Max Weber READINGS AND COMMENTARY ON MODERNITY Edited by Stephen Kalberg Series Editor Ira J. Cohen
Max Weber
MODERNITY AND SOCIETY General Editor: Ira J. Cohen Modernity and Society is a series of readers edited by the most eminent scholars working in social theory today. The series makes a distinctive and important contribution to the field of sociology by offering onevolume overviews that explore the founding visions of modernity originating in the classic texts. In addition, the volumes look at how ideas have been reconstructed and carried in new directions by social theorists throughout the twentieth century. Each reader builds a bridge from classical selections to modern texts to make sense of the fundamental social forces and historical dynamics of the twentieth century and beyond. 1 Marx and Modernity: Key Readings and Commentary, edited by Robert J. Antonio 2 Emile Durkheim: Sociologist of Modernity, edited by Mustafa Emirbayer 3 Max Weber: Readings and Commentary on Modernity, edited by Stephen Kalberg 4 Modernity and Society, edited by Ira J. Cohen
Max Weber READINGS AND COMMENTARY ON MODERNITY Edited by Stephen Kalberg Series Editor Ira J. Cohen
2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization Stephen Kalberg BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Stephen Kalberg to be identified as the Author of the Editorial Material in this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Max Weber : readings and commentary on modernity / edited by Stephen Kalberg. p. cm. (Modernity and society ; 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-631-21489-5 (hardback); ISBN 0-631-21490-9 (paperback) 1. Weber, Max, 1864 1920. 2. Sociology Germany History. 3. Sociology History. 4. Civilization, Modern Philosophy. I. Title: readings and commentary on modernity. II. Weber, Max, 1864 1920. III. Kalberg, Stephen. IV. Series. HM477.G3M39 2005 301 092 dc22 2004052974 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 10/12pt Book Antiqua by Graphicraft Ltd, Hong Kong Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall The publisher s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website: www.blackwellpublishing.com
Contents General Editor s Foreword Chronology of Max Weber s Life Glossary Acknowledgments xi xv xxi xxxi Introduction Max Weber: The Confrontation with Modernity 1 Stephen Kalberg Max Weber: The Man 7 Foundational Features of Weber s Interpretive Understanding Sociology 8 Research Strategies and Procedures 14 The Vision of Society 19 Weber s Multicausality 22 Modern Western Rationalism I: Weber s Model 27 Modern Western Rationalism II: Empirical Variation 30 Fears about the Future and Proposals for Social Change 34 Weber on Modernity and Weber s Sociology: An Assessment 37 Notes 41 PART I THE UNIQUENESS OF THE WEST 49 Introduction 49 1 The Rationalism of Western Civilization 53 From Prefatory Remarks to Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion 53 From The Religion of India 64 From Economy and Society 65
vi PART II Contents THE UNIQUENESS AND ORIGINS OF THE MODERN WESTERN WORK ETHIC 69 Introduction 69 2 The Religious Origins of the Vocational Calling: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 75 From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 75 From Discussion Contributions 107 From On the Psychological Physics of Industrial Work 108 3 Continuous Ethical Discipline 111 From The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism 111 PART III THE ECONOMY, THE WORKPLACE, AND THE SPECIALIZED NATURE OF WORK IN THE MODERN EPOCH 121 Introduction 121 4 Market and Planned Economies: Modern Capitalism s Substantive Conditions 125 From Economy and Society 125 5 The Separation of the Worker from the Means of Production, the Spread of Officialdom, and Organizational Discipline in the Factory 130 From Socialism 130 From A Research Strategy for the Study of Occupational Careers and Mobility Patterns 134 From Economy and Society 135 6 The Specialist and the Cultivated Man : Certificates and the Origin of Ideas in Science 137 From Economy and Society 137 From Science as a Vocation 139 7 Old and New Civilizations: Contrasting Rural Social Structures in Germany and the United States 142 From Capitalism and Rural Society in Germany 142
Contents vii PART IV STRATIFICATION AND INEQUALITY 147 Introduction 147 8 The Distribution of Power Within the Group: Class, Status, Party 151 From Economy and Society 151 9 Germany as a Nation of Commoners 163 From National Character and the Junkers 163 10 The Counterbalancing of Economic and Social Inequality by Universal Suffrage 168 From Suffrage and Democracy in Germany 168 PART V AUTHORITY IN THE MODERN EPOCH 173 Introduction 173 11 Power and Authority: When and Why Do People Obey? 179 From Economy and Society 179 12 The Bureaucracy I: External Form, Technical Superiority, Ethos, and Inequality 194 From Economy and Society 194 From The Social Psychology of the World Religions 198 From Economy and Society 198 13 The Bureaucracy II: The Impact upon Society 209 From Economy and Society 209 14 Past and Present: Charismatic Authority and its Routinization 217 From The Social Psychology of the World Religions 217 From Economy and Society 218 From The Social Psychology of the World Religions 220
viii Contents PART VI THE NATION, THE MODERN STATE, AND MODERN LAW 221 Introduction 221 15 The Nation: A Sentiment of Solidarity and the National Idea 225 From Economy and Society 225 16 The State, its Basic Functions, and the Economic Foundations of Imperialism 230 From Economy and Society 230 17 From Particularistic Law to Formal Legal Equality and the Rights of Individuals 238 From Economy and Society 238 PART VII THE CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF ETHICAL ACTION TODAY AND WEBER S RESPONSE 245 Introduction 245 18 The Antagonism of the Economy and Political Domains to Ethical Action 251 From Economy and Society 251 From Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions 253 19 A Casing of Bondage and the Rule of Functionaries: The Call for Political Leadership, Strong Parliaments, and an Ethic of Responsibility 255 From Economy and Society 255 From Politics as a Vocation 257 From Economy and Society 260 From Suffrage and Democracy in Germany 262 From Politics as a Vocation 265 PART VIII THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: THE INFLUENCE OF THE SECT SPIRIT 273 Introduction 273 20 The Autonomy of the Individual in the Sect and the Ability to Form Democratic Communities: Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience 277
Contents ix From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 277 From Economy and Society 280 From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 280 From Economy and Society 282 From Churches and Sects in North America 284 From Economy and Society 287 From Churches and Sects in North America 287 From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 288 PART IX ON RACE, THE COMPLEXITY OF THE CONCEPT OF ETHNICITY, AND HEREDITY 291 Introduction 291 21 On Race Membership, Common Ethnicity, the Ethnic Group, and Heredity 297 From Economy and Society 297 From Comment on the Lecture by Alfred Ploetz 306 From Prefatory Remarks to Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion 314 PART X THE MEANING, VALUE, AND VALUE-FREEDOM OF SCIENCE: SCIENCE AS A VOCATION AND OTHER WRITINGS 315 Introduction 315 22 The Meaning and Value of Science: Disenchantment, Progress, and Civilized Man s Meaninglessness 321 From Science as a Vocation 321 23 Ethical Neutrality in the Classroom and the Usefulness and Limits of an Empirical Science 328 From Science as a Vocation 328 From Debate Commentary 335
x Contents 24 The Opposition of Salvation Religions to Science and Modern Culture 337 From Science as a Vocation 337 From Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions 340 PART XI MODERN READINGS 345 Introduction 345 25 Private Authority and Work Habits: England and Russia 347 Reinhard Bendix 26 The Data Protection Act: A Case of Rationalization 353 Martin Albrow 27 The McDonaldization of Society 357 George Ritzer 28 Hitler s Charisma 361 Luciano Cavalli 29 The Routinization of Charisma: Rituals of Confession within Communities of Virtuosi 363 Hans-Georg Riegl 30 The Political Culture of American Democracy: The Enduring Influence of Religion 367 Seymour Martin Lipset Bibliography 377 Author Index 383 Subject Index 385
General Editor s Foreword In 1919, less than a year before he died, Max Weber observed in Science as a Vocation : In science each of us knows that what he has accomplished will be antiquated in ten, twenty, fifty years. That is the fate to which science is subjected; it is the very meaning of scientific work...every scientific fulfillment raises new questions: it asks to be surpassed and outdated. Whoever wishes to serve science has to resign himself to this fact. For the most part, Weber was right. In history, sociology, anthropology, and political science, brilliant answers to once compelling questions stand lifeless and unopened on library shelves as if stricken by a kind of scholarly rigor mortis. They were not done in by their own shortcomings but rather by neglect. Scholars simply moved on. Perhaps Weber would have been amused by the irony that his own works have so far successfully avoided the fate for which he allowed no exceptions. Today, more than 80 years after he declared, unequivocally, that all scientific questions grow outdated, the questions Weber posed are more relevant than ever. And even though this is also true of other classical social theorists, Weber s questions survive in a special way. Unlike Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and other classical theorists, readers do not need any interpretive filter to separate the enduring significance of Weber s questions from an untenable philosophy of history, an anachronistic ideology, outdated pivotal concepts, or polemical engagements with long-forgotten intellectual foes. The same can be said of only a few other thinkers: Alexis de Tocqueville and Georg Simmel immediately come to mind. But what makes Weber s works invaluable for social theory today is that he introduced an entire agenda of questions about the nature and origin of modern Western civilization, inaugurated with the advent of modern capitalism, bureaucratic forms of administration, science and scientific technology, and systematically codified and administered bodies of formal law.
xii General Editor s Foreword That Weber ultimately was motivated by a broad agenda of questions regarding modernity at large can be difficult for many readers to bear in mind. For many sociologists and political scientists, Weber is first and foremost the author of ideal types of bureaucracy, the three forms of legitimate domination, class, status, and party, and so on. For historically minded readers he is best known for his signature work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Considered individually, as they often are, each of these works sparkles like a burnished stone in its own theoretical setting. There is no need to deny the brilliance of Weber s concepts and historical investigations taken individually. Weber s own intellectual methods and the piecemeal manner in which his works are organized encourage us to focus first on one item and then on another. But no one can claim to be familiar with Weber s thought until she or he perceives that, for all of the different topics he addressed, there are greater themes embedded in his work. So what, then, are the great themes of Weber s works? I can think of no one better qualified to summarize the questions Weber put to modernity than Stephen Kalberg, an internationally respected scholar who brings more than 25 years of scholarly dedication to Weber s œuvre to the production of this volume. In the course of his lucid yet comprehensive Introduction Kalberg provides a fine summary of the questions that framed Weber s concern with modernity at large: What defines the particularity of the West? What is the fate in the industrial society of ethical action, the unique individual, and the personality unified by a constellation of noble values, compassion and the notion of a personal calling? How can dynamic and open societies be sustained despite the necessity, if high standards of living are to be maintained widely, to organize work comprehensively in bureaucracies? Do values or means end calculations of advantage now predominately orient action? How can societies be organized in a manner that nourishes individualism and individual rights? What are the parameters of social change in the West? (p. 37) How does Weber pursue these questions? As mentioned above, Weber does not provide answers with broad strokes of the theoretical brush. He resolutely refuses to sacrifice the contingencies of individual historical sequences of events for the sake of even the most profound general insights into modernity at large. Even his famous ideal types, though they make no empirical claims of any kind, never even hint at grand generalizations. Instead, they stay close enough to historical situations to enable sociologists and historians to compare and contrast them with historically and culturally specific facts. But, then, what is Weber s deeper understanding of modernity? What are the value-relevant interests, to adopt Weber s own methodological
General Editor s Foreword xiii term, that permit us to read his works as motivated by the agenda summarized by Kalberg? Weber s deepest concerns stem from the insight that a unique constellation of rationalities characteristic of the modern West has undermined and supplanted most traditional ways of life and religious beliefs. These traditions and beliefs, in all other cultures, both in the pre-modern West and in other civilizations, instilled and supported moral meanings in the great events and daily routines of their day. In pre-modern cultures life and death made sense. People understood their place in the cosmos and the significance of their actions. But in Western modernity, Weber believes that the rationalities of capitalism, the formal legal system, bureaucratic administration, and scientific knowledge become differentiated into individual spheres. The rationalities in all of these societal domains conspire, each in its own way, to replace traditions and religious beliefs with morally hollow rules, regulations, and forms of knowledge. Only in rare instances did Weber drop his restrictions to permit readers a glimpse of the passion that generated the interests that motivated his works. One such passage appears in the midst of a set of reflections included in his collection of studies on The Economic Ethics of the World Religions. In this essay known as Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions, Weber observes that today: [C]ulture s every step forward seems condemned to lead to an ever-more devastating senselessness. The advancement of culture... seems to become a senseless hustle in the service of worthless, moreover self-contradictory and mutually antagonistic ends....... Culture becomes ever more senseless as a locus of imperfection, of injustice, of suffering, of futility.... Viewed from a purely ethical point of view, the world has to appear fragmentary and devalued in all those instances when judged in light of the religious postulate of the divine meaning of existence. In the full force of this passage it is impossible to deny Weber s passionate objection to the erosion of ethical meaning from Western modernity at large. But again, Weber s genius lies not in his passion but in his scholarship. The art of reading Weber is to read his individual scholarly contributions for themselves, but to bear in mind while doing so that a single author concerned with the fate of the meaning of life in modernity was the author of them all. But is Weber as entirely bleak and despairing of the culture of modernity as he appears in the preceding passage? Perhaps not. Both in Stephen Kalberg s Introduction and in several of his selections from Weber s writings, he invites us to consider that perhaps Weber found glimmers of more promising developments for modernity in his observations on the United States, which Weber visited and where he traveled