Max Weber Economy and Society

-Max U1eber

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Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich

University of California Press

Berlreley • Lo,'Angeles • London

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of CollfonriA " - .......,. ""d r... Angd\fter his death the lectures were reconstructed fI'OlD; student notes and published as WirtschDftsgeschichte. Abnss der universalen SozUd- und Wirtsdwfesgeschichte (3M ed.; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1958), ttanslated by Frank H. Knight as General Bcm.omic History (New York: CreenbeIg, 1917). The Economic History suffers from various gaps; the English edition also omits the terminological introduction. The work makes easier readipg than Ecommt)' and Society jnsofar as it treats phenollle1l& such as the house~old, neighborhood, kin-group, village, and manor in greater historical continuity; it is inferior in terminological and systematic respects. .58. For an interpretation merely along this line, see Giinter Abramowski, Oas Gescltichtsbild M= Webers. U"iversaZgeschichte am Leitfaden des oIW· dentalen Rationalisierungsprozesses (Stuttgart: Klett, 1966).

I

The Planning of Economy and Society

LXV

by the dissertations of Wilden's pupils in Leipzig. But the essay was certainly no masterpiece. U

In the same year-I914-Weber published a projected table of contents fonhe Outline of Social Economics, including a detailed plan for the manuscript (Part Two) he had written between 1910 and 1914 -Part One was written years later. The table of contents shows that Section III of the Outline was titled "Economy and Society" and was to contain two parts, "The Evolution of Systems and Ideals in Economic Policy and ,Social Reform" by Eugen von Philippovich lKl and "The Economy and the Normative and De Facto Powers" (Die Wirtschaft und die gtsellschaftlichen Ordnungen und Miichte) by Weber. Economyand Society is not, then, the original title of Weber's work. The title now used for Part Two of the work is the "true" one, if more cumbersome in English. However, its meaning is not obvious. Weber does not proceed from the national economy and its relation to society; rather he begins with social action, of which economic action is that rational case concerned with want-satisfaction under conditions of resource scarcity and a limited number of possible actions. The basic "economy" is the "household" in the archaic English sense; in common German parlance W-irtschaft may refer to a farm or an inri as well as to the national economy. The "nonnative and de facto powers" are the laws and conventions, on the one hand, and the groups that sustain them on the other. The relationship between the nonnative and the merely coercive, between legitimacy and force, is ever varying in the Hux of ideal and material interests and the vicissitudes of power struggle. There are no historically effective ideas and ideals without social interests backing them, and force ·is rarely used without at least the semblance of a rationale before the staff and the subjects. ·The formulation of the title expresses these dual forces that impinge on the individual's social action . . Weber's projected table of contents (of Pa~t Two) compares with ,the chapters of me English edition (in parentheses) as follows: G1 5"9, The letter is reprinted in the second edition of Georg von Below, Der deutsche SUWt des Mittelalters CLeip-l.ig: Quelle und Meyer, 1925"), xxiv. The dictum "dilettames compare" was coined by Goethe and hurled by Heinrich Brunner against representatives of the comparative method Cd. ibid., 333).Weber certainly addressed himself eul hominem, but more in emphasis than conrent. 60. Published in Karl Bucher et al., op. cit., 126--183. ~ I .. The table of contents, which was included in the early volumes of the Gnmdriss der SozialOlwnomi1t, is reprinted in Johannes Winckelmann, "Max Webers Opus Posthumum," Zeitschrift fUT die gesamten StaatslVissenschaften, vol. i05", 1949, 370f. In this essay Winckelmann first proposed his reorganization

LXVI

INTRODUCTION

Categories of the Varia.Js Fonns of Social Order (partly contained

I.

ch. l:I-2, but mostly in "On Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology"; cf. Appendix 1, below) The Most General Relationships Between Economy and Law (ch. t4) The Economic Relationships of Organized Groups echo II) In

2.

Household, Gikas and Enterprise (ch.IV)

3- Neighborhood, Kin Group and Local Community echo III) 4. Ethnic Group Relationships ech, V) 5. Religious Groups The Class Basis of the Religions; Complex Religions" and Economic Orientation echo VI)

6. The Macke' (ch. VII) 7. The Political Association echo IX) The Social Determinants of ~gal Development echo VHO Status Groups, Classes, Parties echo IX:6) The Nation echo IX:s) 8. Domination a) The Three Types of Legitimate Domination (ch: X-XIV) b) PQUtical and Hierocratic Domination (ch. XV) c) Non-Legitimate Domination. The Typology of Cities (ch.

XVI) d) The Development of the Modem State e) The Modern Political Parties Weber died in 1920 before finishing either Part Two or the later, Part One. The last two sections on the modern state and the modern political parties: remained unwritten. Weber's table of contents of Part Two was not followed in the two editions undertaken by Marianne Weber and Melchior Palyi (1922 and 1925) and the reprint of 1947 (third ed.). It was not until Johannes Winckelmann's edition of 1956 (fourth ed.) that the intended structure of the manuscript was -largely restored.

10.

The Structure of Economy and Society

The following remarks are not intended to summarize Economy and Society, but to elucidate some of Weber's underlying reasoning as well as of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. See also his introduction to the 1956 edition (WuG, xi-xvii); the preface for the 1964 paperback edition (WuG"Studienausgabe, xv-xvi) indicates some further changes.

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Part Two: The Older Part

LXV I I

some of the systematic connections among the chapters, irrespective of their length. Particular attention will be given to the previously untranslated chapters and sections and their relationship with the other parts.

I. PART

TWO:

THE

EARL1ER

PART

CH. I. THE ECONOMY AND SOCIAL NORMS; ON STAMMLER

Most books have a foil as well as a model. They are written to criticize some books and emulate others. One visible starting point of Economy and Society is the attempt at a positive statement of what Rudolf Stammler "should have meant," as Weber put it in the prefatory note to his. essay "On Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology" (1913).'" This essay was part of a longer methodological introduction to the work and corresponds to the first section in the 1914 outline, "Categories the Various Forms of Social Order." Like his friends Jellinek, Simmel and Sombart, Weber wrote a critique of Stammler's Economy and Law According to the Mate"nalist Interpretation of Histury.';3 Weber bluntly denied its "righ~ to scientific existence:'6~ but his critique was not identical with his objectiOns to historical materialism. Stammler, a nco-Kantian philosopher, claimed to have systematically deduced the feasibility of objectively correct social action and laid a new epistemological foundation for social science by demonstrating the identity of social ideal and social law. He discussed at great length the relations between legal and economic order and denied their causal relationship in favor of their correspondence as form and content, a position diametrically opposed to Weber's, who repeated in E.. .onomy and Society (below, 325ff. and 32f.) that his critique was directed against (a) the confusion of the normative with the empirical 'validity of an order, (b) the confusion of regularities of action due to normative orientation with merely factual. regularities, (c) the contfllst between convention and, law in terms of free wiII-as if conventions

0.

. 62. "Ober einige Kategorien der verstehenden Soziologie," Logos, IV. 1913, reprinted in GAzW, 427. See also below, p. 463. Cf. Rudolf Stammler, Wirt5chaft und Recht nach der materia/istisehen Geschichtsauffassung. fine sozialphilosophisehe Untersuchung (:wd improved ed.; Leipzig: Veit, 1906). For Stammlcr's dE;finition of the task of the social sciences and a summary of his theory, see 574ff. Weber spoke on the difference between Marx and Stammler at the 1 91 0 meeting of the Sociological Association; d. Verhandlungen des Ersten Deutschen $ozi%gentages, 96. 64. "R. Stammler's 'Obcrwindung' der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung" (1907), reprinted in GAzW, 291.

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LxviII r

,"

INTRODUCTION

were not coertive-, and Cd) the identi6cation of law and convention as the "forms" of conduct as 'against its "substance." As a trained juriSt and economist Weber was faced with both the nonnative orientation of jurisprudence and the ethical components of laissez-faire and state-socialist economics. He could develop a sociological approach only by insisting on the separation of the nonnative and the empirical, a separation accomplished with his theory of social action. In the essay on interpretive sociology and in Part Two of Economy and Society he defined social aaian just 'as he did later in Part One: subjectively meaningful action oriented to the behavior of others-it is called Gemeinschaftshandeln in the older part and soziales Handeln in the newer. Normatively regulate4 action is only one variant of social action. "Sociology. insofar as it is concerned with Jaw, deals n~t with the logically correct 'ohjective' content of legal norms but with action for which, among other conrideratimt.s, the ideas of men about the meaning and validity of certain regulations may play a significant role as both determinants and resultants."u Weber. elaborated a continuous typology of social action along the line of increasing rational control, persistence and legal compulsion. This typology-partly presented in Appendix I-ranges from mere consensual action (Einverstiindnishandeln) and ad hoc agreement (Gelegenheits· vergesellschaftung), through various kinds of regulated action and enduring asSOCiation (Vergesellschaftung), to the organization (Verband) and compulsory institution (Anstalt). These kinds of action differ from behavior that is not social or borderline: Massenhandeln, which may be \ rendered "mass action," "statistically frequent action" or "collective behavior." In this scheme only men act, neither society nor individ!Jal groups. However, men acting in concert form groups (Gemeinschaften), and these persist only if they have a "constitution" in the socitllogical sense, that is, if their order is consensually accepted by members (or outsiders) for whatever reasons. Belief in legitimacy need not be the primary reason. Therefore, Weber deals in the first chapter with the consequences of the factual impact of law on economic conduct. , The economic order is "made up of the actual control over goods and services insofar as it is consensually recognized. Sociological economics, then, deals with the actions of men insofar as they are conditioned "by the necessity to take in,to account the facts of economic life." However, instrumentally rational action must also take into account the fact of law, defined 'empirically as "guaranteed law"; A legal order exists whenever an association is ready to enforce it. Weber t:na}tes it immediately 65. GAzW, 440. Emphasis added.

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LXIX

Part Two: The Older Part

clear that law is by no means in all cases "guaranteed" by violence (Cewalt), and he rejects the view that "a state exists only if the coercive means of the political community are superior to all other communities" (below, 316). The two basic categories of an order-ter. He left the histori(:al treatment of Protestantism to his friend EnWfJ T roeltsch, who was then working on The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches an4 Sects,SO and instead put the theme in a comparative perspective. Yet neither the, "underlying" issue of the rise of c:epitalism nor that of rationalization and secularization over the ages determines the structure of the S0ciology of Religion; it is built, rather, around the relation of religions to 77. For example, Parsons has written that "the essay was intended to be a refutation of the Marxian thesis in a particular hittorical case." However, WeJ:w.·'s general theoretical interest in the critique of historical materialism should not be equated with his reasons for writing the essays at that time. CE. Parsons, "Capitalism ... ,I' loco cit., 40, 78. Cf. Eberhard Gothein, Wirtscha{tsgescJsichu des Schwarzwaldes (Strassburg; Triibner, 1892), 674; Werner Wittich, Deutsche Ilnd franzOsische Kultur im ElstUS (Strassburg: Schlesier & Schweikhardt. 1900), 18-31 (the quote is from GAzRS, I, 15; cf. below, 396); Georg Jellinek, Die Er1cliiMt1tg del' Memchen- 14nd BiQ-gerrgchte (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 189S; :1,.nd ed., 19°4), ptusim (d. below, U09)-the q.uote is from Weber's memorial address on Jellinek (Rene Konig and Johannes Will.ckelmann, eds., Max Weber zum Gedachmis [Ko)n; ~ . Westdeutscher Verlag, 1963), 15).-Qn the general familiarity of the 18th and 19th-century literature with the relationship between religious diSlilf)t and economic motivation, Protestantism and capitalism, see Reinhard Btndix, "The Protestant Ethic-Revisited," in Comparative Studks in Society and History, IX;3, 1967,166-173. 79. For an acconnt. see Ephraim FischoJf, 'The :protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; The History of a Controversy," Social Research, 'XI, J944, 51-77· 80. Ernst Troeltsch, Die Soziallehre71 der christlichen Kirch,8ft und Gruppen (Tubingen·. Mohr, 1912.), in part published earlier in the fonn of articles in AfS, 19°8-10; trsl. by O. Wyon (London: Allen & Unwin, 1931).

LXXVIII

?

INTRODUCTION

!:hdr organizational carriers (functionaries), to the status groups and classes supporting them, and to their inherent theological elaboration. WePer took the general functions of .religion, whether in a Durkheimian or a Marxist sense. for granted. With his customary realism, he stressed the compensatory functions of religion and, even more, the political uses .0£ religion for legitimation and paci6cation. In a limited way. it is possible to see his sociology of religion as a vast paraphrase of Marx's dictum that "religion is the sigh of a creature in distress, the heart of a heartless world, the spirit of times without spirit. It is the opiate of the peopJe."Sl But there is .~n important difference: Weber had a much more profound sense than Marx for the meaning of ethical conduct. The

religioUS polemics o["Engels, August Debe! and Karl KaulSky appeared Possibly, Weber was familiar with Engels'

to him as shallow rationalism.

Heeting remarks on Calvinism: "Where Luther failed, Calvin triumphed. His dogma was adapted to the most daring of the bourgeois. His doctrine 'of predestination was the religious expression of the fact that in the commercial world of competition success or bankruptcy depend not on the enterprise or skill of the individual but on circumstances independent of him."u At any rate, the "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" reversed this materialist interpretation without substituting a mere spiritualist one. Behind the divergent perspectives of Weber and the Marxists was a personal difference: The Marxists were psychologically unable to take religion seriously enough to undertake his kind of study. Weber called himself "unmusical" in matters religious-this gave him the necessary analytical distanee-, hut he lived in an extended family in which the women were devout and articulate believers. With his strong family sense, Weber could have disdained religion only at the price of' offending those closest to him-this gave him the requisite empathy for the study of religion." For systematic reasons, ch. VI begins with a brief treatment of primitive religion and the original this-worldly orientation of magical and religious action (sees. i--ii).... Weber quickly sketches the rise of functional, local and, finally, universalist and monotheist conceptions of deity. As in the preceding chapters, his ethnographic examples are occasionally doubtful or erroneous, or a statement may suffer from the telescoping of historical events over millennia, or the love of paradox 81. Karl Marx. "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie," in Die FrUhschriften (Stuttgart: Kr6ner, 19B), :L08. 8:L. Friedrich Engels, English introduction to Socia';~tIf Utopian and Sdentj~c (London 189:L), PJ:blished in German in Ne1U Zeit, XLI-2, 1892/93; Marx/ Engels, Werke (Berlin: Dietz, 1963), vol. 22, 300. 83. CE. Marianne Weber. Lebensbild. 27,84, 88, 91£, 351£. 840 For an explanation o£ Weber's intention, see below, 421, n. I.

'0,1] _

LXXIX

P.., Two, The OlderP....

carries him to an extreme. When he COlll«$ to the rationalization of con· duct through ethical and exemplary prophecy (sees. ili--iv), Weber strikes out on his own. Building on Harnack's typology. he isolates the features peeuIiar to ,he prophet through a romparisn with magicians, lawgiVCJS, teachers of ethics and mystagogu politieal community. The market is the Gemeimchaft based on the most rational kind of s0dal action: association eVergesellschaftung) through exchange. The association may last only for the duration of the exchange, or it may develop into a continuous relationship. In early history the market was the onfy peaceful relationship of men who were not linked through household, kinship or tribal tics. The participants were strangers, "enemies" who did not eXfX:ct action in accordance with an ethic of brotherhood. The "communi tv" of. the m,l!~~; is the most impersonal group, but not because it );1\'oJve~ ~truggk (Kampf) between opposed interests-there i~ struggle aJ~() in the most intimate relationships; rather, the market is the more Impersonal, the more the struggle of the participants is oriented merely to altual or potential exchanges. In this manper the market is the eXdlt ('prOSllC of any association eVergesellschaftung) based on a formal order, mlun· ta!)' or imposed. Even so, neither the use of mone:,: nor the iTPf·j·,,,,naJllY of exchange prevent the eventual rise of a market uhic binding em those

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0:1 ]

Part Two: The Older Part

LXXXI

who continually tr:lde. Such exchange partners develop expectations of reciprocity which make th;'~m ahide by the rules. Occasional traders are most likely to ignore the maxim that "honesty is the hest policy"; Webet sarcastically cites aristocratic cavalry officers trading horses-a familiar current example is the private sale of automobiles. One aspect of the market ethic i~ the fixed price, a peculiarly European phenomenon that became one of the preconditions of mooern capitalism. The market proved destructive [0 many status monopolies of the fYc'lst. Yet the \'erv success of caDitalist interests on the free market led to new monopolies' based either ~n political alliances or sheer superiority over competitors. As markets increased in importance, religious and political as.,ocialions moved to protect them for reasons of their own. This brings Weber to the org:mjzations concerned with legal regulation. ' CH. VIII. THE SOCIOLOGY OF LAW

The Sociology of Law gives his"wrical depth to the introductory statel\lent on convention and law (ch. I).~~ After the earlier methodological critique of Stammler's approach \Vcher now demonstrates what a s0ciology of law should he, in contrast'to legal philosophy, jurisprudence, and mere legal history. The chapter provides a typological setting within which a given legal phenomenon can be located, not with regard to any systematically or dogmatically proper placement but for the sake of historical explanation. The impact of Roman law and common Jaw- on the rise ot capitalism constitutes one link with the overall theme of Economy and Society; another is the varieties of rationalization, which may be mutually incompatible. The chapter is also constructed with a view to the frequently mentioned Sociology of Domination: Here Weber treats the creation and administration of law by political and other associations, 8~. Cbs. I and VIII are the only sections of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft that could be compared with the original manuscript. Marianne Weber put these l:hapters in an envelope marked "Sociology of Law"~h. VIII had no manuscript title-and presented them 3$ a gift to Karl Loewenstein, whom they a~mpanied into exile, thus escaping the fate of the rest of the manuscript. On the basis of this original, now at the Max Weber Institute in Munich, Johannes Winckelmann prepared a definitive edition----although Weber'~almost iIle~l)le handwriting leav~ some passages doubtful-->f the two chapters; see Rechtssoziologie (2nd ed.; Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1967). The text now differs considerably hom tbat in the 192~ edition of Wirtscnaft und Geselhchaft, on which the RhemsteinShils translation of the SOCiology of Law was based. The changes involve not merely many printing errors, but also the sequence of sections and renninological clarifications, For example, the category of the "coercive conttact" (ZwangsJwntrakt) turned out to be a misreading of Zweckkontr~t, which (in sec. ii) contrasts with Statu.dwntrakt, a distinction related to Henry Sumner Maine's .~ Law (1861).

LXXXII

INTIlODUcnON

there the-ruler's legitimation, organizational power and motives for imposing law. . If Weber was a self-made scholar in affairs religious, he was on academic homeground in the Sociology of Law. Not only do legal topics of his dissertation and Habilitaticm of two decades before appear, but sodoes much of the later literature. Even as Weber broadened his intellec--

tual concerns, he retained. an active interest in legal studies. His ability to write the Sociology of Law as a legal historian makes this the most difficult chapter for the legal layman and mere sociologist, for whom it may be helpful to p=eive the broad .tructural parallels with the S0ciology of Religion. eo The substitution of legal for religious topics yields the following rough outline: the basic categories of public and private law; the development of contraet5 and of juristic personality; early fonns of law administered by non-political associations; an occupational typology ,of "specialists," ranging from charismatic law prophets to legal honoratiores and university-trained judges; a typology of various forms of legal traming; the historical systems of theocratic and secular law; a ':omparison of Indian, Islamic, Persian, Jewish, Canon and Roman law; the great codincations; the revolutionary power of natural law; fonnal and'substantive rationalization and the ineradicable tension between formal and substantive justice; nnally, the irrationalist trends at the eve of the first World War, with their "characteristic reaction" to formal rationality and the dominanCe of legal expert>-paraIleling the fashion of surrogate religions in intellectual circles and the "romantic game of -syndicalism." Here Weber continues the sociology of intellectuals with an examination of their propensity for substantive justice, on the one hand, and skepticism on the other; he points to another hiStorical dialectic: I9th-centuty socialist intellectuals first advanced substantive natural law against the formalist natural law of the bourgeoisie and then unde~ined t.hei:r ownrtion _~rough positivistic relativism and Manw . evob... JWsm. r . The gradual asce;ndancy of stawtlaw over the law of the other groups i. part of the larger theme of the rise of the political COJrimunity. Weber follows juridical usage when. he makes the existence of a legal order dependent on a$tidf ready to resort to physical or payebic coercion, and . when he definesd>e modem political community-the .ra_in terms " of ils monopoly ducdon, by ~. (Mce W __ 011 lAw ja E.cowom, '"'" SociMy. 1954> XX\'bcd) oad W........... ( _ ~ , .967. ‫ןס‬0o IWI Eng;ocb, "Max W.be< all ~. und oJ. llecb""'riokr," in K. Eopd., B.

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Pfitlft oad J. WI............ , M.. Wol-. Gc.lileloioiudorift .m LohigM.....n.....U _ _ M _ (Bedin, Duncke< & Humblot, '966). 6:H18.

10:1 ]

Part Two, The OlJe, Part

LXXXIII·

equally concerned with the extent to which this claim is de facto limited in the modem state, where conventional and religious sanctions continue to be powerful. Weber remembered as one of his youthful lessons the inability of the mighty Prussian state to triumph over the Catholic church in the Kulturwpf of the.eighteen.-seventies and again over the Social Democrats in the eighties, the pei-cd of the anti-socialist laws. The chapter on political communities links the chapters on the more "universal" groups and the Sociology of Law with the Sociologyo£ Dominatiou; it describes the development of pOlitical community from rudimentary beginnings to complex differentiation.S ? For many centuries the political community differed only quantitatively from the other relatively "universal" groups that gradually lost their protective and coercive functions as the old political pluralism declined. Eventually a qualitative difference developed: a belief in the right of the state to de1i.ne the legal order and the use of legitimate force. This belief in legitimacy resulted from. gradual usurpation. Previously, the notion of legitimate force was part of the consensual action of kin members engaging in blood revenge; now it became part of the organized action (Verbandshandeln) of community members. In the modem state, the exercise of political powers (Cewalt) is a part of iltstitwtiotuJ action ..

(anstaltsmaessiges Handeln)." 87· Until the fourth (1956) edition of WirtscJaaft ...,. GudhcJutft, the ranging £mm the household to the re1igicu; aracllegaI sssociatioos and even the city were U:;:J£~te part (PlU't Two, "'J'ypen der Vergemeinschaftun~ und V set 01 against the types of domibatioD. (Part Three, Typen Herncba£t ) which iDcluded the .llOlitical com· munity. There is no warrant for this diviIioo hi Weber's 1914 OI1tfme or in the logic of his ~tion. The categories of tociaI action and group formation (Ver~1Ig, V.geM~ HerrscJuzft) encompass all of the pres-ent Part Two, although. the detailed treaUDeDt at Heme""" is reserved for the Jut cbaptee Max Weber, Staatssoziolo?,ie, ed. Johannes Winckelmann; 2nd rev. ed., Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1966). In the English edition this imaginative didactic effort has been replaced by a continuous translation of the last essay. This appeared desirable because of the English reader's lack of familiarity with the political writings: by contrast. the Economic History was the first Weber translation (192.7) and "Politics as a Vocation," a philosophical statement rather than a polemical article, is already well-known in the Gerth and Mills translation (From Max Weber . .. , n-128).-The list of Weber's political newspaper articles and journal essays is lengthy; it includes two essays on the 1905 Russian revolution, "On the Conditions of Bourgeois Democracy in Russia" and "Russia's Transition to Pseudo-Constitutionalism" (both 1906). The Ges