Weber 1864 - 1920

The Iron Cage:    Rejects Enlightenment view of evolutionary progress:  rationalization and its consequences.   projects a "polar night of icy darkness" - highly rational and bureaucratically organized - an iron cage in which people are trapped. no turning back - face up and recognize a disenchanted world.  no progressive future

new character type is technical:  passionless, coldly calculating, instrumentally rational actor.

creation of a centralized state admin to oversee the economy under soc'ism seen by Weber as an even greater threat to individual freedom than the separate and oppositional spheres of state and economy under capitalism.

WHY?   "Bureaucracy & democracy exist in an uneasy relationship."  Is the expertise fostered by bureaucratic organizations compatible w democratic processes?  Weber doubted the possibility of any revolution in the age of bureaucratic rationalism

5 institutions: (compared with Marx who saw economy only)

1. state

2. corporation

3. military

4. university

5. church

• bureaucracies survive and expand bec they are the most efficient method for coordinating a lg # of diff tasks. IDEAL TYPE OF BUREARCRACY

  construct ideal types - an ideal type is a definition.  It's for clarity. 

  the ideal type is a rational construct.  It helps orient us to the confusing infinity of social facts.

  The model is not the reality.   it provides a framework w wh to observe and determine how soc processes deviate fr the ways in wh the rational model organizes them.   I.e., soc reality is more complex, more contingent, more subject to unanticipated consequences than any rat. model cld predict.

                                    

  models ... blueprint ...  PLACE THEM ON REALITY 

POSITION of official w/in and outside Bur.:

A.  office holding as a Vocation:  duty, no ownership of a job.
entrance into office is an acceptance of a specific duty, not to a person.
impersonal and functional purpose.
not on personal charisma:  officials to serve a functional purpose.

B.  social position of the Official:   elevated - rank
criminal code against insults to the office
highest -  experts - educational certificates
privileged  -  lead to guild-like closure of officialdom ... ?

"usually the soc esteem of the officials is esp low where the demand for expert admin and the hold of status conventions are weak.  .... the case in new settlements by virtue of the grt econ opps and grt instability of their soc strat ... e.g., the U.S. -- more in flux, so more things to do, so less status to the bureaucrats.

salary ... pension in old age ... salary is a status
salary is not measured in terms of way, like more work,

salary for status (very diff from Marx, more work, less value)

seniority ...  superiority bequeathed ... it's purely technical superiority.

Zweckrational - is the kind of decision making in a rational, bureaucratic world order.   all is broken down into a means-ends chain and entails rational calculation of costs incurred and benefits to be secured if a particular line of action is to be pursued. 

methodology.  Weber deeply interested in whether socy cd be value free: answer is 'no.'

"he characterizes the social reality in which we move as infinite; yet out of this infinity of facts a particular focus is necessary before one can even begin to think about a social question.  What problem one chooses to study is a consequence of the values one holds and the relevance of particular events of phenomena to those value assumptions."

For Weber, Soc'y falls betw the methodology of the natural sciences and of literary interpretation.  not a hard science, tho it respects the need for systematic study and empirical analysis to arrive at generalizations.  deals w hum beh - so obliged to go into subjectivity.  verstehende

verstehende sociology meets this need by supplementing the more objective methodologies w an interpretative one in wh the soct attempts a deeper understanding by probing subjective meaning structures.

Weber warned against the conflation of reason & reality:  saw the mind as a limited instrument.  He suspected totalistic views leading to prophesies bec they misconstrued the relation between the reasoning mind and social reality.

NON-Objective:

scientific analysis was tool for understanding and not for social change.

cannot make valid judgments about moral claims

science and politics are in different spheres

"political parties are to accomplish change in a representative system"

"Objectivity" in Social Science and Social Policy

"ends" change in historical time - the empirical changes

"The fate of an epoch which has eaten of the tree of knowledge is that it must know that we cannot learn the meaning of the world from the results of its analysis, but it ever so perfect; it must rather be in a position to create this meaning itself.  ... and the highest ideals, which move us most forcefully, are always formed only in the struggle whit other ideals which are just as sacred to others as ours are to us.

There is no absolutely "objective" scientific analysis of culture ... of "social phenomena" independent of special and "one-sided" viewpoints according to which they are selected, analyzed and organized..."

INFINITE MULTIPLICITY - COEXISTENTly EMERGING

Nothing objective 1.  what we pick  2.  looking at meaning (verstehen)

#3 - any theory that posits these "laws" over time is "meaningless."  

1. a law is not knowledge of social reality; it is an aid to knowledge

2. cultural events are only known for their meaning - significance

All knowledge is from particular p.o.v.
IF THE NOTION that these standpoints can be derived from the "facts themselves" recurs, it is due to the naive self-deception of the specialist who is unaware that it is due to the evaluative ideas with which he unconsciously approaches his subject matter

ideal type simply illuminates:  is not "found" in reality

 simply bringing order to chaos   but "nothing could be  more suspect .. than the construction and application of clear-cut concepts since this seems to be an overhasty anticipation of the remote future."

e.g., the inevitable revolution.

concepts are merely analytical:  Kant   i.e., concepts do not create ... the concept

besides - to think that a social scientific way is THE way!  1.) can't do it and 2.) even if you could, it's just our century's way to make sense!  .... still, in time, social science will begin to believe in itself ....

_____

end of p 83. for Weber, Marx oversimplified. 
Not just econ class:  3 avenues to power in modern society:  class, status, party

Weber questions whether CLASS is the basis for collective action.

Collective class action is more problematic than just ... class.

Social status - high status may be wealthy, but need not be.

• wealthy criminals have no status

• nouveaux riches not admitted to "high society"

• ethnic groups & religious groups may emerge as more significant

• religious and nationalistic emotions

PLUS, some individuals simply have this "persuasive personal characteristic and social skills"  -  Charisma.    Weber's analytic distinctions

ethnic

racial

charismatic claims to political power

politics -   ... a charismatic leadership might project a moral vision of the just society and gather the support needed to bring about social change.  BUT politics also entailed rational calculation.  science - values - gap.  academics not suited ... politicization of the classroom dishonest.

1. capitalism after its birth from religion -in its pursuit of $$$ for its own sake relig inspiration is gone - has become rational sys - iron cage

2. rationalization as an efficient means to handling numbers which forsakes case by case human case management.

But - even with these "calcifying" aspects, bur is the most efficient, precise way of getting things done.     extraordinary speed of info dissemination ... most effective. w/o regard for persons

develops more perfectly the more it is "dehumanized"

expert dehumanized

LEVELING SOCIAL DIFFERENCES

A. Administrative Democratization equality before the law -then, see RATES - oops.  doesn't look equal --> structural discrimination, structural violence

B. Parties & the Bureaucratic consequences of democratization.

the term democratization can be misleading.  the democracy  itself is a shapeless mass ... never "governs" ... is governed.   ... Democracy can only

1.  prevent the development of a closed status group

2.  term limits

...democracy inevitably comes into conflict the bureaucratic tendencies which have been produced by its very fight against  the notables.

Objective & subjective Bases of Bureaucratic Perpetuity

burs are hardest to destroy - each professional bureaucrat is a cog

idea of eliminating them becomes utopian

change top officials, but continue

such apparatus makes "revolution" more and more impossible

Bureaucracy and Education

A. Educational Specialization, degree, Hunting & Status Seeking

education so specialized, it might form a new class

education (pedigree) takes over from birth rights "Proof of ancestry"

i.e., remove aristocracy and a new form a privilege arises

CLASS, STATUS, POWER

A. Economic Power and Status

power: the chance of a man...to realize his own will in a social action even against the resistance of others who are participating ...power for its own sake - not all power entails honor

there is a "status order" - 3 things:  class, status groups, parties

B Determination of Class by Market Situation

classes are not communities - they are merely "bases for social action"
its "class" when 1. common interests --> a cause 2. its purely economic and
 3.its in the marketplace
the mode of distribution excludes the non-wealthy from competing

Property - and lack of property is the basic class situation

further differentiation, though:  services vs ownership of something; or a rentier or an entrepreneur - all different.  also creditor-debtor becomes the basis for "class struggle."

ps:  slaves are not a class - they are a "status group"

C. Social action flowing from Class Interest

a "class" may or may not act.  may be amorphous.  by no means universal that a class comes to class action,often due to an "intellectual sort" of thing (e.g.,Protestant ethic)

CLASS 412 - DO NOT "WORRY" ABOUT THE BELOW:

D. types of Class Struggle

a class is not a group (Gemeinschaft) - Once upon a time, class action was actually about ... bread.  Now it is about wages:  the prices of labor.

E. Status Honor

status groups are normally groups - but amorphous. to do w a social estimation of honor. ... Germany they can't shake it but in America, a boss-worker outside work would never be boss-worker.  They would be peers.  Status honor is above all else a specific style of life.  Resident of certain street.  Fashion.  Marriage.   In America, a man just puts forth a claim that he be a gentleman and he will be treated as such:  employment, "swank" establishments, and intermarriage.

Weber answered Marx:  Marx felt class inevitably had action; Weber says:  no. 

F. Ethnic Segregation and Caste

a status group can evolve into a closed caste.  distinctions then not just by law but by religion.  Ritualistic impurity - stigma - cults - gods.

caste by ethnic communities found all over the world.  Acquire specific occupational traditions of handicrafts or other arts and cultivate a belief in their ethnic community.  Ideas of dignity and so forth.

G.  Status Privileges wearing special things eating special things.  monopolization of certain things.  stylization of life.

H.  Economic conditions & Effects of Status Stratification nothing about honor - impersonal:  classes are stratified according to their relations to the production and acquisition of goods; whereas status groups are stratified according to the principles of their consumption of goods as represented by special styles of life.

I. Parties sphere of power - acquisition of social power to influence social action.  involves association.  associational character must be rational:  must have those ready to enforce rules.  Means of attaining power may be from violence to votes - speech, hoax, obstruction.   Structure of domination.  strict organization.