Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Max Weber
The set is 1469pp. To provide some perspective, that's still fewer pages than two Harry Potter books.
But then again, I have never attempted to read two Harry Potter books. They don't sound nearly as
interesting as Weber.
What interested me about Weber was that, beyond being counted as one of the founders of
sociology, he is also known for his writings on bureaucracy. That's particularly true in Adler and
Heckscher's work, which draws on Weber and Tonnies to theorize collaborative community. And
since I'm working on characterizing different types of organizations, I knew that at some point I'd have
to work my way through Weber.
Weber discusses far more than bureaucracies, of course. Economy and Society covers basic
sociological terms and concepts; describes relationships between the economy and normative and de
facto powers; describes relationships between economy and law; discusses types of political
communities; and outlines different kinds of domination. That's a lot to cover, and Weber covers it
ably, drawing on a remarkable array of fields to make his case.
Volume 1
According to the editors, Weber actually wrote Volume 1 second. But he puts it first to define terms
and concepts. Volume 1 doesn't have much of a plot, but it establishes the foundation for Volume 2.
Weber starts by carefully laying out some of his basic terms, such as sociology ("a science
concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal
explanation of its course and consequences," p.4) and meaning (not as something objectively correct
or metaphysically true, but as either "the actual existing meaning in the given concrete case of a
particular actor, or to the average or approximate meaning attributable to a given plurality of actors" or
a pure type thereof, p.4). Weber describes his approach as a comparative methodology which
compares the pure type of rational action and deviations from it (p.6). Social action he defines as
action oriented to others' behavior (p.22); it can be oriented in four ways: instrumentally rational,
value-rational, affectual, and traditional (pp.24-25). Typically social action is multiply oriented
(p.26). Social relationship is "the behavior of a plurality of actors insofar as, in its meaningful context,
the action of each takes account of that of the others and is oriented in these terms" (p.26).
Moving on, Weber discusses types of legitimate order, divided into two types: convention and law
(p.33). The legitimacy of an order may be guaranteed, he says, in two ways. One is "purely
subjective": affectual, value-rational, or religious. The other is "by the expectation of specific, external
effects, that is, by interest situations" (p.33), including convention and law. Convention denotes an
order whose "validity is externally guaranteed by the probability that deviation from it within a given
social group will result in a relatively general and practically significant reaction of disapproval,"
while law denotes an order that is "externally guaranteed by the probability that physical or
psychological coercion will be applied by a staff of people in order to bring about compliance or
avenge violation" (p.34). This distinction becomes important later on.
Social relationships can be characterized as conflict (carrying out one's will against the resistance of
others), competition (a formally peaceful attempt to gain control over opportunities and advantages
that others also want), or selection (an often-latent struggle for advantage or survival, but without a
mutual orientation) (p.38).
Social relationships can also be characterized as communal (when individuals' social orientation is
based on the feeling that they belong together) or associative (when the social alliance is based on a
"rationally motivated adjustment of interests or a similarly motivated agreement" (pp.40-41). For
instance, market relationships are associative; so are relationships based on a shared belief in certain
absolute values (p.41). But religious brotherhoods, erotic relationships, personal loyalty, and esprit de
corps are associative (p.41). Of course, these are ideal types; as Weber points out, even merchants
often like their customers (p.41).
Social relationships can be characterized as open to outsiders (if "its system of order does not deny
participation to anyone who wishes to join and is actually in a position to do so") or closed to them (if
"participation of certain persons is excluded, limited, or subjected to conditions") (p.43).
An organization is "A social relationship which is either closed or limits the admission of outsiders ...
[and] its regulations are enforced by specific individuals: a chief and, possibly, an administrative staff,
which normally also have representative powers" (p.48). Organizations are autonomous (governed by
an order the members themselves established) or heteronomous (governed by an order imposed
from outside), autocephalous (with chief and staff selected by the autonomous order)
or heterocephalous (with chief and staff appointed by outsiders) (pp.49-50). Weber draws several
other distinctions to characterize organizations; we'll skip a bit.
Weber now defines power ("the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a
position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability
rests", p.53) and domination ("the probability that a command with a given specific content will be
obeyed by a given group of persons," p.53). He distinguishes between political organizations
(safeguarding an order in territory via physical force), the state (which enjoys a monopoly of the
legitimate use of physical force), and hierocratic organizations (which safeguard order via psychic
coercion), including the church (which enjoys a monopoly on hierocratic coercion) (p.54).
With this groundwork out of the way, Weber goes on to discuss the division of labor, providing a
discussion that is encyclopedic, although not as broadly applied as Durkheim's, and then discusses
occupations.
In chapter 3, Weber gets to the types of legitimate domination. Every genuine form of dominance, he
argues, implies an interest in obedience (i.e., voluntary compliance) (p.212). Dominance via purely
material interests tends to be unstable, he says, so that dominance is typically supplemented by
"other elements, affectual and ideal" (p.213). Every system of domination cultivates belief in its
legitimacy (p.213).
Weber names three types of legitimate domination—and these three types show up frequently in the
rest of the two volumes of Economy and Society. (This discussion reminded me
of Machiavelli's Discoursesin its careful delineation and description of types, though Machiavelli was
talking about governments and Weber is talking about broader issues of legitimacy.) Claims of
legitimacy can be based on:
Bureaucratic domination results in (1) "'leveling' in the interest of the broadest possible basis of
recruitment in terms of technical competence"; (2) "the tendency to plutocracy growing out of the
interest in the greatest possible length of technical training"; and (3) "the dominance of a spirit of
formalistic impersonality," in which "the dominant norms are concepts of straightforward duty without
regard to personal considerations" (p.225). Bureaucracy leads to social leveling, Weber says, so
"everywhere bureaucratization foreshadows mass democracy" (p.226). In sum, bureaucratic authority
has the characteristics of (1) formalism and (2) utilitarianism "in the interest of the welfare of those
under their authority" (p.226).
Traditional grounds
"Authority will be called traditional if legitimacy is claimed for it and believed in by virtue of the sanctity
of age-old rules and powers" (p.226). Rules are obeyed due to their traditional status. In the simplest
case, it can be based in personal loyalty from a common upbringing. Obedience is owed to the
person, not the rules (p.227). Commands are legitimized in terms of "action which is bound to specific
traditions" and by "action which is free of specific rules," falling within a sphere of discretion (p.227).
Pure traditional authority lacks things that we associate with bureaucracy: "a rationally established
hierarchy," "a regular system of appointment on the basis of free contract," "technical training as a
regular requirement," and "fixed salaries" (p.229).
Charismatic grounds
"The term 'charisma' will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which
he is considered extraordinary and treated with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically
exceptional powers or qualities" (p.241). "There is no hierarchy; the leader merely intervenes in
general or in individual cases when he considers the members of his staff lacking in charismatic
qualification for a given task" (p.243). Charismatic authority, of course, cannot remain stable (p.246).
In being routinized, it can easily turn into a "clan state," in which "a political body is organized strictly
and completely in terms of this principle of hereditary charisma. ... The heads of families, which are
traditional geronotocrats or patriarchs without personal charismatic legitimacy, regulate the exercise
of these powers which cannot be taken away from their family" (p.250).
Combinations
But of course these pure types are rare. In most cases, legitimization comes from combinations of
different types of authority (p.262). Weber reminds us that "at the basis of every authority, and
correspondingly of every kinds of willingness to obey, is a belief, a belief by virtue of which persons
exercising authority are lent prestige" (p.263).
For instance, Weber argues that "when the charismatic organization undergoes progressive
rationalization ... it is treated as the basis of legitimacy: democratic legitimacy. ... The personally
legitimated charismatic leader becomes leader by the grace of those who follow him since the latter
are formally free to elect and even to depose him—just as the loss of charisma and its efficacy had
involved the loss of genuine legitimacy. Now he is the freely elected leader" (p.267).
In the latter half of Volume 1, Weber discusses the economy and the arena of normative and de facto
powers. Let's skip this discussion and get to Volume 2.
Volume 2
Volume 2 covers economy and law; political communities; domination and legitimacy; bureaucracy;
patriarchalism and patrimonialism; feudalism; charisma and its transformation; political and hierocratic
domination; and the city.
Political communities
"The term 'political community' shall apply to a community whose social action is aimed at
subordinating to orderly domination by the participants a 'territory' and the conduct of the persons
within it, through readiness to resort to physical force, including normally force of arms" (p.901). "A
separate 'political' community is constituted where we find (1) a 'territory'; (2) the availability of
physical force for its domination; and (3) social action which is not restricted exclusively to the
satisfaction of common economic needs in the frame of a communal economy" (p.902). The belief in
political legitimacy leads to the aforementioned principle that only states can legitimately exercise
physical coercion (p.904). This monopoly of violence is a product of evolution. Basic state functions
are lacking or irrational under primitive conditions, Weber argues; instead, they are performed by ad
hoc groups or distributed across a variety of groups (p.905).
Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy has the following characteristics:
Office holding is a vocation with a "prescribed course of training, which demands the entire working
capacity for a long period of time, and in generally prescribed special examinations and prerequisites
of employment" (pp. 958-959). The official's position is considered a "duty" (p.959). "Entrance into an
office, including one in the private economy, is considered an acceptance of a specific duty of fealty
to the purpose of the office" (p.959). The office doesn't establish a relation to a person but to
impersonal and functional purposes (p.959).
Office holding also involves fixed career lines: the official moves from lower, less well paid levels of
the hierarchy to higher, more well paid ones. A lifelong career is assumed, and promotion is based on
seniority (p.963), itself corresponding (theoretically) to expertise.
Modern communications, Weber argues, are the "pacemakers of bureaucratization": he lists "public
roads and water-ways, railroads, the telegraph, etc.,"which "can only be administered publicly"
(p.973). These also sustain and grow the bureaucracy: Egypt's early bureaucracy, he argues, could
not have developed were it not for the Nile (p.973).
Bureaucracy also implies centralization: "the bureaucratic structure goes hand in hand with the
concentration of the material means of management in the hands of the master" (p.980).
Bureaucracy, as Weber raised earlier, accompanies modern mass democracy (p.983). It is hard to
destroy because it provides the means of transforming social action into rationally organized action;
indeed, "when administration has been completely bureaucratized, the resulting system of domination
is practically indestructible" (p.987). Through that system, the bureaucrat is chained to his activity
(p.988). "Increasingly, all order in public and private organizations is dependent on the system of files
and the discipline of officialdom, that means, its habit of painstaking obedience within its wonted
sphere of action" (p.988). And Weber saw new forms of communication technology as making new
formations of authority more impossible (p.989).
Feudalism
The patrimonial estate led to the contractual allegiance of feudatory relationships (p.1070). Here, the
personal duty of fealty has been isolated from household loyalties (p.1070). Indeed, the vassal could
later take a fief from several lords, making his support precarious during a given conflict (p.1085).
But as noted earlier, charismatic domination is unstable. Eventually parties form, dominated by
bureaucracy, which as we saw is associated with mass democracy. So charisma is "castrated" by
party organization (p.1132), leveraged in mass democracy but under the control of party bureaucracy
and dependent for its effectiveness on the nonpartisan bureaucracy that keeps the government
working.
But that happens over a length of time. Before that, charisma can be transformed by being
depersonalized and transferred (p.1135). "The charisma of the ruler attaches to his house," leading to
the "clan state" in which "the rights of the individual lineage groups to their functions are legitimated
by the charisma inherent in their houses, not by any personal fealty" (pp.1136-1137).
Let's stop there. Weber's work is much more far-reaching than this summary can address, and as I
intimated earlier, it doesn't have the linear plot that, say, a Harry Potter novel might. But I've
attempted to pull out some of the most interesting and salient details for thinking through how
organizations work—and how communication technologies influence them. Think of the review as a
warm-up for when you read these two volumes yourself—as you really should.