historical reality
which we united into a conceptual whole from the standpoint of their cultural significance'' (47).
Ben Franklin is an example of someone who espouses a philosophy of avarice which is: the ideal of an
honest man of recognized credit. It includes a duty on the part of an individual toward the increase of his
capital, which is assumed as an end in itself. It is not mere business astuteness, it is an ethos; infraction of its
rules is not foolishness or bad business, but forgetfulness of duty.
In this ethic, economic acquisition is no longer considered a means of subsistence: it is the ultimate purpose
of a man's life. This is combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life. (NOTE:
From the standpoint ''of the happiness of, or utility to, a single individual, this ethic appears entirely
transcendental and absolutely irrational'' (53)).
People now are born into a capitalistic economy which presents itself to them as the unalterable order of
things in which they must live. In so far as a person born now is involved in the system of market
relationships, he must conform to capitalistic rules of action. Today's capitalism selects the subjects it needs
through economic survival of the fittest. The interesting question, according to Max, is WHERE DID THIS
SITUATION COME FROM?
It did NOT arise as the superstructure or reflection of economic situations. For example, the spirit of
capitalism such as espoused by our buddy Ben Franklin was present before capitalistic order.
In order to arise, the spirit of capitalism had to struggle with its 'most important opponent,' traditionalism.
For instance, workers will respond to an increase in piece rates by doing less work, collecting the usual
amount of money, and going home early. Men do not ''by nature'' wish to earn more and more money, they
simply wish to live as they are accustomed to and to earn as much as is necessary for that purpose.
Another way of attempting to increase productivity is to lower wages or piece rates, so that workers must
work harder and longer to earn the same amount as before. This method has its limits. It (and capitalism)
requires a surplus population which can be hired cheaply in the market. Also, too large a surplus population
can encourage the development of labor intensive methods, rather than more efficient methods: low wages
do not equal cheap labor. And, if you pay people too little, their efficiency and attentiveness decreases.
Thus, it would be better if labor were performed as if it were an absolute end in itself. This can only be the
process of a long and arduous education (for example, being raised Pietist). Capitalism ''now in the saddle''
can fairly easily recruit the required workers, but this was not always the case.
Capitalism can exist with a traditionalistic character. The animating spirit of the entrepreneur may be the
traditional rate of profit, the traditional amount of work, the traditional manner of labor-management
relations, and the essentially traditional circle of customers and manner of attracting new ones. Take the
example of the putting out system.
In such a system, this leisureliness can be destroyed, without any essential change in the form of work
organization (such as vertically integrated factories). The spirit of capitalism is the cause of this change.
Where the spirit of capitalism appears and is able to work itself out, it produces its own capital and monetary
supplies as the means to its ends, but the reverse is not true (69).
Protestantism was not merely a stage prior to the development of a purely rationalistic philosophy, however.
Rationalism shows a development which by no means follows parallel lines in the various departments of
life. Since life may be rationalized from fundamentally different basic points of view and in very different
directions, we must ask the origin of the irrational element which lies at the basis of this particular concrete
form of rational thought: the conception of a calling.
Luther's Conception of The Calling
The idea of a calling -- a life-task, a definite field in which to work -- is peculiar to Protestants.
Protestantism had a further new development, which was the valuation of the fulfillment of duty in worldly
affairs as the highest form which the moral activity of an individual could assume. The only way of living
acceptably to God was solely through the fulfillment of the obligations imposed upon the individual by his
position in the world (his calling), NOT by trying to surpass worldly morality by monastic asceticism (80).
Remember important part of Reformation: By faith, not works, shall ye be saved. You are justified by faith,
etc. So all those indulgences earned by crawling on your knees up stairways, etc. don't get you anything.
For the time being (before Calvin et al. got hold of it), the idea of the calling remained traditionalistic and its
only ethical result negative: worldly duties were no longer subordinated to ascetic ones; obedience to
authority and acceptance of things as they were, were preached.
The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism
However, this idea of the calling was not sufficient for the development of the spirit of capitalism. We
needed the effects of forms of ascetic Protestantism: Calvinism, Pietism, Methodism and the Baptist sects.
An important thing to keep in mind is that these folks were not motivated by acquisitive lusts, but rather by
salvation of the soul.
Calvinists believed in predestination. God designated before the creation of the world who would be saved
and who would get to rot in hell. All creation exists for the sake of God, and has meaning only as means to
the glory and majesty of God. Human merit or guilt plays no part in the possession of grace, since that
would make God's decrees subject to human influence. This doctrine 'must above all have one
consequence... a feeling of unprecedented inner loneliness of the single individual' (104). The individual was
forced to follow the path of his own destiny decreed for him from eternity without help from others or from
the Church -- complete elimination of salvation through the Church and the sacraments (which Lutheranism
retained). This meant the elimination of magic from the world. [It also meant the doing away with a
periodical discharge of the emotional sense of sin (confession).]
Now, the elected Christian should glorify God in life by fulfilling God's commandments to the best of his
ability. This requires social achievements of the Christian because God decrees that social life shall be
organized according to his commandments.
Fear and lack of knowledge of whether or not one is going to rot in hell led to a need for ordinary men to
find certitudo salutis (certainty of salvation). Pastoral advice to these poor, tortured dudes contained two
themes: 1) an absolute duty to consider oneself chosen and to combat all doubts as temptations of the devil,
since lack of self-confidence is the result of insufficient faith, hence of imperfect grace. 2) Intense worldly
activity as the most suitable means to attain that self-confidence [thus we eliminate the free rider problem].
The Calvinist sought to identify true faith by its fruits: a type of Christian conduct which served to increase
the glory of God. Good works do not affect salvation, but they are indispensable as a sign of election. In
practice, this means God helps those who help themselves. The Calvinist creates a conviction of his own
salvation.
For Catholics, good works were not a part of a rationalized system of life -- they could be performed
sporadically, to atone -- whereas for Calvinists they are. The God of Calvinism demanded not single good
works, but a life of good works combined into a unified system. The moral conduct of the average man was
subjected to a consistent method for conduct as a whole. The end of this asceticism was to be able to lead an
alert, intelligent life: the most urgent task the destruction of spontaneous, impulsive enjoyment. The most
important means was to bring order into the conduct of its adherents. Hence we have methodically
rationalized ethical conduct.
The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination was only one of several possible motives which could have
supported the methodical rationalization of life. However, it had not only a unique consistency (by virtue of
being based on logical deduction, rather than religious experience) and was psychologically extraordinarily
powerful.
Pietism
This sect sought to make the invisible Church of the elect visible on this earth. By means of intensified
asceticism these folks hoped to enjoy the blissfulness of community with God in this life. Sometimes this
latter tendency led to displays of emotion, which were antithetical to Calvinist restraint. Other than that,
however, the practical effect of Pietistic principles was an even stricter ascetic control of conduct in the
calling:
1) Methodical development of one's own state of grace to a higher and higher degree of certainty and
perfection
in
terms
of
the
law
was
a
sign
of
grace.
2) a belief that God's Providence works through those in such a state of perfection.
Since some of these folks believed grace subject to repentance, by the creation of methods to induce
repentance even the attainment of divine grace became in effect an object of rational human activity.
Methodism
Though rebirth, an emotional certainty of salvation as the immediate result of faith was an important factor,
the emotional act of conversion was methodically induced. Emotion, once awakened, was directed into a
rational struggle for perfection. This provided a religious basis for ascetic conduct after the doctrine of
predestination had been given up by these folks.
Nothing new was added to the idea of the calling.
The Baptist Sects
The church was viewed as a community of personal believers of the reborn. Salvation was achieved by
personal, individual revelation; it was offered to everyone, though not everyone took it.
The injunction was to be in the world but not of it, so worldly enjoyments and unnecessary social
intercourse with non-reborn folks was avoided. The Holy Spirit worked in daily life, and spoke directly to
any individual who was willing to hear. This leads to an eventual elimination of all that remained of the
doctrine of salvation through the Church and sacraments. This accomplished the religious rationalization of
the world in its most extreme form.
Conscience is the revelation of God to the individual.
The rationalization of conduct within the world, but for the sake of the world beyond, was the consequence
of the concept of calling of ascetic Protestantism.
Asceticism and The Spirit of Capitalism
In Puritan thinking, the real moral objection to possession of wealth is to relaxation in the security of
possession, the enjoyment of wealth with the consequence of idleness and the temptations of the flesh, above
all distraction from the pursuit of a righteous life. It is only because possession involves this danger that it is
suspect at all. Not leisure and enjoyment, but only activity serves to increase the glory of God. Waste of time
is thus the first and in principle the deadliest of sins. Thus, inactive contemplation at the expense of work is
right out.
Labor is an approved ascetic technique, but is also considered in itself an end of life as ordained by God.
Unwillingness to work is symptomatic of the lack of grace. Wealth does not exempt anyone from this.
The division of labor, which has a providential purpose in the thought of the Puritans, leads to qualitative
and quantitative improvements in production, and thus serves the common good. But, in addition,
specialization is encouraged by the calling, to which it provides an ethical justification; for, ''outside of a
calling the accomplishments of a man are only casual and irregular and he spends more time in idleness than
in work.'' If God presents to His elect a change for profit, he must pursue it: the Christian must follow the
call by taking advantage of the opportunity. The acquisition of wealth in the performance of a calling is
morally permissible and enjoined.
-- Asceticism turned against the spontaneous enjoyment of life. So, sport, for instance, is acceptable only if
it serves a rational purpose, say, increasing physical efficiency.
-- The powerful tendency toward uniformity of life, which today so immensely aids the capitalistic interest
in the standardization of production, had its ideal foundation in the repudiation of all idolatry of the flesh
(eg, non-ascetic, flashy or attractive clothing).
The Puritan outlook on life 'stood at the cradle of modern economic man' (174). This religious epoch
bequeathed to its utilitarian successors ''an amazingly good... conscience in the acquisition of money, so long
as it took place legally'' (176). In addition, the power of religious asceticism provided owners with sober,
conscientious and industrious workmen. And, it provided comforting assurance that the unequal distribution
of goods in the world was ordained by God.
The religious basis had died away by Ben Franklin's time. Limitation to specialized work is now a condition
of any valuable work in the modern world. ''The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so.
For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly
morality, did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order This order is now
bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production and today determine the lives of all
the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic
acquisition, with irresistible force.''
The Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions
Motives for the Rejections of the World: The Meaning of Their Rational Construction
Individual spheres of value presented here as ideal types have a rational consistency rarely found in reality.
This essay proceeds from the most rational forms reality can assume; it attempts to find out how far certain
rational conclusions, which can be established theoretically, have been drawn in reality. Perhaps, also, we
can find out why those rational conclusions have not been drawn.
Typology
of
Asceticism
and
Mysticism
Two
contrasting
abnegations
of
the
world:
1) active asceticism that is a God-willed ACTION of the devout who are God's tools. Rationally active
asceticism, in mastering the world, seeks to tame what is creatural and wicked through work in a worldly
vocation
(inner-worldly
asceticism);
2) contemplative POSSESSION of the holy as found in mysticism. The individual is not a tool, but a vessel
of the divine. Desired: other-worldly religious state; contemplative flight from the world.
Active asceticism may confine itself to controlling wickedness in the actor's own nature; in this case, it
avoids any action in the orders of the world (asceticist flight from the world). In external bearing, it thereby
comes close to contemplative flight. Conversely, the mystic may determine s/he need not flee from the
world, and so be an inner-worldly mysticist, remaining in the orders of the world.
Directions
of
the
Abnegation
of
the
World:
Formulated abstractly, the rational aim of redemption religion has been to secure for the saved a holy state,
and thereby a habitude that assures salvation. This takes the place of an acute and extraordinary, and thus a
holy state which is transitorily achieved by means of orgies, asceticism, or contemplation. Most prophetic
and redemptory religions have lived not only in an acute, but a permanent state of tension in relation to the
world and its orders. The more the religions have been true religions of salvation, the greater has this tension
been. The tension has been greater the more religion has been sublimated from ritualism and towards
'religious absolutism.' Indeed, the further the rationalization and sublimation of external and internal
possession of -- in the widest sense -- things worldly has progressed, the stronger has the tension on the part
of religion become. For the rationalization and conscious sublimation of man's relations to the various
spheres of values, internal and external, as well as religious and secular, have then pressed towards making
conscious the internal and lawful autonomy of the individual spheres; thereby letting them drift into those
tensions which remain hidden to the original naive relation with the external world.
The more comprehensive and the more inward the aim of salvation has been, the more it has been taken for
granted that the faithful should ultimately stand closer to the savior, the prophet, the priest, the brother in the
faith than to natural relations and to the matrimonial community. Prophecy has created a new social
community; thereby the relationships of the sib and of matrimony have been devalued.
Communities of villages, members of the sib, the guild or of partners in seafaring, hunting and warring
expeditions have known two elemental principles: first, the dualism or in-group and out-group morality. For
in-group morality the principled obligation to give brotherly support in distress has existed. All this followed
the principle of ''your want of today, may be my want of tomorrow'' (this principle was not rationally
weighed, but it played its part in sentiment). Accordingly, haggling in exchange and loan situations, as well
as permanent debt-enslavement and similar kinds of enslavement, were confined to outgroup morality and
applied only to outsiders.
The religiosity of the congregation transferred the ancient economic ethic of neighborliness (I'll help you out
today, since I may need you to help me out tomorrow) to the relations among brothers of the faith. What had
previously been the obligations of the noble and the wealthy became the fundamental imperatives of all
ethically rationalized religion (to care for orphans and widows, to give alms). The principle that constituted
the communal relations among the salvation prophesies was the suffering common to all believers (whether
or not the suffering actually existed or was a constant threat, whether it was internal or external). The more
imperatives that issued from the ethic of reciprocity among neighbors were raised, the more rational the
conception of salvation became, and the more it was sublimated into an ethic of absolute ends.
The
Economic
Sphere
The tension between brotherly religion and the world has been most obvious in the economic sphere. All the
primeval magical or mystagogic ways of influencing spirits and deities have pursued special interests. The
sublimated religions of salvation, however, had been increasingly tense in their relationships with
rationalized economies.
A rational economy is a functional organization oriented to money-prices which originate in the intereststruggles of men in the market. Calculation is not possible without estimation in money prices and hence
without market struggles. Money is the most abstract and impersonal element that exists in human life. The
more the world of the capitalist economy follows its own immanent laws, the less accessible it is to any
imaginable relationship with a religious ethic of brotherliness. Ultimately no genuine religion of salvation
has overcome the tension between their religiosity and a rational economy.
The paradox of all rational asceticism is that rational asceticism has created the very wealth it rejected.
There have only been two consistent avenues for escaping the tension between religion and in the economic
world
in
a
principled
and
inward
manner:
1) the Puritan ethic of the vocation. Puritanism, as a religion of virtuosos, renounced the universalism of
love and rationally routinized all work in this world into serving God's will and testing ones state of grace.
Puritanism accepted the routinization of the economic cosmos, which , along with the whole world, it
devalued as creatural and depraved. It involved a renunciation of salvation in favor of the groundless and
always only particularized grace. Actually, this standpoint of unbrotherliness was no longer a genuine
religion of salvation. A genuine religion of salvation can exaggerate brotherliness to the height of the
mystic's
acosmism
of
love.
2) Mysticism. The mystic's benevolence does not inquire into the man to whom and for whom it sacrifices.
Mysticism is not interested in his person. Mysticism is a unique escape form this world in the form of an
objectless devotion to anybody, not for man's sake, but purely for devotion's sake.
The
Political
Sphere
The consistent brotherly ethic of salvation religions has come into an equally sharp tension with the political
orders of the world. Local (community, tribe, household, etc.) gods and magic were not a problem The
problem arose when these barriers of locality, tribe and polity were shattered by universalistic religions. And
the problem arose in full strength only when this god was a god of 'love.' The problem of tension with the
political order emerged for redemption religions out of the basic demand for brotherliness. In politics as in
economics, the more rational the political order became, the sharper the problems of these tensions became.
The brotherliness of a group of men bound together in war appears valueless in brotherly religions; it is seen
as a mere reflection of the technically sophisticated brutality of the struggle. It's consecration appears as the
glorification of fratricide.
The only two consistent solutions (first three guesses don't count...): puritanism and mysticism. Puritanism
believes God's commands should be imposed on the world by the means of the world -- violence, so ''just
war'' is not a problem for Puritanism (God is on their side). The mystics take a ''radical political attitude'' of
''turning the other cheek'' which makes them appear ''necessarily vulgar and lacking in dignity in the eyes of
every self-assured worldly ethic of heroism.''
Organic social ethics (where religiously substructured) stands on the soil of brotherliness, but, in contrast to
mystic and acosmic love, is dominated by a cosmic, rational demand for brotherliness. It point of departure
is the experience of the inequality of religious charisma. The fact that the holy should be accessible to some
and not all is unbearable to organic social ethics. It therefore attempts to synthesize this inequality of
charismatic qualifications with secular stratification by status, into a cosmos of God-ordained services which
are specialized in function. Certain tasks are given to every individual and every group according to their
social and economic position as determined by fate. Without something like the Indian doctrine of Karma
(which says there's a reason why you're bottom dog), every organic social ethic unavoidably represents an
accommodation to the interests of the privileged strata of the world.
From the standpoint of inner-worldly asceticism, the organic ethic lacks the drive for an ethical and
thorough rationalization of individual life. In such matters, it has no premium for the rational and methodical
patterning of personal life in the interest of the individual's own salvation. The organic pragmatism of
salvation must consider the redemptory aristocracy of inner-worldly asceticism, with its rational
depersonalization of life orders, as the hardest form of lovelessness and lack of brotherliness. It must also
consider the redemptory pragmatism of mysticism as a sublimated and unbrotherly indulgence of the mystic'
s own charisma. Both inner-worldly asceticism and mysticism ultimately condemn the social world to
absolute meaninglessness (or, at least they hold that God's aims concerning the world are utterly
incomprehensible).
The rationalism of religious and organic doctrines of society cannot stand up under this idea; for it seeks to
comprehend the world as an at least relatively rational cosmos in spite of all its wickedness: the world must
hear at least traces of the divine plan of salvation.
The organic ethic of society is an eminently conservative power hostile to revolution. Virtuoso religion is a
potentially
revolutionary
force.
Its
revolutionary
turn
may
assume
two
forms:
1) (from inner-worldly asceticism, with an absolute divine law) it becomes a religious duty to realize this
divine
natural
law.
This
corresponds
to
an
obligation
to
crusade.
2) (from mysticism) The commands of the world do not hold for the man who is assured in his obsession
with god.
The
Aesthetic
Sphere
The development of intellectualism and the rationalism of life make art become a cosmos of more and more
consciously grasped independent values which exist in their own right. Art comes to provide a salvation
from the routines of everyday life, and begins to compete directly with salvation religion. [The refusal of
modern man to assume responsibility for moral judgements tends to transform judgements of moral intent
into judgements of taste.]
The
Erotic
Sphere
The brotherly ethic of salvation religion is in profound tension with the greatest irrational force of life:
sexual love. The more sublimated sexuality is, and the more principled and relentlessly consistent the
salvation ethic of brotherhood is, the sharper is the tension between sex and religion. A principled ethic of
religious brotherhood perceives that inner, earthly salvation by mature love competes in the sharpest
possible way with devotion to a supra-mundane God. Inner-worldly and rational asceticism (vocational
asceticism) can accept only the rationally regulated marriag
The
Intellectual
Sphere
The tension between religion and intellectual knowledge comes to the fore wherever rational, empirical
knowledge has consistently worked through to the disenchantment of the world. Every increase of
rationalism in empirical science increasing pushes religion from the rational into the irrational realm; but
only today does religion become the irrational or anti-rational supra-human power.
The less magic or merely contemplative mysticism and the more pure doctrine a religion contains, the
greater is its need of rational apologetics. The more religion became book-religion and doctrine, the more
literary it became and the more efficacious it became in provoking rational lay-thinking, freed of priestly
control. However, there is no ''unbroken'' religion working as a vital force which is not compelled at some
point to demand the credo non quod, sed quia absurdum (some saint said this, but i can't remember which
one, it means ''i believe it because it is absurd''. i think it was said in reference to the trinity), the sacrifice of
the intellect.
Redemptory religion defends itself against the attack of the self-sufficient intellect, by raising the claim that
religious knowledge moves in a different sphere.
The need for salvation, consciously cultivated as the substance of religiosity, has resulted from the endeavor
of a systematic and practical rationalization of life's realities. All religions have demanded as a specific
presupposition that the course of the world be somehow meaningful, at least in so far as it touches upon the
interests of men (this claim arises first as the problem of unjust suffering and just compensation for the
unequal distribution of individual happiness in the world). From here, the claim has tended to progress
toward an ever increasing devaluation of the world. For, the more intensely rational thought has seized upon
the problem of a just and retributive compensation, the less an entirely inner-worldly solution could seem
possible, and the less an other-worldly solution could appear probable or even meaningful.
The intellect, like all culture values, has created an aristocracy based on the possession of rational culture
and independent of all personal ethical qualities of man. The aristocracy of intellect is hence an unbrotherly
aristocracy. Worldly man has regarded the possession of culture as the highest good. In addition to the
burden of ethical guilt, however, something has adhered to this cultural value which was bound to depreciate
it with still greater finality, namely, senselessness (if the cultural value is to be judged in terms of its own
standards).
The pure inner-worldly perfection of self by a man of ''culture'', the ultimate value to which ''culture'' has
seemed to be reducible is meaningless for religious thought. This meaninglessness follows for religious
thought from the obvious meaninglessness of death when viewed from the inner-worldly standpoint. The
cultivated man can die weary of life, but never satiated with it; for, the perfectibility of the man of culture, in
principle, progresses indefinitely, as do the cultural values.
Culture appears as man's emancipation from the organically prescribed cycle of natural life. For this reason,
culture's every step forward seems condemned to lead to an every more devastating senselessness. The
advancement of cultural values seems to become a senseless hustle in the service of worthless, moreover
self-contradictory, and mutually antagonistic ends. The advancement of cultural values appears the more
meaningless the more it is made a holy task, a ''calling.''
The need for salvation responds to this devaluation by becoming more other-worldly, more alienated from
all structured forms of life, and by confining itself to the strict religious essence. The reaction is the stronger
the more systematic the thinking about the ''meaning'' of the universe becomes, the more the external
organization of the world is rationalized, the more the conscious experience of the world's irrational content
is sublimated. AND NOT ONLY THEORETICAL THOUGHT LED TO THIS DISENCHANTING OF
THE WORLD, BUT ALSO THE VERY ATTEMPT OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS TO PRACTICALLY AND
ETHICALLY RATIONALIZE THE WORLD.
These specific intellectual and mystical attempts at salvation in the face of these tensions succumb in the end
to the world dominion of unbrotherliness. One the one hand, their charisma is not accessible to everyone.
Hence, in intent, mystical salvation means aristocracy; it is an aristocratic religiosity of redemption. And, in
the midst of a culture that is rationally organized for a vocational workaday life, there is hardly any room for
the cultivation of acosmic brotherliness, unless it is among the strata of the economically carefree. Under the
technical and social conditions of rational culture, an imitation of the life of Buddha, Jesus or Francis seems
condemned to failure for purely external reasons.
MAX WEBER: General Economic History
Chap 22, The Meaning and Presuppositions of Modern Capitalism
C'ism is present wherever the industrial provision for the needs of a human group is carried out by the
method of enterprise. A rational capitalistic enterprise is one with capital accounting, according to the
methods of modern bookkeeping and the striking of a balance. In a given economy, parts may be
capitalistically organized, and other parts not so. An epoch is capitalistic if the provision of its wants is
organized capitalistically to such a degree that the whole economic system would collapse if we take away
the capitalistic form of organization.
General presuppositions for the existence of modern day capitalism (thinking along the ideal type line):
1) Rational capital accounting. This involves the appropriation of all physical means of production as the
property
of
autonomous
private
enterprises.
2) Freedom of the market, in the sense of the absence of irrational limits on trading in the market.
3) Rational technology, to permit the required calculability. This implies mechanization.
4) Calculable law, the dependability of calculable adjudication and administration.
5) Free (not slave or serf) labor, people legally in the position to, and economically compelled to, sell their
labor
on
the
market
without
restriction.
6) Commercialization of economic life: general use of commercial instruments to represent share rights in
enterprise and also in property ownership.
Chap27, The Development of Industrial Technique
Real distinguishing characteristic of the modern factory: the concentration of ownership of workplace,
means of work, source of power and raw material in the hands of the entrepreneur.
Key: Shift from nature's power (water) to more manageable, reliable, calculable forces (like steam). This,
along with mechanization, permits rationalization of work.
Development of use of coal, and subsequent production of iron had 3 important consequences:
1) released technology and productive capabilities from the limits inherent in the qualities of organic
industry
(eg,
horses
get
tired,
the
wind
doesn't
always
blow,
etc.)
2) mechanization of the production process thorough the steam engine liberated production from the organic
limitations of human labor (it ain't just horses that get tired; and people can't lift as much, work as fast, as
reliably,
etc.)
3) through union with science, the production of goods was emancipated from the bonds of tradition and
came under the dominance of freely roving intelligence.
Recruitment of the labor force for this new form of production was carried by means of indirect compulsion.
The enclosure movement and changes in agricultural production left a bunch of people wandering around
without jobs, who were forced into jobs by being threatened with the ''workhouse'' if they didn't take jobs in
the new factories. From the beginning of the 18th c., there began to be laws to regulate employers conduct
toward their employees, to ensure laborers were paid in money and not in kind.
War needs and luxury consumption fed capitalism's growth. However, all those silly folks who've argued
that war was the driving force are wrong. While the desire of nobility and the upperclasses for luxury goods
was important, the increasing production of tapestries and carpets was a key marker of the democratization
of luxury, which is the crucial direction of capitalistic production. The decisive impetus for c'ism could only
come from mass market demand.
C'ism's
1.
C'ism
alone
produced
a
rational
organization
2. Lifted barrier between internal and external economics, internal and external ethics, and
the commercial principle into the internal economy with the organization of labor
3. disintegration of primitive economic fixity with the entrepreneur organization of labor.
characteristics
of
labor.
the entrance of
on this basis.
The reason this development took place only in the West is due to special features of the West's general
cultural evolution: rational law, rational empirical science, a state with a professional administration,
specialized officialdom, men with a rational ethic in the conduct of life.
Ch 28, Citizenship
Outside the occident there have not been cities in the sense of a unitary community. Occidental cities
originally arose through the establishment of a fraternity; it was in its beginnings first above all a defense
group, an organization of those economically competent to bear arms, to equip and train themselves. These
folks owned their own arms: this is key.
In places like Egypt, Asia, India and China, irrigation was a big issue, and so kings' bureaucracies
developed. The king and his staff required the compulsory service of the dependent classes; they in turn
were dependent on that bureaucracy. The king also held a military monopoly. In the west, self-equipment
and religious brotherhoods (eg, crusaders) meant kings did not have a military monopoly, and so cities could
be formed in a western sense, based on mutual defense.
Also, ideas and institutions in the orient connected with magic, which supported such systems as caste
systems, did not exist in such strength in the occident.
Chap 29, The Rational State
Modern
capism
can
survive
only
in
the
modern
rational
state.
Characteristics
of
the
Modern
Rational
State:
1) Expert officialdom and rational law. Key: rationalization of procedure... formal juristic thinking inherited
from
Roman
law.
2) Economic policy that is continuous and consistent and not dependent on ritualistic/traditional
considerations. The first appearance of a rational economic policy was mercantilism: external economic
policy consists in taking every advantage of the opponent, to strengthen the hand of the government in its
external relations. Mercantilism signifies the development of the state as a political power, this development
is to be done directly by increasing the tax paying power of the population. However, mercantilism wasn't
free market: the govt supported monopolies, gave colonial privileges, etc. It disappeared when free trade was
established.
Ch 30, The Evolution of The Capitalistic Spirit
While several factors fed into the development of capitalism, ''in the last resort the factor which produced
capitalism is the rational permanent enterprise, rational accounting, rational technology and rational law, but
not these alone. Necessary complementary factors were the rational spirit, the rationalization of the conduct
of life in general, and a rationalistic economic ethic'' (260).
In the middle ages, the position of the church on economic ethics was that it excluded ''higgling'' (cute word;
he means haggling), overpricing and free competition and included the principle of a just price and the
assurance to everyone of a chance to live.
Since Judaism made Christianity possible and gave it the character of a religion essentially free from magic,
it rendered a service by removing one of the most serious obstructions to the rationalization of economic life
(magic). Prophesies (rather than oracles by lot, etc.) have released the world from magic and in so doing
have created the basis for our modern science and technology, and for capitalism.
Basically, then, Weber chats re: the spirit of capitalism, which you know all about from somewhere else.
As noted earlier, the breakdown of the dual economic ethics was key.
A note on class conflict: ''It was possible for the working class to accept its lot as long as the promise of
eternal happiness could be held out to it. When this consolation fell away it was inevitable that those strains
and stresses would appear in economic society which since then have been growing rapidly. This point had
been reached at the end of the early period of capitalism, at the beginning of the age of iron, in the 19th
century'' (270).
The Types of Authority and Imperative Control/The Types of Legitimate Domination (depends on your
translation)
Basis of Legitimacy
Domination is defined as the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed
by a given group of people. A certain minimum of voluntary submission is necessary; thus on the part of the
submitter there is an interest (whether based on ulterior motives or genuine acceptance) in obedience.
- Not every claim protected by custom or law involves a relation of authority. For instance, if I ask Charles
to pay me for the work i do as fulfillment of our contract, I am not exercising authority over him.
- The legitimacy of a system of authority may be treated sociologically only as the probability that to a
relevant degree the appropriate attitudes will exist and the corresponding conduct ensue.
- Obedience means the action of the person 'obeying' follows a course such that the content of the command
can be taken as the reason for his/her action.
3
Pure
Types
of
Legitimate
Authority
1. Rational/legal grounds. belief in the legality of patterns of normative rules and the right of those elevated
to authority under such rules to issue commands. Authority held by legally established impersonal order,
extends
to
people
only
by
virtue
of
offices
they
hold.
2. Traditional grounds. established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of the
status of those exercising authority under them. Authority held by person of the chief who occupies the
traditionally sanctioned position of authority; matter of personal obligation and loyalty within the scope of
tradition.
3. Charismatic grounds. devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of
an individual person, and of the normative pattern or order revealed by him. Leader obeyed by personal trust
in him, his revelation, heroism, coolness, as far as those qualities fall within the scope of the obeyers belief
in his charisma.
Rational Legal Authority with a Bureaucratic Administrative Staff
Typical person in authority occupies an office. Person who obeys authority does so only in his capacity as a
member of the corporate group, and what he obeys is only the law. Fundamental Qualities: 1) continuous
organization
of
official
functions
bound
by
rules
2) specified spheres of competence involving a) sphere of obligations as marked out by a specialized
division of labor, b) provision to incumbent of necessary authority to do his sphere of thangs, c) necessary
means of compulsion clearly defined and their use subject to definite conditions.
3)
organization
of
offices
follows
principle
of
hierarchy.
4) rules which regulate conduct of an office can be either technical rules or norms. when their application is
fully
rational,
specialized
training
is
necessary.
5) office holder separated from ownership of means of production and administration (first of all, separation
of
house
from
workplace)
6)
complete
absence
of
appropriate
of
position
by
incumbent
7) acts, rules and decisions are formulated and recorded in writing
BUREAUCRACY,
almost
the
same...
1) office holders personally free and subject to authority only within the scope of their impersonal official
obligations
2)
hierarchy
of
offices
3)
sphere
of
competence
4) free selection into office; filled by free contractual relationship; always free to resign
5)
candidates
appointed,
not
elected,
on
basis
of
technical
qualifications
6)
remuneration
is
by
fixed
salaries
of
$$
7)
office
is
sole
or
primary
occupation
of
incumbent
8)
constitutes
a
career;
system
of
promotion
9)
official
can't
own
means
or
appropriate
position
10) official subject to strict and systematic discipline and control in conduct of office.
Monocratic bureaucracy is capable of attaining the highest degrees of efficiency and is the most rational
means known of carrying out imperative control over people. Makes possible a high degree of calculability.
Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge.
General
Social
Consequences
of
bureaucratic
control
1) tendency of levelling in the interest of broadest possible recruitment in terms of technical competence
2) tendency to plutocracy due to interest in greatest possible length of technical training
3) dominance of spirit of formalistic impersonality. Sine ira et studio, w/o anger or passion, and hence
without affection or enthusiasm. All subject to formal equality of treatment.
Traditional
Authority
Traditional authority is bound to the precedents handed down from the past and to this extent is oriented to
rules.
Leaders'
commands
legitimated
in
one
of
two
ways:
1) in terms of traditions which themselves directly determine the content of the command and the objects
and
intent
of
authority.
2) a matter of the chief's free personal decision, in that tradition leaves him some leeway.
When resistance occurs, the accusation is that the chief is not following the tradition. The system itself is not
questioned.
A chief can have an administrative staff: patrimonial recruitment of staff comes from people who have a
traditional tie of personal loyalty to the chief (children, slaves, clients, etc.). Extrapatrimonial recruitment
comes from people in a purely personal relation of loyalty (vassals, etc.)
The staff lacks: clearly defined spheres of competence subject to impersonal rules; rational ordering of
relations of superiority and inferiority; regular system of promotion and free contract; technical training as a
requirement; fixed salaries in $$.
Gerontocracy and Patrimonialism are forms of traditional authority w/o a personal administrative staff of the
chief. G is rule by elders, and P is where there's rule by someone designated by inheritance. There is still a
general idea of everyone being a member of the group, though there is by no means equal distribution of
power.
With the development of a purely personal administrative staff, we get patrimonialism. Members of the
group are now treated as subjects.
A patrimonial retainer can be supported by: maintenance at his lords table, by allowances from the chief
(primarily in kind), by rights of land use in return for services, by appropriation of property income, fees, or
taxes, by fiefs.
Charismatic
Authority
The basis for obedience lies in the conception that it is the duty of those who have been called to a
charismatic mission to recognize its quality and to act accordingly... it's a matter of personal devotion to the
possessor of the quality.
There is no legal wisdom oriented to judicial precedent. Charismatic authority is specifically irrational in the
sense of being foreign to all rules. It repudiates the past, and is in this sense a revolutionary force.
It is hostile to everyday economic considerations. It can only tolerate irregular, unsystematic, acquisitive
acts.
In traditional periods, it is the greatest revolutionary force. Reason is equally revolutionary, and works from
without by altering the situations of action, or it intellectualizes the individual. Charisma may involve a
subjective or internal reorientation which may result in a radical alteration of the central system of attitudes,
a completely new orientation towards different problems and structures of the world.
The
Routinization
of
Charisma
In pure form, charismatic authority exists only in the process of originating. It becomes either rationalize or
traditionalized,
or
a
combo
of
both
for
the
following
reasons:
1) ideal and material interests of the followers in the continual reactivation of the community
2) interests of the administrative staff, disciples or followers of the char'ic leader in continuing their
positions, so that their own status is stable on a day to day basis.
As soon as the position of authority is well established, and above all as soon as control over large masses of
people exists, it gives way to the forces of everyday routine. There is an objective necessity of patterns of
order and organization of the administrative staff in order to meet the normal, everyday needs and conditions
of carrying on administration. In addition, there is a striving for security, requiring legitimation of positions
of authority and social prestige and economic advantages held by the followers.
The process of routinization is thus not confined to the problem of succession, and does not stop when it is
solved. The most fundamental problem is the transition from the charismatic administrative staff and its
mode of administration to one that can handle everyday conditions.
Possible
Types
of
Solution:
1) search for new charismatic leader on basis of criteria that will fit him for position of authority
2) revelation thorough oracles, lots, etc... legitimacy is then dependent on technique of selection, which
means
a
form
of
legalization
3)
by
designation
by
leader
of
his
successor
4) designation of successor by charismatically qualified staff, and successors recognition by the
community... legitimacy can come to depend on technique of selection, again legalization
5) hereditary charisma... this may lead to either traditionalization or legalization (divine right, etc.)
6) charisma transmitted by ritual means from one bearer to another, or created in a new person... this may
become charisma of office (eg, the Big Potato, the Pope himself).
Routinization also takes the form of the appropriation of powers of control and economic advantages by the
disciples. Again, it can be either traditional or legal, depending on whether or not legislation of some sort is
involved. This is how we get differences between, say, the clergy and the laity.
MAX WEBER: Methodology of the Social Sciences
Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy
The purpose of this new journal (where this essay appeared) is ''the education of judgement about practical
social problems'' and ''the criticism of practical social policy.''
Questions
to
be
addressed:
What is the validity of the value-judgements which are uttered by the critic? In what sense, if the criterion of
scientific knowledge is to be found in the 'objective' validity of its results, has he (the critic) remained within
the sphere of scientific discussion? In what sense are there in general 'objectively valid truths' in those
disciplines concerned with social and cultural phenomena?
The science of social institutions and culture arose for practical considerations, with the purpose of
producing value-judgement as measures of state policy. Knowledge of what ''is'' was conflated with
knowledge of what ''should be''; this was because natural laws and evolutionary principles dominated the
field. This journal will try to reject this conflation, since ''it can never be the task of an empirical science to
provide binding norms and ideals from which the directives for immediate personal activity can be derived.''
Value-judgements should not be eliminated, but subjected to scientific criticism. Science can help an actor
choose between alternative ends by analyzing the appropriateness of a means for an end, and by providing
information on what a desired end will cost in terms of the loss of other values. The acting person can then
choose from among the values involved according to his own conscience or personal view. Science can
show him that all choosing involves the espousal of certain values.
Every science of cultural life must arrive at a rational understanding of the ideas which underlie every
concrete end. Science can judge these ideas and ends ONLY according to a logical and historically defined
standard of value which can be elevated to a certain ''level of explicitness'' beyond individual sentiment.
Science can tell a person what s/he can do, not what s/he should do. Put another way, treating the ideas as a
coherent system of thought, science can point out to an actor what is possible within his or her value system,
and what would be contradictory to that value system.
Problems of social policy are not based on purely technical considerations of specific ends, but involve
disputes about the normative standards of value which lie in the domain of general cultural values. This
conflict over general cultural values does not occur solely between 'class interests' but between general
views on life and the universe as well (take that, Karl).
It is NOT POSSIBLE to establish and to demonstrate as scientifically valid 'a principle' for practical social
science from which the norms for the solution of practical problems can be unambiguously derived. While
social science needs the discussion of practical problems in terms of fundamental principles, that is, the
reduction of unreflective value-judgements to the premises from which they are logically derived, the search
for a ''lowest common denominator'' of in the form of generally valid value judgements is not empirical,
impractical and entirely meaningless. We cannot establish on the basis of ethical imperatives or norms for
concretely condition individual conduct, normatively desirable cultural values. (57)
Objective science must distinguish between value judgements and empirical knowledge, and try to see
factual truths. However, value-judgements of the practical interest of the scientist will always be significant
in determining the focus of attention of analytical activity (my values direct me in what I think are
interesting or important questions or matters to investigate -- this gets called, value-relevance elsewhere:
there is no harm, according to Max, in allowing your values, personal interests or social commitments to
guide you in the selection of research topics; however, once you start researching, you need valueneutrality).
This journal will pursue logical analysis of the content of ideals, while not ignoring how ideals motivate
value-judgements. It will present social policy, i.e., the statement of ideals, in addition to social science, i.e.,
the analysis of facts. In non-scientific discussions of policy, it must be made clear where the investigator
stops analyzing and where the evaluating and acting person begins to present his sentiments (make value
judgements). Again, individual sentiments don't have to be eliminated, nor can they be, but they should be
kept strictly separate from scientific analysis. ''An attitude of moral indifference has not connection with
scientific 'objectivity'.''
As said before, every recognition of a scientific problem reflects specific motives and values on the part of
the investigator. This journal, a good journal, will try to avoid developing on a character on the basis of the
values of its common contributors.
A social science problem is one which throws light on the ''the fundamental socio-economic problem: the
scarcity of means'' (64) For us, phenomena have the following cultural significance (since we are interested
in socio-economic data), ''economic,'' ''economically-relevant,'' ''economically-conditioned.'' This journal
(thus, by extension, our buddy Max), considers all of these as important since material interests influence all
aspects of culture w/o exception (67).
Our science, the science of economic cultural phenomena seeks particular causes for these phenomena, so it
is also interested in historical knowledge. We want to investigate the general cultural significance of the
socio-economic structure of the human community and its historical forms of organization (66-7). Treatment
of these social problems will (hopefully) result in solutions for social policy.
This limited scope (focus on the socio-economic aspect of cultural life) is deliberately one-sided, because
general social science is ambiguous without some specification of the way in which this social is to be
investigated. This journal is interested, however, in the economic interp of history, not the materialist
conception of history as a causal formula (take that, Karl). Karl's materialist conception is popular among
laymen and dilettantes (not to mention, so I hear, hat-wearing, feminist vegetarians) who are not satisfied
until they find economic causes for every freakin' thing under the sun.
The explanation of everything by economic causes alone is never exhaustive in any sense whatsoever in any
sphere of cultural phenomena, not even in the economic sphere itself. We choose this one-sided approach,
however, as a way to investigate cultural reality by specific technical means and using qualitatively similar
categories (remember, though, material interests are found in every aspect of culture).
There is no absolutely objective scientific analysis of culture independent of special and one-sided
viewpoints according to which social phenomena are selected, analyzed, and organized for expository
purposes. These view points are necessary in order to engage in an empirical science of concrete reality
which seeks to understand the cultural significance of individual events in their contemporary manifestations
and the causes of their being historical so and not otherwise. The infinite multiplicity of life means that we
can select only a segment of it for scientific investigation.
Ideal
Type:
Formulated by exaggerating one side of reality, or selecting multiple aspects of reality and synthesizing
them into a unified analytical construct. The analysis of reality is concerned, for Max, ''with the
configuration into which (hypothetical!) 'factors' are arranged to form a cultural phenomena which is
historically significant to us'' (75). The ideal type is derived inductively from the real world. You compare
the type with empirical reality to see how it differs. Then, you look for the causes of the deviations.
MAX WEBER: Methodology of the Social Sciences
The Meaning of Ethical Neutrality in Sociology and Economics
--Value-judgements are practical evaluations of the unsatisfactory or satisfactory character of phenomena
subject
to
our
influence.
--In teaching, a lecture should be different from a speech, and teachers should not impose their ideas on their
students simply because students are prevented from leaving and from protesting. There is no specialized
qualification for personal prophesy, and for that reason it is not entitled to freedom from external control.
Students should gain from teachers today: 1) the ability to fulfill a given task in a workmanlike fashion; 2)
the ability to recognize facts, even those which may be personally uncomfortable, and to distinguish them
from his/her own evaluations; 3) learn to subordinate himself to his task and repress the impulse to exhibit
his
personal
tastes
or
other
sentiments
unnecessarily.
--The unresolvable question—unresolvable because it is ultimately a question of evaluation—as to whether
one may, must, or should champion certain practical values in teaching, should not be confused with the
purely logical discussion of the relationship of value-judgements to empirical disciplines such as sociology.
--The distinction between empirical statements of fact and value-judgments is difficult. However, all
recognizable value judgements should be made rigorously explicit to both the researcher him/herself and
his/her
audience.
-- Weber does not believe in value free sociology, he believes in striving for value-neutral sociology
--The specific function of science is to ask questions about the things which convention makes self-evident.
--''Understanding'' explanations do justice to a person who really or evidently thinks differently. They are
scientifically valuable 1) for the purposes of a causal analysis which seeks to establish the motives of human
actions and 2) for the communication of really divergent evaluations when one is in discussion with a person
who
really
or
apparently
has
different
evaluations
from
one's
self.
--The shallowness of our routinized daily existence in the most significant sense of the word consist in the
fact that the persons who are caught up in it do not become aware, and above all do not wish to become
aware, of the motley of irreconcilably antagonistic values that they hold... value-spheres cross and
interpenetrate
(18).
--The
discussion
of
value-judgements
can
have
only
the
following
functions:
1) the elaboration and explication of ultimate, internally consistent value-axioms, from which the divergent
attitudes are derived. People are often in error, not only about their opponents' evaluations, but also their
own. The procedure for this analysis begins with concrete particular evaluations and analyzes their meanings
and then moves to the more general level of irreducible evaluations. It is not empirical and it produces no
new
knowledge
of
facts.
It's
validity
flows
from
its
logic.
2) deduction of implications for those accepting certain value-judgements which follow from certain
irreducible value axioms when these axioms alone are used to evaluate certain situations of fact. This
deduction depends partly on logic, and partly on empirical observation for the most complete casuistic
analyses
of
all
such
empirical
situations
subject
to
practical
evaluation.
3) determination of the factual consequences which the realization of a given practical evaluation must have:
1) in the event of being bound to certain indispensable means, 2) in the event of the inevitability of certain,
not directly desired repercussions (these empirical observations may lead us to determine the end cannot be
achieved, or that in its achievement there may be other, undesired consequences which make our end too
dangerous to pursue. We may be made to reconsider our ends, means and repercussions, so that they become
a new problem for us, or we may discover new axioms which we had not previously taken into
consideration).
--Problems in social science are selected by value-relevance -- relevance for values of the
researcher/problem-selector. The task of a value-neutral science, once the problem of interest is chosen, is
the reduction of, say, a communist standpoint to its most rational and internally consistent form, and the
empirical investigation the pre-conditions for its existence and its practical consequences. This analyses,
though, can never tell us whether or not we should be communists; no science can. Strictly empirical
analysis can provide a solution to a problem only where it is a question of a means adequate to the
realization
of
an
absolutely
unambiguous
end.
--When the normatively valid is the object of empirical investigation, its normative validity is disregarded.
Its
existence
and
not
its
validity
is
what
concerns
the
investigator.
--An example of what NOT to do: Because the state is tremendously important and has a great deal of power
in modern life, people conclude that it represents the ultimate value and that all social actions should be
evaluated in terms of their relations to its interests. This is an inadmissible deduction of a value-judgement
from a statement of fact. Bad, bad, bad.
MAX WEBER: Politics as a Vocation
Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.
First,
a
general
chat
on
states.
Politics is any kind of leadership in action (Class, Status, Party: remember, social clubs and grad school
cohorts can have parties, just as states can). For this lecture, we will understand politics as the leadership or
influencing the leadership of a political association, today (1918) a state.
The
decisive
means
of
politics
is
violence.
A state is defined by the specific means peculiar to it, the use of physical force. The state is a human
community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given
territory. Politics, then, means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power,
either among states or among groups within a state. The state is a relation of men dominating men by means
of legitimate violence (you already know the three ways it can get legitimated, so I'm not telling you).
Leaders may arise on those three foundations as well.
How do the politically dominant powers maintain that dominance? Organized domination calls for
continuous administration, requires that human conduct be conditioned to obedience to the power-bearers. It
requires control over the material goods necessary for the use of physical violence. Thus, it requires control
of the personal executive staff and the material implements of administration. All states may be classified by
whether the staff of men themselves owns the administrative means, or whether they are separated from it
(necesse. for bureaucracy).
Now
to
chatting
about
politics
as
a
vocation.
There are two ways to make politics your vocation: you can live for it or off it. It you live for it, you make it
your life in an internal sense, either because you enjoy power or because you serve some cause. If you live
off it, you strive to make it your permanent source of income (cf Dan Rostenkowski). All party struggles are
struggles for the patronage of office, as well as struggles for objective goals (see D.R. again). Setbacks in
participating in offices are felt more severely by parties than is action against their objective goals.
The development of politics into an organization which demanded training in the struggle for power, and int
eh methods of this struggle as developed by modern party policies, determined the separation of public
functionaries into two categories: administrative officials and political officials. Political officials can be
transferred any time at will, and can be dismissed or at least temporarily withdrawn. Cabinet ministers often
are much less in control of their areas than divisional heads, who are long-term, administrative appointees; a
minister is simply the representative of a given political power constellation.
The genuine official, even a political official, conducts his business sine ira et studio (at least formally, as
long as the vital interests of the ruling order are not in question). To be passionate, on the other hand, is the
element of the politician and above all of the political leader. ''Since the time of the constitutional state, and
definitely since democracy has been established, the demagogue has been the typical political leader'' (96).
The current state of affairs is a ''dictatorship resting on the exploitation of mass emotionality'' (107). Next to
the qualities of will, the force of demagogic speech has been above all decisive in the choice of strong
leaders.
''What kind of man must one be if he is to be allowed to put his hand on the wheel of history?'' (115). He
must have passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion. Passion in the sense of matter-offactness, of passionate devotion to a cause, to the god or demon who is its overlord. Responsibility to the
cause must be the guiding star of action. For this, a sense of proportion is needed Warm passion and a cool
sense of proportion must be forged together in one and the same soul.
The politician must combat vanity, in order to be matter-of-factly devoted to his cause and preserve some
distance, not least from himself. Lack of objectivity and irresponsibility are the two deadly sins of politics;
vanity, the need to personally stand in the foreground, temps the politician to commit these sins. The final
result of political action regularly stands in completely inadequate and often paradoxical relation to its
original meaning (oh, cheery old Weber). Because of this fact, the serving of a cause must not be absent if
action is to have inner strength. Exactly which cause looks like a matter of belief (117). Some kind of faith
must exist in a politician, ''otherwise it is absolutely true that the curse of the creature's worthlessness
overshadows even the externally strongest political successes'' (117).
Then is a discussion of two ethics, the ethic of ultimate ends and the ethic of responsibility. They are
fundamentally different and irreconcilably opposed. The ethic of ultimate ends, formulated in religious
terms, is: ''The Christian does rightly and leaves the results with the Lord.'' If an action of good intention
leads to bad results, then, in the actor's eyes, not he, but the world, or the stupidity of other men, or God's
will who made them thus, is responsible for the evil. The ethic of responsibility, on the other hand, requires
one to give an account of the foreseeable results of one's action. The man who believes in an ethic of
responsibility takes into account precisely the average deficiencies of people. He does not feel in a position
to burden others with the results of his own actions so far as he was able to foresee them; he will say, these
results are ascribed to my action. On the other hand, the ultimate ends dude feels a ''responsibility'' only to
keep his intentions good.
In many cases, the attainment of good ends is bound up with the price of using morally dubious or
dangerous means, and must face the possibility of evil ramifications. From no ethics in the world can it be
concluded when and to what extent a good ends justifies ethically dangerous means and ramifications. (121)
The ethics of absolutism goes to pieces on the problem of justification of means by ends. Everything that is
striven for through political action operating with violent means and following an ethic of responsibility
endangers the salvation of the soul. If, however, on chases after the ultimate good in a war of beliefs,
following a pure ethic of absolute ends, then the goals may be damaged and discredited for generations
because responsibility for consequences is lacking. A man following an ethic of responsibility will arise at a
place where he must say, Here I stand; I can do no other. Here, the ethic of ultimate ends and the ethic of
responsibility are supplements, which only in unison constitute a genuine man, a man who can have the
calling for politics (127).
MAX WEBER: The Social Psychology of the World Religions
The world religions, to Max, are Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, and they are
chosen because they have a large number of followers, and for no other reason. He will also consider
Judaism, since it is an important precursor to Christianity and Islam and because of its significance for the
development of the economic ethic of the West.
The term 'economic ethic' points to the practical impulses for action which are founded in the psychological
and pragmatic contexts of religion. The religious determination of life conduct is only one of the
determinants of the economic ethic. The religiously determined way of life is itself profoundly influenced by
economic and political factors.
Those strata which are decisive in stamping the characteristic features of an economic ethic may change in
the course of history; nevertheless, as a rule one may determine the strata whose styles of life have been at
least predominately decisive for certain religions. For example, Confucianism was the status ethic of
prebendaries, men with literary educations who were characterized by a secular rationalism. Christianity
began its course as a doctrine of itinerant artisan journeymen. It is not the case for Weber that ''the ruling
ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling classes,'' however. And, however incisive the social influences,
economically and politically determined, may have been upon a religious ethic in a particular case, it
receives its stamp primarily from religious sources, and most predominantly from the content of its
annunciation and promise.
One of the foci of religious ethics has been the evaluation of suffering. By treating suffering as a symptom
of secret guilt and of a crime in the sight of G/god/s, religion has psychologically met a very important need.
The fortunate is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate. Beyond this, he needs to know that he has
a right to his good fortune. Good fortune wants to be legitimate fortune. Religion provides the theodicy of
good fortune for those who are fortunate.
Salvation religions are religions of suffering. Under the pressure of typical and ever-recurrent distress, the
religiosity of a 'redeemer' evolved. This religiosity presupposed the myth of a savior, hence (at least
relatively) a rational view of the world. In Judaism, the term messiah was originally attached to the saviours
from political distress, as transmitted by the hero sagas. In Judaism, and in this clear-cut fashion only in it
and under very particular other conditions, the suffering of a people's community, rather than the suffering
of an individual, became the object of hope for religious salvation. The usual rule was that the savior bore an
individual and universal character at the same time that he was ready to guarantee salvation to the individual
and to any individual who would turn to him.
The tribal and local gods, gods of the city and the empire, have taken care only of the interests that concern
the collectivity as a whole. In the community cult, the community as such turned to its god. The individual,
however, turned to the sorcerer and magician for help with his personal evils. Hereditary dynasties of
mystagogues or trained personnel under a head determined in accordance with certain rules developed.
Collective religious arrangements for individual suffering per se, and for salvation from it, originated in this
fashion. The typical service of magicians and priests becomes the determination of the factors to be blamed
for suffering; that is, the confession of sins. Where religious development was decisively influenced by
prophecy, sin was no longer merely a magical offense: it was a sign of disbelief in the prophet and his
commandments.
While prophets have not generally been descendants of depressed classes, it has generally been the
depressed classes who need a redeemer. Thus, most prophetically announced religious of redemption have
been located in the less-favored social strata. For these, such religiosity has been either a substitute for, or a
rational supplement to, magic.
The need for an ethical interpretation of suffering and of the meaning of the distribution of fortunes among
men increased with the growing rationality of conceptions of the world. There have been three rationally
satisfactory answers to questions about the basis of the incongruity between destiny and merit: Karma,
dualism (from Zoroastrianism) and the predestination decree of the deus abscondidus (the absconded god;
kind of a cool phrase). These solutions are rationally closed, and are found in pure form only as exceptions.
Ecstatic states (orgies, quietistic edification, contemplative mortification, etc) have been sought first of all,
for the sake of the emotional value they offered the devout. Rationalized religions have sublimated the orgy
into the sacrament. Every hierocratic and official authority of a church fights against virtuoso religion and its
autonomous development. The church is the holder of institutionalized grace, and seeks to organize the
religiosity of the masses.
The kind of empirical state of bliss or experience of rebirth that is sought after as the supreme value by a
religion has varied according to the character of the stratum that was foremost in adopting it. The conception
of the idea of redemption is very old, if one understands by it a liberation from sickness, hunger, etc.,
ultimately from suffering and death. However, redemption attained a specific significance only where it
expressed a systematic and rationalized image of the world and represented a stand in the face of the world.
Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern men's conduct. Yet very frequently the world
images that have been created by ideas have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has
been pushed by the dynamic of interest. From what and for what one wished to be redeemed, and let us not
forget, could be redeemed, depended upon one's image of the world.
Behind every religion lies a stand toward something in the actual world which is experienced as specifically
senseless. Thus, the demand has been implied: the world order, in its totality, could, and should somehow be
a meaningful cosmos. The various great ways of leading a rational and methodical life have been
characterized by irrational presuppositions, which have been accepted simply as given and incorporated into
life. What these presuppositions have been is historically and socially determined, to a very large extent,
through the peculiarity of those strata that have been the carriers of the ways of life during its formative and
decisive period. The interest situation of these strata, as determined socially and psychologically, has made
for their peculiarity.
Where prophecy has provided a religious basis, this basis could be one of two fundamental types of
prophesy: exemplary and emissary. Exemplary prophesy points the way to salvation by exemplary living
(usually contemplative and apathetic-ecstatic ways of life). Emissary prophesy addresses its demands to the
world in the name of a god. These demands are ethical, and often of an active acetic character.
The civic strata, conditioned by the nature of their life, which is greatly detached from economic bonds to
nature, tend toward a practical rationalism in conduct. Their whole existence has been based on
technological or economic calculations and upon the mastery of nature and man. These strata tend toward
religions of active asceticism. Wherever the direction of the whole way of life has been methodically
rationalized, it has been profoundly determined by the ultimate values toward which this rationalism has
been directed.
All kinds of practical ethics that are systematically and unambiguously oriented toward fixed goals of
salvation are rational, partly in the same sense as formal method is rational, and partly in the sense that they
distinguish between valid norms and what is empirically given.
All ruling powers need legitimacy, which comes in three kinds...
In the main, it has been the work of jurists to give birth to modern Western states, as well as modern
Western churches. Jurists work in the realm of formal rationalization, they follow procedures, etc. With the
triumph of formalistic (rather than substantive) juristic rationalism, the legal type of domination appeared in
the West.
Marx's theory of alienation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marx's theory of alienation (Entfremdung in German), as expressed in the writings of young Karl Marx,
refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are
properly in harmony. In the concept's most important use, it refers to the alienation of people from aspects of
their "human nature" (Gattungswesen, usually translated as 'species-essence' or 'species-being'). He believed
that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. His theory relies on Feuerbach's The Essence of
Christianity (1841), which argues that the idea of God has alienated the characteristics of the human being.
Stirner would take the analysis further in The Ego and Its Own (1844), declaring that even 'humanity' is an
alienating ideal for the individual, to which Marx and Engels responded in The German Ideology (1845).
Types of alienation
[edit] Alienation in the labour process
Marx's Theory of Alienation is based upon his observation that in emerging industrial production under
capitalism, workers inevitably lose control of their lives and selves, in not having any control of their work.
Workers never become autonomous, self-realized human beings in any significant sense, except the way the
bourgeois want the worker to be realized.
Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because in work each contributes to the common wealth, but can
only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not
publicly social, but privately owned, for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social
being:
'Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have
in two ways affirmed himself and the other person. 1) In my production I would have
objectified my individuality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only an
individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also when looking at the object I
would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the
senses and hence a power beyond all doubt. 2) In your enjoyment or use of my product I
would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by
my work, that is, of having objectified man’s essential nature, and of having thus created an
object corresponding to the need of another man’s essential nature. ... Our products would be
so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.'" (Comment on James Mill)
In this work, written in 1844, Marx sought to show how alienation arises from private labour, from
commodity production:
'Let us review the various factors as seen in our supposition: My work would be a free
manifestation of life, hence an enjoyment of life. Presupposing private property, my work is
an alienation of life, for I work in order to live, in order to obtain for myself the means of life.
My work is not my life.' (Comment on James Mill)
Marx attributes four types of alienation in labour under capitalism:[1]




alienation of the worker from his or her ‘species essence’ as a human being rather than a machine;
alienation between workers, since capitalism reduces labour to a commodity to be traded on the
market, rather than a social relationship;
alienation of the worker from the product, since this is appropriated by the capitalist class, and so
escapes the worker's control;
alienation from the act of production itself, such that work comes to be a meaningless activity,
offering little or no intrinsic satisfactions.
[edit] The significance of alienation in Marx's thought
[edit] The concept of alienation — from Hegel and Feuerbach
Alienation is a foundational claim in Marxist theory. Hegel described a succession of historic stages in the
human Geist (Spirit), by which that Spirit progresses towards perfect self-understanding, and away from
ignorance. In Marx's reaction to Hegel, these two, idealist poles are replaced with materialist categories:
spiritual ignorance becomes alienation, and the transcendent end of history becomes man's realisation of his
species-being; triumph over alienation and establishment of an objectively better society.
This teleological reading of Marx, particularly supported by Alexandre Kojève before World War II, is
criticized by Louis Althusser in his writings about "random materialism" (matérialisme aléatoire). Althusser
claimed that said reading made the proletariat the subject of history (i.e. Georg Lukacs's History and Class
Consciousness [1923] published at the Hungarian Soviet Republic's fall), was tainted with Hegelian
idealism, the "philosophy of the subject" that had been in force for five centuries, which was criticized as the
"bourgeois ideology of philosophy".
[edit] Alienation and Marx's theory of history
In The German Ideology Marx writes that 'things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must
appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to
safeguard their very existence' [1]. In other words, Marx seems to think that, while humans do have a need
for self-activity (self-actualisation, the opposite of alienation), this will be of secondary historical relevance.
This is because he thinks that capitalism will increase the economic impoverishment of the proletariat so
rapidly that they will be forced to make the social revolution just to stay alive - they probably wouldn't even
get to the point of worrying that much about self-activity. This doesn't mean, though, that tendencies against
alienation only manifest themselves once other needs are amply met, only that they are of reduced
importance. The work of Raya Dunayevskaya and others in the tradition of Marxist humanism drew
attention to manifestations of the desire for self-activity even among workers struggling for more basic goals
.
[edit] Alienation and class
In this passage, from The Holy Family, Marx says that capitalists and proletarians are equally alienated, but
experience their alienation in different ways:
The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human selfestrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it
recognizes estrangement as its own power and has in it the semblance of a human existence.
The class of the proletariat feels annihilated in estrangement; it sees in it its own
powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of Hegel, in
its abasement the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily
driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its condition of life, which is the
outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of that nature. Within this antithesis the private
property-owner is therefore the conservative side, the proletarian the destructive side. From
the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter the action of
annihilating it. [2]
KARL
(1818-1893)
MARX
(all page numbers refer to Tucker, unless otherwise indicated)
Marx on the History of His Opinions (pp. 3-5)
This is the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), where Marx establishes
his materialist conception of history.
The economic structure of society is the sum of people's relations to production, which correspond to a
definite stage of their material productive forces. This economic structure is the foundation for legal and
political superstructures as well as social consciousness. When the material forces of society come into
conflict with the existing relations of production, a social revolution, which would transform the economic
conditions of production and the ideological forms of consciousness, is possible.
A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (pp. 16-25)
Background information on Hegel and Feuerbach (Averneri, pp. 8-27) Marx became interested in Hegel's
philosophy because of his dissatisfaction with Kant's "antagonism between the 'is' and the 'ought.'" Hegel's
philosophy offered a way to eliminate this dichotomy by "realizing idealism in reality." Marx later realizes
that this dichotomy remains in Hegel's philosophy, hidden in the inner contradictions of his theory of social
and political institutions.
Feuerbach provided Marx with a methodological device to critique Hegel - the transformative method.
Hegel argued that thought was the subject and existence was the predicate. Feuerbach, however, wanted to
ground the subject in space and time and thereby develop a materialistic philosophy. His transformative
method takes the human and the subject and thought as the predicate.
The
Critique
Marx critiques Hegel's political philosophy in order to get at the roots of the Hegelian system. His discussion
of sovereignty (pp. 18-19) is an example of his application of the transformative method to critique Hegel.
Hegel saw the state as an entity abstracted from the social and historical forces which created it. He ignored
the social context of human relations and rationalized existing social organizations. This is apparent in
Marx's discussion of ancient, medieval, and modern politics (pp. 21-23). Lastly, Marx criticizes Hegel's
notion that the bureaucracy is the "universal class." Marx argues that the 'apparent idealism of the
bureaucracy's dedication to the general well-being of society is nothing but a mask for it's own coarse,
materialistic ends" (Averneri, p. 23). "Democracy is the true unity of the general and the particular" (p. 21).
It is the state of society in which the individual is no longer juxtaposed against society.
On the Jewish Question (pp. 26-46)
Written in 1843, Marx reviews two studies on the Jewish question written by Bruno Bauer, another Young
Hegelian.
The question is how to emancipate the Jews. The answer is that we have to emancipate ourselves before we
can emancipate others. Political emancipation is not the final and absolute form of human emancipation.
Human emancipation will only be complete when the real, individual human has absorbed into her/himself
the abstract citizen; when s/he has become a species-being and has recognized her/his own powers as social
powers so that s/he no longer separates this social power from himself as political power. The perfected
political state is the species-life of a person, as opposed to her/his material life.
A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction (pp. 53-65)
Written in 1843, Marx argues for a "radical revolution" to achieve self-realization. This is the first time he
writes of the proletariat as the vehicle for revolution.
Marx begins this essay with a criticism of religion, which he claims is the premise of all criticism. Feuerbach
used religion as the basis of his transformative method. Marx follow his lead by saying that "man makes
religion; religion does not make man" (p. 53). Also, religion creates the illusion that people are happy, but
people must abandon this ideal and demand real happiness, which can only be found in the material world.
Marx then criticizes the state of affairs in Germany and the problem of the rule of private property over
nationality. Germany has long been the "theoretical consciousness" of other nations but not it needs a
revolution which will "raise it not only to the official level of modern nations, but to the human level" (p.
60). Marx calls for a partial revolution in which "a section of civil society emancipates itself and attains
universal domination" (p. 62). The proletariat is the ideal class to lead the revolution because it is "a class in
civil society which is not a class of civil society" and because it's sufferings are universal The proletariat will
find its intellectual weapons in philosophy. "Philosophy is the head of this emancipation and the proletariat
is the heart" (p. 65).
Theses on Feuerbach (pp. 143-145)
Here Marx is criticizing the 18th century materialist view that consciousness is nothing but a reflection of
the material, environmental condition of human existence. This view portrays people as passive and inhibits
possibilities of change (Averneri, pp. 66-67).
Marx also emphasizes the importance of practice over theory. Social change is revolutionary practice. "The
philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point it to change it" (p. 145).
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (pp. 66-105)
Estranged
Labor
"With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world
of men. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity. ... (T)he
object which labor produces confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer" (p.
71).
Four characteristics of the alienation of labor: (See also Giddens, pp. 12-16; Swingewood, pp. 65-67)
1.) The relation of the worker to the product of labor as an alien object exercising power over him/her. The
worker does not control the fate of his/her products and therefore does not benefit from them.
2.) The relation of labor to the act of production within the labor process. Since labor is forced it offers no
intrinsic satisfactions. It becomes a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
3.) Estranged labor turns man's species being into a being alien to him, into a means to his individual
existence. The alienation of men from their species being is a social separation from socially generated
characteristics and propensities (Giddens, p. 16).
4.) Man is estranged from man. All economic relations are social relations; human relations, in capitalism,
tend to become reduced to operations of the market (Giddens, p. 14).
Note of clarification: The difference between objectification and alienation (Swingewood, p. 65) Hegel does
not distinguish between the two ideas. For Marx, objectification is a process through which humanity
externalizes itself in nature and society and thus necessarily entering into social relations. Alienation occurs
only when humanity, having externalized itself, encounters its own activity, its essence, operating as an
external, alien, and oppressive power.
Private
Property
Private property is the product of alienated labor and the means by which labor alienates itself (p. 79).
"Communism is the positive transcendence of private property, or human self-estrangement, and therefore is
the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man. It is a complete return of man to himself as a
social (i.e., human) being" (p. 84). The transcendence of private property is the complete emancipation of all
human senses and attributes.
The
Meaning
of
Human
Requirements
(pp.
93-101)
The need for money is the true need produced by the modern economic system. The power of money
decreases exactly in inverse proportion to the increase in the volume of production.
The
Power
of
Money
(pp.
101-105)
"Money is the pimp between man's need and the object, between his life and his means of life. But that
which mediates my life for me, also mediates the existence of other people for me" (p. 102). Money is the
alienated ability of mankind.
Society and Economy in History (pp. 136-142)
Marx wrote this letter in 1846 as a critique of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty. He later
expanded it into a book called The Poverty of Philosophy. He attacks Proudhon's individualistic economic
model and develops his argument for a historical materialist approach to understanding society and
economy.
According to Marx, society is the product of humans' reciprocal action. All human relations are based on
material relations. The economic forms in which men produce, consume and exchange are transitory and
historical. Because Proudhon does not take a historical approach, he fails to recognize the importance of
such "economic evolutions" as the division of labor and machinery.
Proudhon is also a classical materialist and Marx criticizes this approach for overlooking the fact that human
nature itself is the ever-changing product of human activity, i.e., of history (Averneri, p. 71). This relates to
Marx's critique of Feuerbach's mechanistic materialistic position in the Theses of Feuerbach.
The German Ideology (146-200)
Written by Marx and Engels in 1845-46, this is essentially an elaboration of the Economic and Philosophic
Manuscripts of 1844, with particular emphasis on the "materialist conception of history."
Marx complains that Old Hegelians comprehended everything by reeducating it to a Hegelian logical
category, and the Young Hegelians criticized everything by attributing it to religious conceptions; but no one
had yet tried to connect German philosophy with German reality (pp. 148-149).
Stages
of
development
of
the
division
of
labor:
1.) tribal: elementary division of labor; extension of natural d of l existing in family
2.) ancient communal: urban system of masters and slaves; communal private property
3.) feudal state: rural system of lords and serfs; little d of l; feudal organization of trades into guilds Marx
emphasizes the need to look at different societies and see how the social and political structure of each is
connected to production
The production of the means to satisfy biological needs is the production of material life itself. The
satisfaction of the first need leads to new needs. The production of new needs is the first historical act. Marx
stresses that needs are historical and not natural (p. 156; Averneri, p. 73).
The d of l implies a contradiction between the interest of the individual and that of the community. In
communist society, no one has one exclusive sphere of activity and society regulates the general production
(p. 160).
Communism is a "world-historical" movement comprised of individuals directly linked up with world
history (p. 162).
Civil society is the form of intercourse determined by the existing productive forces that transcends the state
and the nation (p. 163).
Concerning
the
Production
The ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas (p. 172).
of
Consciousness:
The
Real
Basis
of
Ideology:
The greatest division of material and mental labor is the separation of town and country. This is the
separation of capital and landed property and the beginning of property having its basis only in labor and
exchange (p. 176).
Big industry universalized competition and thus produced "world history" for the first time (i.e., people were
not dependent on the whole world to satisfy their wants).
Relation
of
State
and
Law
to
Property:
Through the emancipation of private property from the community, the State has become a separate entity,
outside civil society. The State is the form in which the individuals of a ruling class assert their common
interests.
Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of
production and intercourse (p. 193). Only in the community is personal freedom possible (p. 197).
Wage Labor and Capital (pp. 203-217)
Published in 1849, Marx sets out the economic content of his argument for the first time.
Wages are the sum of money paid by the capitalist for a particular labor time or for a particular output (p.
204).
Labor power is a commodity which the worker sells to capital. The worker sells his life activity in order to
secure the necessary means of subsistence. The worker belongs not the individual capitalist, but to the
capitalist class (pp. 204-205).
The cost of the production of labor power is the cost required for maintaining the worker as a worker; the
price of labor is the price of the necessary means of subsistence (p. 206).
Wage minimum is the cost of production of simple labor power, i.e., the cost of existence and reproduction
of the worker.
Commodities are products which are exchangeable for others. Exchange value is the ratio in which
commodities are exchangeable (if this ratio is expressed in money, then exchange value is simply the price
of a commodity) (p. 208).
The more productive capital grows, the more the d of l and application of machinery expand, the greater the
competition among workers, and the more wages contract (p. 216). Nevertheless, the rapid growth of capital
is the most favorable condition for wage labor because it may improve the material existence of the worker
(pp. 211, 217).
The Grundrisse (pp. 224-226, 236-244)
Written in 1857-58, Marx states his view on the method of political economy and develops his thesis on
production as the basic category.
Production:
There are characteristics which all stages of production have in common, and which are established as
general ones; but the so-called general preconditions of all production (e.g., property and the protection of
acquisitions) are nothing more than these abstract moments with which no real historical stage of production
can be grasped (p. 226).
Exchange:
1.)
there
is
no
exchange
without
the
d
of
l
2.)
private
exchange
presupposes
private
production
3.) the intensity, extension, and manner of exchange are determined by the development and structure of
production
Method
of
Political
Economy:
Labor has become the means of creating wealth in general and has ceased to be organically linked with
particular individuals in any specific form (pp. 240-241).
Bourgeois society is the most developed and most complex historical organization of production. Studying
bourgeois society is the key to understanding the structure and relations of production of former types of
society (e.g., feudal, ancient, etc.); but this is possible only through the self-criticism of bourgeois society
(pp. 241-242).
Capital, VolumeI (pp. 294-438)
Written in 1867, Marx aims to explore the capitalist mode of production and the conditions of production
and exchange corresponding to that mode.
Part
I:
Commodities
and
Money
(pp.
)
Capitalism is a system of commodity production. A commodity is a thing that by its properties satisfies
human wants of some sort. There are two characteristics to every commodity:
1.) use value is the utility of a thing independent of the amount of labor time used to produce it. Use-value is
realized only through use or consumption. It is the substance of all wealth.
2.) Exchange value is the proportion in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another
sort. It is a quantitative relation.
Values is the labor power expended in production. It is measure by the quantity of value-creating substance,
i.e., labor. It varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness of the labor incorporated in
it.
The labor time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of
production and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time.
The
two-fold
character
of
labor
=
useful
labor
+
simple
labor
power
Useful
labor
is
that
which
makes
a
product
a
use-value.
Simple labor power is that which, on the average, apart from any special development, exists in the
organism of every ordinary individual.
Money-form is the value-form of commodities common to them all.
Relative value is the value expressed in relation to something else; it presupposes the presence of another
commodity. Equivalent value is the second commodity whose value is not expressed but it provides the
material in which another value is expressed.
Fetishism occurs when the social character of human labor appears to people as an objective character
stamped upon the product of that labor. A definite social relation between people assumes the form of a
relation between things. An expression of human creativity appears to be a natural object (Averneri, pp. 117119). This fetishism is due in part to money, which conceals the social character of private labor.
Part
II:
The
Transformation
of
The circulation of commodities is the starting point of capital.
Money
into
Capital
M
C
M
=
capital
M' = M + M (M = surplus value)M - C - M' = general formula of capitalLabor power is the capacity for
labor. It is the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in people which they exercise
whenever they produce a use-value.The value of labor power is the value of the means of subsistence
necessary for the maintenance of the laborer.
Part
III:
The
1.)
2.)
3.) its instruments
The
elementary
Production
of
factors
work
subject
Absolute
of
of
Surplus
Value
labor-process:
itself
work
Surplus value is whatever the worker produces over and above the proportion of the working day needed to
produce the worker's own value.
Absolute surplus value is produced by the prolongation of the working day. Relative surplus value is
produced by the curtailment of the necessary labor time plus an alteration in the respective length of the two
components of the working day, that in which the laborer works for him/herself and that in which s/he works
for the capitalist.
Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value(pp. 376-417)
Machinery produces relative surplus-value by depreciating the value of labor power, cheapening the
commodity, and raising the social value of the article produced above its individual value. This only lasts
until machinery becomes more general in a particular field. Then, the use of machinery converts variable
capital (invested in labor-power) into constant capital (machinery), which does not produce surplus value (p.
405). Machinery does not free the laborer from work, but makes that work uninteresting.
Part V: Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus Value (pp. 417-431)
The composition of capital:
capital
value
variable constant
material
means
of
production
living
labor
power
The growth of capital involves the growth of the variable constituent (i.e., the proletariat). This is the basis
of the "reserve army" (p. 423).
The absolute law of capitalist accumulation = the greater the social wealth, the larger the reserve army, the
greater the pauperization.
Part VIII: So-Called Primitive Accumulation (pp. 431-438)
Accumulation is not the result of the capitalist mode of production but its starting point.
The starting point of the development that gave rise to the wage-laborer as well as to the capitalist was the
servitude of the laborer.
The Communist Manifesto (pp. 469-500)
Marx and Engels were commissioned in 1847 to write a manifesto for the Communist League. With highly
charged rhetoric, they restate many of the basic premises of Marx' earlier works. They argue that:
1.) Economic production and the structure of every historical epoch constitute the foundation for the
political and intellectual history of that epoch.
2.) All history has been a history of class struggles.
3.) This struggle has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no
longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppress it (the bourgeoisie) without freeing the
whole of society from exploitation, oppression, and class struggles.
It is important to note that in his polemical writings, Marx frequently oversimplified his view of class
struggle into the opposition between 2 classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. However, he believes in a
more complex class structure including "transition classes," as is evident in The Eighteenth Brumaire
(Swingewood, pp. 84-86).
The immediate aim of Communists is the formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the
bourgeois supremacy, and the conquest of political power by the proletariat. The distinguishing feature of
Communism is not the abolition of property in general, but the abolition of bourgeois property because it
exemplifies the exploitation of the many by the few.
The first step of revolution is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class. Then it is necessary
to wrest all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State,
and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have the world to win. Workers of the world
unite!!!!!
Class Struggle in France 1848-50 (pp. 586-593)
Marx sets out to explain why the workers' insurrection in France in 1848 failed. In February 1848, King
Louis Philippe was forced to abdicate because of protests of Parisian workers. In June there was another
workers' insurrection, which was crushed by the military. In December, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was
elected president and in 1851 he made himself emperor by coup d'etat.
Marx says that the revolution was based on social relationships which had not yet come to the point of sharp
class antagonisms. The Provisional Government which had emerged in February was largely bourgeoisie.
They had used the workers only as fighters for bourgeois causes. Though the proletariat did not win the
revolution, they won the terrain for the fight for their revolutionary emancipation.
Any merely political insurrection of the proletariat trying to create politically conditions not yet immanently
developed in the socio-economic sphere is doomed to fail (Averneri, p. 194). A real revolution is only
possible when modern productive forces and bourgeois productive forms come in collision with one another.
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (pp. 594-617)
Marx wants to "demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relationships that
made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero's part" (p. 594). He is treating an actual historical
event from the viewpoint of the materialist conception of history.
Marx
divides
the
French
Revolution
into
3
main
periods:
1.) The February period: while the proletariat reveled in the vision of the wide prospects that had opened
before it, the old powers of society had assembled themselves and taken over.
2.) The period of the Constitution (May 4, 1848 - May 1849): This was the foundation of the bourgeois
republic. The proletariat tried to revolt with the June insurrection, but everyone else had united against this
"party of anarchy," these "enemies of society."
3.) The period of the Constitutional Republic (May 29, 1849 - December 2, 1851): Under Bonaparte, the
favored section of the bourgeoisie concealed its rule under cover of the crown. Bonaparte represented the
small peasants. The great mass of the French nation is formed by the simple addition of homologous
magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack from a sackful of potatoes. They do not form a class because there
is no national union or political organization.
Bonaparte sees himself as the adversary of the political and literary power of the middle class, but by
protecting its material power, he allows it to regain political power. Bonaparte wants to make the lower
classes happy within the framework of a bourgeois society. He would like to appear as the patriarchal
benefactor of all classes, but he can't give to one class without taking from another.
Class Struggle and Mode of Production (p. 220)
In a letter to his friend Joseph Weydemeyer, Marx writes about what he considered most innovative in his
analysis of the human historical process. He acknowledges that others before him had discovered the
existence of classes and the struggle between them. What Marx did was to prove: 1.) that the existence of
classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production, 2.) that the class
struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, and 3.) that this dictatorship itself only
constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.
Classes (pp. 441-442)
The three big classes of modern society are the wage-laborers, capitalists, and landowners. The law of
development of the capitalist mode of production is to divorce the means of production from labor and to
concentrate the scattered means of production into large groups, thereby transforming labor into wage-labor
and the means of production into capital. Marx is concerned with defining what a class is. He starts with
the hypothesis that a class can be defined by its sources of revenues. For example, wage-laborers live on
wages, capitalists on profits, and landownders on ground-rent. However, he begins to argue that this is not a
sufficient definition because it would lead to the infinite fragmentation of interest and rank. This manuscript
is incomplete and Dahrendorf picks up on this subject and tries to complete Marx's definition of a class
Iron cage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Iron cage is a sociological concept introduced by Max Weber. Iron cage refers to the increasing
rationalization of human life, which traps individuals in an "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control. He
also called such over-bureaucratized social order "the polar night of icy darkness". [1]
The original German term is stahlhartes Gehäuse; this was translated into 'iron cage', an expression made
familiar to English language speakers by Talcott Parsons[1] in his 1958 translation of Weber's The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[2] [3] Recently some sociologists have questioned this
translation, arguing that the correct term should be 'shell as hard as steel' and that the difference from the
original translation is significant.[4], [5] A more literal translation from German would be "steel-hard
housing."
Weber wrote: "In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like
a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.' But fate decreed that the cloak should become an
iron cage." [6]
Weber became concerned with social actions and the subjective meaning that humans attach to their actions
and interaction within specific social contexts. He also believed in idealism, which is the belief that we only
know things because of the meanings that we apply to them. This led to his interest in power and authority
in terms of bureaucracy and rationalization.
[edit] Rationalization and bureaucracy
Weber states, “the course of development involves… the bringing in of calculation into the traditional
brotherhood, displacing the old religious relationship.” [2]
Modern society was becoming characterized by its shift in the motivation of individual behaviors. [7] Social
actions were becoming based on efficiency instead of the old types of social actions, which were based on
lineage or kinship. Behavior had become dominated by goal-oriented rationality and less by tradition and
values. According to Weber, the shift from the old form of mobility in terms of kinship to a strict set of rules
was a direct result of growth in bureaucracy and capitalism. [3]
[edit] Effects of bureaucracies
[edit] Positive contributions
Bureaucracies were distinct from the former feudal system where people were promoted through favoritism
and bribes [4] because now there was a set of rules that are clearly defined; there was promotion through
seniority [8] and disciplinary control. Weber believes that this influenced modern society [9] and how we
operate today, especially politically. [5]
Weber’s characteristics of an ideal bureaucracy: [10]
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Hierarchy of authority
Impersonality
Written rules of conduct
Promotion based on achievement
Specialized division of labor
Efficiency
Weber believed that bureaucracies are goal-oriented organizations that are based on rational principles that
are used to efficiently reach their goals. [6] However, there are constraints within this bureaucratic system. [7]
[edit] Negative effects of bureaucracies
Bureaucracies concentrate large amounts of power in a small number of people and are generally
unregulated. [8] Weber believed that those who control these organizations control the quality of our lives as
well. Bureaucracies tend to generate oligarchy; which is where a few officials are the political and economic
power.[11] Because bureaucracy is a form of organization superior to all others,[12] further
bureaucratization and rationalization may be an inescapable fate. [9]
[edit] Iron cage of bureaucracy
Because of these aforementioned reasons, there will be an evolution of an iron cage, which will be a
technically ordered, rigid, dehumanized society. [13] The iron cage is the one set of rules and laws that we
are all subjected and must adhere to. [10] Bureaucracy puts us in an iron cage, which limits individual human
freedom and potential instead of a “technological utopia” that should set us free.[14][11] It's the way of the
institution, where we do not have a choice anymore. [12]Once capitalism came about, it was like a machine
that you were being pulled into without an alternative option[13]; currently, whether we agree or disagree, if
you want to survive you need to have a job and you need to make money.
Laws of Bureaucracies: [14]
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The official is subject to authority only with respect to their official obligation
Organized in a clearly defined hierarchy of offices
Each office has a clearly defined sphere of competence
The official has a free contractual relationship; free selection
Officials are selected through technical qualification
6.
7.
8.
9.
The official is paid by fixed salaries
The office is the primary occupation of the official
Promotion is based on a achievement which is granted by a the judgment of superiors
The official is subject to strict and systematic discipline within the office
[edit] Costs of bureaucracies
“Rational calculation . . . reduces every worker to a cog in this bureaucratic machine and,
seeing himself in this light, he will merely ask how to transform himself… to a bigger cog…
The passion for bureaucratization at this meeting drives us to despair.” [15]





Loss of individuality;[16] labor is now being sold to someone who is in control, instead of individuals
being artisans and craftsmen and benefiting from their own labor.[17]
Loss of autonomy; others are dictating what an individual’s services are worth.[18]
Individuals develop an obsession with moving on to bigger and better positions, but someone else
will always be determining the value of our achievements.[19]
Lack of individual freedom; individuals can no longer engage in a society unless they belong to a
large scale organization[15] where they are given specific tasks in return for giving up their personal
desires to conform to the bureaucracy’s goals[20] and are now following legal authority.[21]
Specialization; with specialization, society becomes more interdependent and has a less common
purpose. [22]There is a loss in the sense of community because the purpose of bureaucracies is to get
the job done efficiently.[23]
Bureaucratic hierarchies can control resources in pursuit of their own personal interests[24], which impacts
society’s lives greatly and society has no control over this. It also affects society’s political order and
governments because bureaucracies were built to regulate these organizations, but corruption remains an
issue.[25] The goal of the bureaucracy has a single-minded pursuit[26] that can ruin social order; what might
be good for the organization might not be good for the society as a whole, which can later harm the
bureaucracy’s future.[27] Formal rationalization[28] in bureaucracy has its problems as well. There are issues
of control, depersonalization and increasing domination. Once the bureaucracy is created, the control is
indestructible.[29] There is only one set of rules and procedures, which reduces everyone to the same level.
Depersonalization occurs because individual situations are not accounted for. [30]Most importantly, the
bureaucracies will become more dominating over time unless they are stopped. In an advanced industrialbureaucratic society, everything becomes part of the expanding machine, even people. [16]
While bureaucracies are supposed to be based on rationalization, they act in the exact opposite manner.
Political bureaucracies are established so that they protect our civil liberties, but they violate them with their
imposing rules. Development and agricultural bureaucracies are set so that they help farmers, but put them
out of business due to market competition that the bureaucracies contribute to. Service bureaucracies like
health care are set to help the sick and elderly, but then they deny care based on specific criteria.[17]
[edit] Debates regarding bureaucracies
Weber argues that bureaucracies have dominated modern society’s social structure[31]; but we need these
bureaucracies to help regulate our complex society. Bureaucracies may have desirable intentions to some,
but they tend to undermine human freedom and democracy in the long run. [32]
“Rationalization destroyed the authority of magical powers, but it also brought into being the
machine-like regulation of bureaucracy, which ultimately challenges all systems of belief.”[33]
It is important note that according to Weber, society sets up these bureaucratic systems, and it is up to
society to change them. Weber argues that it is very difficult to change or break these bureaucracies, but if
they are indeed socially constructed, then society should be able to intervene and shift the system.
Frederick Herzberg
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Frederick Herzberg
Born
18
April,
Lynn, Massachusetts, U.S.
1923
Died
19
January,
2000
University Hospital, Salt Lake City, U.S.
Herzberg attended City College of New York, but left part way through his studies to enlist in the army. As
a patrol sergeant, he was a firsthand witness of the Dachau concentration camp. He believed that this
experience, as well as the talks he had with other Germans living in the area was what triggered his interest
in motivation. Herzberg graduated from City College in 1946 and moved to the University of Pittsburgh to
undertake post-graduate studies in science and public health. He earned his PhD in psychology with a
dissertation entitled "Prognostic variables for electroshock therapy on Alain Meiar and Olivier Perbet". He
started his research on the workplace while teaching as a professor of psychology at Case Western Reserve
University in Cleveland and later moved to the University of Utah where he held the position of professor of
management in the college of business.[1]
Contents
[hide]





1 Two factor theory
2 Hygiene Dynamics
3 References
4 See also
5 External links
[edit] Two factor theory
Main article: Two factor theory
Herzberg proposed the Motivation-Hygiene Theory, also known as the Two factor theory (1959) of job
satisfaction. According to his theory, people are influenced by two factors:


Satisfaction, which is primarily the result of the motivator factors. These factors help increase
satisfaction but have little effect on dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction is primarily the result of hygiene factors. These factors, if absent or inadequate,
cause dissatisfaction, but their presence has little effect on long-term satisfaction
Motivator Factors






Achievement
Recognition
Work Itself
Responsibility
Promotion
Growth
Hygiene Factors







Pay and Benefits
Company Policy and Administration
Relationships with co-workers
Physical Environment
Supervision
Status
Job Security
[edit] Hygiene Dynamics
1. Hygiene factors focus on the context in which the job is done, the conditions that surround the doing
of the job. The underlying dynamic of hygiene is the avoidance of pain from the environment.
2. When hygiene factors deteriorate to a level below that which the employee considers acceptable,
then job dissatisfaction ensues. Hygiene factors directly affect job attitudes, primarily satisfaction
and dissatisfaction.
3. When these factors have been satisfied or provided to a level which the employee considers
acceptable, there will be no dissatisfaction, but neither will there be significant positive attitude.
4. People are made dissatisfied by a bad environment, but they are seldom made satisfied by a good
environment.
5. The prevention of dissatisfaction is just as important as encouragement of motivator satisfaction.
6. Hygiene factors operate independently of motivation factors. An individual can be highly motivated
in his work and be dissatisfied with his work environment.
7. All hygiene factors are equally important, although their frequency of occurrence differs
considerably.
8. Hygiene improvements have short-term effects. Any improvements result in a short-term removal of,
or prevention of, dissatisfaction.
9. Hygiene needs are cyclical in nature and come back to a starting point. This leads to the "What have
you done for me lately?" syndrome.
10. Hygiene needs have an escalating zero point and no final answer.[2]
frederick herzberg motivational theory
Frederick Herzberg's motivation and hygiene factors
Frederick Herzberg (1923-2000), clinical psychologist and pioneer of 'job enrichment', is regarded as one of
the great original thinkers in management and motivational theory. Frederick I Herzberg was born in
Massachusetts on April 18, 1923. His undergraduate work was at the City College of New York, followed
by graduate degrees at the University of Pittsburgh. Herzberg was later Professor of Management at Case
Western Reserve University, where he established the Department of Industrial Mental Health. He moved to
the University of Utah's College of Business in 1972, where he was also Professor of Management. He died
at Salt Lake City, January 18, 2000.
Frederick Herzberg's book 'The Motivation to Work', written with research colleagues Bernard Mausner and
Barbara Bloch Snyderman in 1959, first established his theories about motivation in the workplace.
Herzberg's survey work, originally on 200 Pittsburgh engineers and accountants remains a fundamentally
important reference in motivational study. While the study involved only 200 people, Herzberg's
considerable preparatory investigations, and the design of the research itself, enabled Herzberg and his
colleagues to gather and analyse an extremely sophisticated level of data.
Herzberg's research used a pioneering approach, based on open questioning and very few assumptions, to
gather and analyse details of 'critical incidents' as recalled by the survey respondents. He first used this
methodology during his doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh with John Flanagan (later Director at
the American Institute for Research), who developed the Critical Incident method in the selection of Army
Air Corps personnel during the Second World War. Herzberg's clever open interviewing method gleaned far
more meaningful results than the conventional practice of asking closed (basically yes/no) or multiple-
choice or extent-based questions, which assume or prompt a particular type of response, and which
incidentally remain the most popular and convenient style of surveying even today - especially among those
having a particular agenda or publicity aim.
Herzberg also prepared intensively prior to his 1959 study - not least by scrutinizing and comparing the
results and methodologies of all 155 previous research studies into job attitudes carried out between 1920
and 1954.
The level of preparation, plus the 'critical incident' aspect and the depth of care and analysis during the 1959
project, helped make Herzberg's study such a powerful and sophisticated piece of work.
Herzberg expanded his motivation-hygiene theory in his subsequent books: Work and the Nature of Man
(1966); The Managerial Choice (1982); and Herzberg on Motivation (1983).
Significantly, Herzberg commented in 1984, twenty-five years after his theory was first published:
"The original study has produced more replications than any other research in the history of industrial and
organizational psychology." (source: Institute for Scientific Information)
The absence of any serious challenge to Herzberg's theory continues effectively to validate it.
herzberg's main theory and its significance
Herzberg was the first to show that satisfaction and dissatisfaction at work nearly always arose from
different factors, and were not simply opposing reactions to the same factors, as had always previously been
(and still now by the unenlightened) believed.
In 1959 Herzberg wrote the following useful little phrase, which helps explain this fundamental part of his
theory, i.e., that the factors which motivate people at work are different to and not simply the opposite of the
factors which cause dissatisfaction:
"We can expand ... by stating that the job satisfiers deal with the factors involved in doing the job,
whereas the job dissatisfiers deal with the factors which define the job context."
For graphical presentation of this principle, see the Herzberg hygiene factors and motivators graph diagram
(revised April 2008), and the Herzberg diagram rocket and launch pad analogy diagram, (both are pdf files).
The rocket analogy diagram, which incidentally is my own interpretation and not Herzberg's, is also
available as a doc file and a powerpoint slide: Herzberg rocket diagram doc (MSWord) format, and
Herzberg rocket diagram ppt (MSPowerpoint) format.
The 2008 graph diagram is based on the total percentages of 'First-Level' factors arising in Herzberg's 1959
research of high and low attitude events among 200 engineers and accountants, encompassing short and long
duration feelings.
While Herzberg's overall conclusions were clear and consistent, the statistics from Herzberg's study can be
interpreted in many different ways in their finer details, because of the depth and layering of Herzberg's
survey methodology and analysis.
For full details of the Herzberg study figures, and to fully appreciate the complexity and subtlety of his
findings, see Herzberg's book The Motivation to Work. In addition to being really interesting and relevant to
modern times, the book contains many tables of statistics and analysis, structured differently and extensively
according to the variables that Herzberg considered to be important, for example, including the obvious
main perspectives:




high and low attitude (basically satisfaction and dissatisfaction, also defined as motivators and
hygienes or hygiene factors)
short and long term duration of feelings (of high/low attitude effect)
first and second level factors (i.e., main causal factors, and secondary factors deriving from the main
stimulus, identified by further probing during interviews)
the interrelationship of factors
These different perspectives obviously provided (and still provide) endless ways to analyse and present the
results, although as stated already the main conclusions remain consistent.
Incidentally, the 2008 revised graph diagram replaces the previous Herzberg factors diagram 2003 version,
which I based on an interpretation of Herzberg's work by BACIE (British Association for Industrial and
Commercial Education), appearing in their Handbook of Management Training Exercises published in 1978.
BACIE referenced Herzberg's book Work and the Nature of Man, Staples Press 1966, but the root statistics
and study are found in The Motivation to Work, 1959. I am unclear exactly how BACIE arrived at their
figures reflected in the 2003 diagram, and it remains on this website mainly because it featured here for so
long. If you use it please ensure you explain the background suitably. I am sure there are very many
graphical interpretations of Herzberg's study results, which for the reasons explained will probably vary
somewhat in the detail, although probably not too much in overall impression.
The purpose of the diagram (either version) is to illustrate how Herzberg's research showed that certain
factors truly motivate ('motivators'), whereas others tended to lead to dissatisfaction ('hygiene factors').
According to Herzberg, Man has two sets of needs; one as an animal to avoid pain, and two as a human
being to grow psychologically.
He illustrated this also through Biblical example: Adam after his expulsion from Eden having the need for
food, warmth, shelter, safety, etc., - the 'hygiene' needs; and Abraham, capable and achieving great things
through self-development - the 'motivational' needs.
Certain parallels can clearly be seen with Maslow.
Herzberg's ideas relate strongly to modern ethical management and social responsibility.
Many decades ago Herzberg, like Maslow, understood well and attempted to teach the ethical management
principles that many leaders today, typically in businesses and organisations that lack humanity, still
struggle to grasp. In this respect Herzberg's concepts are just as relevant now as when he first suggested
them, except that the implications of responsibility, fairness, justice and compassion in business are now
global.
Although Herzberg is most noted for his famous 'hygiene' and motivational factors theory, he was
essentially concerned with people's well-being at work. Underpinning his theories and academic teachings,
he was basically attempting to bring more humanity and caring into the workplace. He and others like him,
did not develop their theories to be used as 'motivational tools' purely to improve organisational
performance. They sought instead primarily to explain how to manage people properly, for the good of all
people at work.
Herzberg's research proved that people will strive to achieve 'hygiene' needs because they they are unhappy
without them, but once satisfied the effect soon wears off - satisfaction is temporary. Then as now, poorly
managed organisations fail to understand that people are not 'motivated' by addressing 'hygiene' needs.
People are only truly motivated by enabling them to reach for and satisfy the factors that Herzberg identified
as real motivators, such as achievement, advancement, development, etc., which represent a far deeper level
of meaning and fulfilment.
Examples of Herzberg's 'hygiene' needs (or maintenance factors) in the workplace are:









policy
relationship with supervisor
work conditions
salary
company car
status
security
relationship with subordinates
personal life
Herzberg's research identified that true motivators were other completely different factors, notably:





achievement
recognition
work itself
responsibility
advancement
N.B. Herzberg identified a specific category within the study responses which he called 'possibility of
growth'. This arose in relatively few cases within the study and was not considered a major factor by
Herzberg. Where referring to 'growth' or 'personal growth' in terms of Herzberg's primary motivators,
'growth' should be seen as an aspect of advancement, and not confused with the different matter of
'possibility of growth'.
to what extent is money a motivator?
This question commonly arises when considering Herzberg's research and theories, so it's appropriate to
include it here.
Herzberg addressed money particularly (referring specifically to 'salary' in his study and analysis). Herzberg
acknowledged the complexity of the salary issue (money, earnings, etc), and concluded that money is not a
motivator in the way that the primary motivators are, such as achievement and recognition.
Herzberg said about 'salary':
"It [salary] appears as frequently in the high sequences ['sequences' refers to events causing high or low
attitude feelings recalled by interviewees in the study] as it does in the low sequences... however... we find
that in the lows [events leading to dissatisfaction], salary is found almost three times as often in the longrange as in the short-range attitude changes..." (There was no such bias towards the more important longrange feelings in the high attitude events.)
And about the interrelation of salary and other factors:
"...when salary occurred as a factor in the lows (causes of dissatisfaction) it revolved around the unfairness
of the wage system within the company... It was the system of salary administration that was being
described... [or] it concerned an advancement that was not accompanied by a salary increase... In contrast to
this, salary was mentioned in the high stories (events causing satisfaction) as something that went along with
a person's achievement on the job. It was a form of recognition; it meant more than money; it meant a job
well done; it meant that the individual was progressing in his work..."
And Herzberg concluded about salary (i.e., money, earnings, etc):
"Viewed within the context of the sequences of events, salary as a factor belongs more in the group
that defines the job situation and is primarily a dissatisfier."
Many people argue nevertheless that money is a primary motivator.
For most people money is not a motivator - despite what they might think and say.
For all people there are bigger more sustaining motivators than money.
Surveys and research studies repeatedly show that other factors motivate more than money. Examples
appear in the newspapers and in other information resources every week.
For instance, a survey by Development Dimensions International published in the UK Times newspaper in
2004 interviewed 1,000 staff from companies employing more than 500 workers, and found many to be
bored, lacking commitment and looking for a new job. Pay actually came fifth in the reasons people gave for
leaving their jobs.
The main reasons were lack of stimulus jobs and no opportunity for advancement - classic Herzberg
motivators - 43% left for better promotion chances, 28% for more challenging work; 23% for a more
exciting place to work; and 21% and more varied work.
Lots of other evidence is found in life, wherever you care to look.
Consider what happens when people win big lottery prize winners.
While many of course give up their 'daily grind' jobs, some do not. They wisely recognise that their work is
part of their purpose and life-balance.
Others who give up their jobs do so to buy or start and run their own businesses. They are pursuing their
dream to achieve something special for them, whatever that might be. And whatever it means to them, the
motivation is not to make money, otherwise why don't they just keep hold of what they've got? Why risk it
on a project that will involve lots of effort and personal commitment? Of course the reason they invest in a
new business venture is that pursuing this sort of plan is where the real motivators are found - achievement,
responsibility, advancement, etc - not money.
The people who are always the most unhappy are those who focus on spending their money. The lottery
prize-winners who give up work and pursue material and lifestyle pleasures soon find that life becomes
empty and meaningless. Money, and spending it, are not enough to sustain the human spirit. We exist for
more.
Money is certainly important, and a personal driver, if you lack enough for a decent civilized existence, or
you are striving for a house or a holiday, but beyond this, money is not for the vast majority of people a
sustainable motivator in itself.
The Value of Organizational Values
What's the value in values?
Organizational values define the acceptable standards which govern the behaviors of individuals within the
organization. Without such values, individuals will pursue behaviors that are in line with their own
individual value systems, which may lead to behaviours that the organization doesn't wish to encourage.
In a smaller, co-located organization, the behaviour of individuals is much more visible than in larger,
disparate ones. In these smaller groups, the need for articulated values is reduced, since unacceptable
behaviours can be challenged openly. However, for the larger organization, where desired behaviour is
being encouraged by different individuals in different places with different sub-groups, an articulated
statement of values can draw an organization together.
Clearly, the organization's values must be in line with its purpose or mission, and the vision that it is trying
to achieve. So to summarize, articulated values of an organization can provide a framework for the
collective leadership of an organization to encourage common norms of behaviour which will support the
achievement of the organization's goals and mission.
Five ways to live out values
However, just as with a mission or vision statement, it is one thing to have a written guide to an
organization's values that remains on the wall, or in a folder, but it is quite another thing to have living
values which shape the culture - the way that things get done. So here are five suggestions to ensure you
have living values…
1. Communicate the Values Constantly. Values should fit with the organizations' communication, both
internally and externally. If we say that we're fun, team-oriented where everyone counts, then having a
traditional style with a photo of the CEO may challenge this. Refer frequently to the values in talks and
sermons, in articles in internal/parish magazines. Acknowledge and thank those people who have achieved
something which particularly emphasises the values.
2. Enroll New Folk. The values should be explicitly available as new members join an organization. If your
organization is a business, this can be a part of the selection process, if a church, then explicitly stating the
values of the church creates an expectation in the minds of newcomers. The church then needs to deliver on
that!
3. Revisit and Refresh the Values. Revisit your values periodically - allowing members to update them.
This has the power of enrolling those who have joined the organization recently, and avoids the stated values
no longer reflecting the business culture.
4. Confront Contradictory Behaviour. Ensuring that we give feedback to those who don't live out the
values of the organization. If people are allowed to live out contradictory values, then over time there is a
clear danger that these will usurp the desired values, particularly if it is the more dynamic, dominant
individuals who are espousing the contradictory values.
5. Periodically Check out with Feedback. Ask people what they think are the values of the organization not only members, who may be influenced by the stated values, but outsiders - observers, customers, former
members.
Organizational culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This
article
or
section
is
written
like
an
advertisement.
Please
help
rewrite
this
article
from
a
neutral
point
of
view.
For blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become encyclopedic, use {{dbspam}} to mark for speedy deletion. (December 2007)
Organizational culture, or corporate culture, comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of
an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people
and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders
outside the organization. Organizational values are beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals members of
an organization should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational
members should use to achieve these goals. From organizational values develop organizational norms,
guidelines or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular situations
and control the behavior of organizational members towards one another"[1]Senior management may try to
determine a corporate culture. They may wish to impose corporate values and standards of behavior that
specifically reflect the objectives of the organization. In addition, there will also be an extant internal culture
within the workforce. Work-groups within the organization have their own behavioral quirks and
interactions which, to an extent, affect the whole system. Task culture can be imported. For example,
computer technicians will have expertise, language and behaviors gained independently of the organization,
but their presence can influence the culture of the organization as a whole.

[edit] Strong/weak cultures
Strong culture is said to exist where staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to organizational
values.
Conversely, there is weak culture where there is little alignment with organizational values and control
must be exercised through extensive procedures and bureaucracy.
Where culture is strong—people do things because they believe it is the right thing to do—there is a risk of
another phenomenon, Groupthink. "Groupthink" was described by Irving L. Janis. He defined it as "...a
quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage when they are deeply involved in a
cohesive ingroup, when members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise
alternatives of action." This is a state where people, even if they have different ideas, do not challenge
organizational thinking, and therefore there is a reduced capacity for innovative thoughts. This could occur,
for example, where there is heavy reliance on a central charismatic figure in the organization, or where there
is an evangelical belief in the organization’s values, or also in groups where a friendly climate is at the base
of their identity (avoidance of conflict). In fact groupthink is very common, it happens all the time, in almost
every group. Members that are defiant are often turned down or seen as a negative influence by the rest of
the group, because they bring conflict.
Innovative organizations need individuals who are prepared to challenge the status quo—be it groupthink or
bureaucracy, and also need procedures to implement new ideas effectively.
[edit] Classification schemes
Several methods have been used to classify organizational culture. Some are described below:
[edit] Geert Hofstede
Geert Hofstede[2] demonstrated that there are national and regional cultural groupings that affect the
behavior of organizations. Hofstede identified five dimensions of culture in his study of national influences:





Power distance - The degree to which a society expects there to be differences in the levels of power.
A high score suggests that there is an expectation that some individuals wield larger amounts of
power than others. A low score reflects the view that all people should have equal rights.
Uncertainty avoidance reflects the extent to which a society accepts uncertainty and risk.
individualism vs. collectivism - individualism is contrasted with collectivism, and refers to the extent
to which people are expected to stand up for themselves, or alternatively act predominantly as a
member of the group or organization. However, recent researches have shown that high
individualism may not necessarily mean low collectivism, and vice versa. Research indicates that the
two concepts are actually unrelated. Some people and cultures might have both high individualism
and high collectivism, for example. Someone who highly values duty to his or her group does not
necessarily give a low priority to personal freedom and self-sufficiency
Masculinity vs. femininity - refers to the value placed on traditionally male or female values. Male
values for example include competitiveness, assertiveness, ambition, and the accumulation of wealth
and material possessions.
Long vs. short term orientation - describes a society's "time horizon," or the importance attached to
the future versus the past and present. In long term oriented societies, thrift and perseverance are
valued more; in short term oriented societies, respect for tradition and reciprocation of gifts and
favors are valued more. Eastern nations tend to score especially high here, with Western nations
scoring low and the less developed nations very low; China scored highest and Pakistan lowest.
[edit] Deal and Kennedy
Deal and Kennedy[3] defined organizational culture as the way things get done around here. They measured
organizations in respect of:


Feedback - quick feedback means an instant response. This could be in monetary terms, but could
also be seen in other ways, such as the impact of a great save in a soccer match.
Risk - represents the degree of uncertainty in the organization’s activities.
Using these parameters, they were able to suggest four classifications of organizational culture:




The Tough-Guy Macho Culture. Feedback is quick and the rewards are high. This often applies to
fast moving financial activities such as brokerage, but could also apply to a police force, or athletes
competing in team sports. This can be a very stressful culture in which to operate.
The Work Hard/Play Hard Culture is characterized by few risks being taken, all with rapid
feedback. This is typical in large organizations, which strive for high quality customer service. It is
often characterized by team meetings, jargon and buzzwords.
The Bet your Company Culture, where big stakes decisions are taken, but it may be years before
the results are known. Typically, these might involve development or exploration projects, which
take years to come to fruition, such as oil prospecting or military aviation.
The Process Culture occurs in organizations where there is little or no feedback. People become
bogged down with how things are done not with what is to be achieved. This is often associated with
bureaucracies. While it is easy to criticize these cultures for being overly cautious or bogged down in
red tape, they do produce consistent results, which is ideal in, for example, public services.
[edit] Charles Handy
Charles Handy[4] (1985) popularized a method of looking at culture which some scholars have used to link
organizational structure to Organizational Culture. He describes:




a Power Culture which concentrates power among a few. Control radiates from the center like a
web. Power Cultures have few rules and little bureaucracy; swift decisions can ensue.
In a Role Culture, people have clearly delegated authorities within a highly defined structure.
Typically, these organizations form hierarchical bureaucracies. Power derives from a person's
position and little scope exists for expert power.
By contrast, in a Task Culture, teams are formed to solve particular problems. Power derives from
expertise as long as a team requires expertise. These cultures often feature the multiple reporting
lines of a matrix structure.
A Person Culture exists where all individuals believe themselves superior to the organization.
Survival can become difficult for such organizations, since the concept of an organization suggests
that a group of like-minded individuals pursue the organizational goals. Some professional
partnerships can operate as person cultures, because each partner brings a particular expertise and
clientele to the firm.
[edit] Edgar Schein
Edgar Schein,[5] an MIT Sloan School of Management professor, defines organizational culture as "the
residue of success" within an organization. According to Schein, culture is the most difficult organizational
attribute to change, outlasting organizational products, services, founders and leadership and all other
physical attributes of the organization. His organizational model illuminates culture from the standpoint of
the observer, described by three cognitive levels of organizational culture.
At the first and most cursory level of Schein's model is organizational attributes that can be seen, felt and
heard by the uninitiated observer. Included are the facilities, offices, furnishings, visible awards and
recognition, the way that its members dress, and how each person visibly interacts with each other and with
organizational outsiders.
The next level deals with the professed culture of an organization's members. At this level, company
slogans, mission statements and other operational creeds are often expressed, and local and personal values
are widely expressed within the organization. Organizational behavior at this level usually can be studied by
interviewing the organization's membership and using questionnaires to gather attitudes about organizational
membership.
At the third and deepest level, the organization's tacit assumptions are found. These are the elements of
culture that are unseen and not cognitively identified in everyday interactions between organizational
members. Additionally, these are the elements of culture which are often taboo to discuss inside the
organization. Many of these 'unspoken rules' exist without the conscious knowledge of the membership.
Those with sufficient experience to understand this deepest level of organizational culture usually become
acclimatized to its attributes over time, thus reinforcing the invisibility of their existence. Surveys and casual
interviews with organizational members cannot draw out these attributes--rather much more in-depth means
is required to first identify then understand organizational culture at this level. Notably, culture at this level
is the underlying and driving element often missed by organizational behaviorists.
Using Schein's model, understanding paradoxical organizational behaviors becomes more apparent. For
instance, an organization can profess highly aesthetic and moral standards at the second level of Schein's
model while simultaneously displaying curiously opposing behavior at the third and deepest level of culture.
Superficially, organizational rewards can imply one organizational norm but at the deepest level imply
something completely different. This insight offers an understanding of the difficulty that organizational
newcomers have in assimilating organizational culture and why it takes time to become acclimatized. It also
explains why organizational change agents usually fail to achieve their goals: underlying tacit cultural norms
are generally not understood before would-be change agents begin their actions. Merely understanding
culture at the deepest level may be insufficient to institute cultural change because the dynamics of
interpersonal relationships (often under threatening conditions) are added to the dynamics of organizational
culture while attempts are made to institute desired change.
[edit] Elements
G. Johnson[6] described a cultural web, identifying a number of elements that can be used to describe or
influence Organizational Culture:







The Paradigm: What the organization is about; what it does; its mission; its values.
Control Systems: The processes in place to monitor what is going on. Role cultures would have vast
rulebooks. There would be more reliance on individualism in a power culture.
Organizational Structures: Reporting lines, hierarchies, and the way that work flows through the
business.
Power Structures: Who makes the decisions, how widely spread is power, and on what is power
based?
Symbols: These include organizational logos and designs, but also extend to symbols of power such
as parking spaces and executive washrooms.
Rituals and Routines: Management meetings, board reports and so on may become more habitual
than necessary.
Stories and Myths: build up about people and events, and convey a message about what is valued
within the organization.
These elements may overlap. Power structures may depend on control systems, which may exploit the very
rituals that generate stories which may not be true.
[edit] Organizational culture and change
Burman and Evans (2008) argue that it is 'leadership' that affects culture rather than 'management', and
describe the difference[7]. When one wants to change an aspect of the culture of an organization one has to
keep in consideration that this is a long term project. Corporate culture is something that is very hard to
change and employees need time to get used to the new way of organizing. For companies with a very
strong and specific culture it will be even harder to change.
Cummings & Worley (2005, p. 491 – 492) give the following six guidelines for cultural change, these
changes are in line with the eight distinct stages mentioned by Kotter (1995, p. 2)3:
1. Formulate a clear strategic vision (stage 1,2 & 3 of Kotter, 1995, p. 2)
In order to make a cultural change effective a clear vision of the firm’s new strategy, shared values and
behaviours is needed. This vision provides the intention and direction for the culture change (Cummings &
Worley, 2005, p.490).
2. Display Top-management commitment (stage 4 of Kotter, 1995, p. 2)
It is very important to keep in mind that culture change must be managed from the top of the organization,
as willingness to change of the senior management is an important indicator (Cummings & Worley, 2005,
page 490). The top of the organization should be very much in favour of the change in order to actually
implement the change in the rest of the organization. De Caluwé & Vermaak (2004, p 9) provide a
framework with five different ways of thinking about change.
3. Model culture change at the highest level (stage 5 of Kotter, 1995, p. 2)
In order to show that the management team is in favour of the change, the change has to be notable at first at
this level. The behaviour of the management needs to symbolize the kinds of values and behaviours that
should be realized in the rest of the company. It is important that the management shows the strengths of the
current culture as well, it must be made clear that the current organizational does not need radical changes,
but just a few adjustments. (See for more: (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Sathe, 1983; Schall; 1983; Weick, 1985;
DiTomaso, 1987)
4. Modify the organization to support organizational change
The fourth step is to modify the organization to support organizational change.
5. Select and socialize newcomers and terminate deviants (stage 7 & 8 of Kotter, 1995, p. 2)
A way to implement a culture is to connect it to organizational membership, people can be selected and
terminate in terms of their fit with the new culture (Cummings & Worley, 2005, p. 491).
6. Develop ethical and legal sensitivity
Changes in culture can lead to tensions between organizational and individual interests, which can result in
ethical and legal problems for practitioners. This is particularly relevant for changes in employee integrity,
control, equitable treatment and job security (Cummings & Worley, 2005, p. 491).
[edit] Entrepreneurial culture
Stephen McGuire[8] defined and validated a model of organizational culture that predicts revenue from new
sources. An Entrepreneurial Organizational Culture (EOC) is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms
of members of an organization, including valuing creativity and tolerance of creative people, believing that
innovating and seizing market opportunities are appropriate behaviors to deal with problems of survival and
prosperity, environmental uncertainty, and competitors’ threats, and expecting organizational members to
behave accordingly.
[edit] Critical views
Writers from Critical management studies have tended to express skepticism about the functionalist and
unitarist views of culture put forward by mainstream management thinkers. Whilst not necessarily denying
that organizations are cultural phenomena, they would stress the ways in which cultural assumptions can
stifle dissent and reproduce management propaganda and ideology. After all, it would be naive to believe
that a single culture exists in all organizations, or that cultural engineering will reflect the interests of all
stakeholders within an organization. In any case, Parker[9] has suggested that many of the assumptions of
those putting forward theories of organizational culture are not new. They reflect a long-standing tension
between cultural and structural (or informal and formal) versions of what organizations are. Further, it is
perfectly reasonable to suggest that complex organizations might have many cultures, and that such subcultures might overlap and contradict each other. The neat typologies of cultural forms found in textbooks
rarely acknowledge such complexities, or the various economic contradictions that exist in capitalist
organizations.
One of the strongest and widely recognised criticisms of theories that attempt to categorise or 'pigeonhole'
organisational culture is that put forward by Linda Smircich. She uses the metaphor of a plant root to
represent culture, describing that it drives organisations rather than vice versa. Organisations are the product
of organisational culture, we are unaware of how it shapes behaviour and interaction (also recognised
through Scheins (2002) underlying assumptions) and so how can we categorise it and define what it is?
[edit] Measurement
Despite the evidence suggesting their potential usefulness, organisational climate metrics have not been fully
exploited as leading safety, health and environmental performance indicators and as an aid to relative risk
ranking. Dodsworth et al.[10] are the first researchers to have successfully used PLS modelling techniques to
correlate organizational climate metrics with an organisation’s safety performance. Further information
regarding this research can be obtained from the following link Dodsworth's Homepage
In the context of effectiveness, the repertory grid interview can be used to capture a representation of an
organisation's culture or corporate culture - the organisation's construct system. The repertory grid interview
process provides a structured way of comparing effective and less effective performance and capturing it in
the interviewee's words without imposing someone else's model or way of thinking.