max weber, types of legitimate domination

part one: the basis of legitimacy (212-217)

(212): the premise, in effect: "every genuine form of domination implies a minimum of voluntary compliance, that is, an interest... in obedience."

(213): normally, domination cannot simply be based on material interest, affectual/ideal solidarity, but requires a "belief in legitimacy."

(213-214): much is obscured by weber's use of the word "freely"

(214): "what is important is the fact that in a given case the particular claim to legitimacy is to a significant degree and according to its type treated as 'valid'"

(215): crux, "three pure types of legitimate domination"

1. rational grounds--belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands
   
2. traditional grounds--resting on an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them
3. charismatic grounds--resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.

(216): NB--"the idea that the whole of concrete historical reality can be exhausted in the conceptual scheme about to be developed is as far from the author's thoughts as anything could be."

part two: legal authority with a bureaucratic administrative staff (217-226)

(218-223): preliminary delineation of the basic nature of rational authority (enumerating, essentially, the rational, ordered features of bureaucratic organization--importance of 'technical qualification' (221-222))

(223): "the purely bureaucratic type of administrative organization--that is, the monocratic variety of bureaucracy--is, from a purely technical point of view, capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of exercising authority over human beings... [moreover], the needs of mass administration make it today completely indispensable. the choice is only that between bureaucracy and dilettantism in the field of administration."

(224): here, furthermore, predicting that the bureaucracy will have to persist to manage a society like ours.

(224): important--reflections on capitalism and bureaucracy, and the question of their co-evolution: "though by no means alone, the capitalistic system has undeniably played a major role in the development of bureaucracy. indeed, without it capitalistic production could not continue and any rational type of socialism would have simply to take it over and increase its importance... on the one hand, capitalism in its modern stages of development requires the bureaucracy, though both have arisen from different historical sources. conversely, capitalism is the most rational economic basis for bureaucratic administration and enables it to develop in the most rational form, especially because, from a fiscal piont of view, it supplies the necessary money resources."

(225): "socialism would... require a still higher degree of formal bureaucratization than capitalism..." [of course, to a dilettante he sounds prophetic; for us, it is clear that the notion that this nonsense explains 1917 is simply hogwash]

(225): "bureaucratic administration means fundamentally domination through knowledge. this is the feature of it which makes it specifically rational."

(225): in general, the following social consequences (and here, the iron cage is forming)--second is tendency to plutocracy, and third is the dominance of a spirit of formalistic impersonality...

(226): bureaucracy is a process of 'social leveling', and "foreshadows mass democracy" [but, of course, this is all much more ominous than he is letting on here, as he writes elsewhere]

(226): two general characteristics

1. formalism
2. "tendency to substantive rationality" -- tendency to a "utilitarian point of view in the interest of the welfare of those under their authority."
   

part three: traditional authority (226-241)

(226-227): traditional authority -- "in the simplest case... based on personal loyalty which results from common upbringing... obedience is owed not to enacted rules but to the person who occupies a position of authority by tradition or who has been chosen for it by the traditional master."

(227): interesting--"the exercise of power is oriented toward the consideration of how far master and staff can go in view of the subjects' traditional compliance without arousing their resistance. when resistance occurs, it is directed against the master or his servant personally, the accusation being that he failed to observe the traditional limits of his power. opposition is not directed against the system as such--it is a case of 'traditionalist revolution.'" [perhaps thinking of a peasant jacquerie, i suppose; and in this sense it might be interesting to re-cast the argument about the uniqueness of the proletarian revolution in these ideal-typical, Weberian terms. though i'm not sure it would still work.]

(229): "master's discretion" exists in place of rationally established rules and regulations.

(231): gerontocracy and primary patriarchalism

(231): patrimonalism -- "whenever traditional domination develops an administration and a military force which are purely personal instruments of the master."

(232): estate-type domination -- when the administrative staff appropriates administrative powers and economic assets

(238-240): important, capitalism and traditional authority--capitalist trading, capitalist tax farming, capitalist provision of supplies for the state, capitalist plantations may emerge. "All these [latter] forms are indigenous to patrimonial regimes and often reach a very high level of development... [But a higher] type of capitalism is altogether too sensitive to all sorts of irrationalities in the administration of law, administration and taxation, for these upset the basis of calculability."

part four: charismatic authority (241-246)

(241): charismatic authority

(243): "the administrative staff of a charismatic leader does not consist of 'officials'... it is rather chosen in terms of the charismatic qualities of its members..."

(244): important--"Since it is 'extra-ordinary,' charismatic authority is sharply opposed to rational, and particularly bureaucratic, authority, and to traditional authority, whether in its patriarchal, patrimonial, or estate variants, all of which are everyday forms of domination; while the charismatic type is the direct antithesis of this. Bureaucratic authority is specifically rational in the sense of being bound to intellectually analysable rules; while charismatic authority is specifically irrational in the sense of being foreign to all rules... Traditional authority is bound to the precedents handed down... charismatic authority repudiates the past, and is in this sense a specifically revolutionary force."

part v: the routinization of charisma (246-255)

(245): "in traditionalist periods, charisma is the great revolutionary force." [and later?]

(245): important--"in its pure form charismatic authority may be said to exist only in statu nascendi. It cannot remain stable, but becomes either traditionalized or rationalized, or a combination of both."

(249): routinization through succession, but also through the interests of the administrative staff.

(251): moreover, "for charisma to be transformed into an everyday phenomenon, it is necessary that its anti-economic character should be altered. it must be adapted to some form of fiscal organization to provide for the needs of the group..."

(254): "along with the ideology of loyalty, which is certainly by no means unimportant, allegiance to hereditary monarchy in particular is very strongly influenced by the consideration that all inherited and legitimately acquired property would be endangered if people stopped believing in the sanctity of hereditary succession to the throne. it is hence by no means fortuitous that hereditary monarchy is more adequate to the propertied strata than to the proletariat."

part six: feudalism (255-)

(255): two types: fiefs, and benefices.

(257): a tension emerges whenever the grants are "highly developed"--because the overlord's authority, then, "is very dependent on the voluntary obedience and and hence the purely personal loyalty of the members of the administrative staff, who... are themselves in posession of the means of administration."

(259): out of this struggle, in a sense, the seeds of absolutism--"in modern times it everywhere issued in the ruler's victory, and that meant in bureaucratic administration... it was influenced by the rise of the bourgeoisie... it was in addition aided by the competition for power by means of rational... administration among the different states. this led, from fiscal motives, to a crucially important alliance with capitalistic interests..."

(260): "prebendal feudalism"

(262-263): important--"the above discussion makes it quite evident that 'ruling organizations' which belong only to one or another of these pure types are very exceptional... in general, it should be kept clearly in mind that the basis of every authority... is a belief by virtue of which persons exercising authority are lent prestige. the composition of this belief is seldom altogether simple..."

(264): importance of administrative staff, for authority: "for the habit of obedience cannot be maintained without organized activity directed to the application and enforcement of the order."

(265): re: discussion of german post-WWI experience, the bureaucracy appears here as a 'tool' to be handled. an empty instrument. [how is this articulated with the state, in the weberian model?]

(266): ah, brief mention of the russian revolution

part seven: the transformation of charisma in a democratic direction (266-271)

(266-267): charismatic authority, in particular it seems, can "be subject to an anti-authoritarian interpretation, for the validity of charismatic authority rests entirely on recognition by the ruled..." in this sense, he's arguing, it can, as it's routinzed, develop into a democratic form of organization on the basis of the principle of election.

(267): extending democracy to the administrative staff (and this, it seems, means that "they are not 'bureaucratic'") [is this a possible escape route, away from the iron cage? he does go on to imply that these will be wildly more 'inefficient'; but there is a place to raise the normative foundations of the definition of 'efficiency']

part eight: collegiality and the division of powers (271-284)

(271-272): exogenous limitations on the powers of authority (means which are necessary, agencies with their own authority, etc.)--"principle of collegiality"

(277): "collegiality almost inevitably involves obstacles to precise, clear, and above all, rapid decision"

(277): "collegiality is in no sense specifically 'democratic.' where privileged groups have had to protect their privileges agianst those who were excludded from them they have always attempted to prevent the rise of monocratic power..."

(278): 'dictatorship of the proletariat' being read as an individual dictatorship (on behalf of masses) [you can critique marx, but no need to butcher him--this is straw-manning at its worst]

(281): "from an historical point of view it is in terms of collegiality that the concept of an 'administrative agency' first came to be fully developed... only collegial bodies of officials, which were capable of standing together, could gradually expropriate the Occidental monarch, who had become a 'dilettante.'

(281): from monarchy, to bureaucracy, to prime minister, to monocracy (and the victory, then, of the bureaucracy)

(283): "historically, the separation of power in Europe developed out of the old system of estates..."

part nine: parties (284-289)

(286): "structurally, parties may conform to the same types as any other organizations."

(286): "it is of crucial importance for the economic aspect of the distribution of power and for the determination of party policy by what method the party activities are funded."

part ten: direct democracy and representative administration (289-292)

(289): ah, weber is seeing our alternative; what do you think, max?

(290): he believes that "immediate democracy" needs to be small-scale and insufficiently concerned with technical concerns, necessarily -- otherwise the bureaucracy will reassert itself. (see also 291)

(290): the notable, the representative--"presupposes that the individual is able to live for politics without living from politics."

part eleven: representation (292-298)

(292): appropriated representation

(293): estate-type representation

(293): instructed representation

(293): free representation

(294): weber sees the separation between active parties and politically-passive citizens

(296-297): exploring, in general, the harmonious co-evolution of representative government and modern capitalism

(296): "one factor in the development of free representation was the undermining of the economic basis of the older status groups. this made it possible for persons with demagogic gifts to pursue their career regardless of their social position. the source of this undermining process was modern capitalism."

(297): interesting--"two main factors have tended to make monarchs and ministers everywhere favorable to universal suffrage, namely, the necessity for the support of the proletariat in foreign conflict and the hope, which has proved to be unjustified, that, as compared to the bourgeoisie, they would be a conservative influence." [can we just saw, weber is deploying these class-categories--ideal-typically, perhaps--with reckless abandon? i approve! and he neglected to mention agitation for universal suffrage, of course]

(297): important--class character of parliamentary system: "parliaments have tended to function smoothly as long as their composition was drawn predominantly from the classes of wealth and culture... established social status rather than class interests underlay the party structure. the conflicts tended to be only those between different forms of wealth, but with the rise of class parties to power, especially the proletarian parties, the situation of parliaments has changed radically."

(298): the 'soviets' as an interest group [but let's not forget that he basically also admitted the class character of bourgeois democracy, above]

(299): mention of 'works councils' in germany, too