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Max Weber and the Contemporary Political Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Talcott Parsons
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Extract

Max Weber died in 1920, when Communism was in its beginnings and Fascism had not appeared on the scene at all. There can be no question of his having predicted anything like the exact nature of these movements. But he did develop a line of thought which, in connection with his broader analysis of authority, has an important bearing on the understanding of the process by which they came into prominence, and some of the possible consequence of their dominance.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , April 1942 , pp. 155 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1942

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References

1 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 129.

2 See especially Politik als Beruf, in Gesammelte Politische Schriften. Also Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Part I, Ch. III, Sec. 18ff.

3 When it is said that a man in some sense predicted a political development, there is usually danger of people assuming that he therefore favored it. Exactly what Weber's personal attitude toward National Socialism would have been, had he lived to see it, cannot of course be determined, but it seems pretty certain it would have been overwhelmingly negative. He was certainly, in his personal values, deeply attached to the rational-legal pattern, and could not have approved the Nazi attack upon it. He was also deeply contemptuous of demagogic tactics in politics, as comes out at numerous points in his political writings.

He was, however, as will appear below, in a certain sense very much of a realist in politics, and hence held that these elements must be taken account of. In the discussion over the Weimar constitution he urged that the President of the Reich be given a strong “plebiscitary” basis for his position, that is that he be elected by universal popular vote, definitely not, like the French president, by the legislature. But his other most important single proposal was that the Parliament be given a central position in the government, above all one of high responsibility. He felt that one of the most serious defects in the monarchical constitution of Germany was that the Parliament was deprived of responsibility. Hence he could not have approved Hitler's centering of all power in the party, and reduction of the Reichstag to the position of a mere sounding board for his speeches.

In another specifically political connection Weber would almost certainly have fundamentally disapproved National Socialism. He had a deep antipathy to a wildly “adventurous” foreign policy. He very sharply criticized the annexationist elements in Germany in his time, and thought of Germany as one of the great units in a European power system, not as having hegemony over Europe. He argued that the destruction of Germany as such a unit could not in the long run succeed, but by the same token, in the present situation he would probably have argued that the destruction of the other great powers, namely France, Russia and England by Germany could not conduce to German welfare.

These are two specifically political contexts in which it is relevant to cite Weber's position. His ethical attitude to such things as Nazi Anti-Semitism and political repression generally, or his attitude toward the long-run consequences of predominance of the Nazi movement for social institutions and structure, he upon a different plane. Something will be said about the latter in what follows. On Weber's personal attitudes see Marianne Weber, Max Weber, Ein Lebensbild and Voegelin, Eric, “Max Weber,” Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie, Vol. 9, No. 1–2Google Scholar.

4 See his Religionssoziologie. Also the present writer's “Role of Ideas in Social Action,” American Sociological Review, April 1939.

5 Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

6 See Eric Voegelin, Rasse und Staat.

7 It is interesting to note that Weber, in his sociology of religion, strongly emphasized that no institutionally established order was ever fully integrated, and hence free from strain. Hence there is always, to a greater or less degree, an opportunity for a charismatic leader to take a stand which, in opposing some elements of the established order, will have an appeal to some elements of the population who feel a strain in relation to these points. Quantitatively, however, modern Western society contains much more of these strains than many others. See “Religionssoziologie,” Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Part II, Chapter, IV.

8 See, for instance, Wirtschaft und Geseltschaft, Part I, Chapter II, Sec. 9. The same theme is deveoped in the Rechtssoziologie, Sec. 5.

9 See Gerth, Hans, “The Nazi Party: It's Leadership and Composition,” American Journal of Sociology, 01. 1940Google Scholar.

10 Parsons, Talcott, Structure of Social Action, Chapter XVI, pp. 611 ff.Google Scholarvon Schelting, A., Max Webers Wissenshaftslehre, pp. 280 ff.Google Scholar

11 We are told in some quarters that “war never settles anything.”

12 Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, and P. A. Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics, may be cited as prominent recent examples of this attitude.

13 See Politik als Beruf and von Schelting, op. cit.

14 It is plain that the very way Max Weber approaches these ethical problems is determined by a background of secularized Calvinism. The Thomistic theory of morality (Sum. Theod. I–II, 6–21), the Thomistic notion of prudence (I–II, 5 and II–II 47–52), finally the Thomistic conception of the natural law (I–II, 94) eliminate any radical (and essentially insoluble) antinomy between “Gesinnung” and “Verantwortung.” The opposition between Gesinnungsethik and Veranrwortungsethik would assume at most a psychological meaning. Max Weber's views on the irrational character of the acceptance of the supreme values has also a decidedly Calvinistic flavor. Thomists would say that the reason, even unaided by revelation, can know something about the supreme value. Of course, the ultimate end which is really (or existentially) that of man can be known only by revelation and faith. But even in regard to supernatural faith, it should not be spoken of as irrational adherence, since the credibility of the objects of faith can be rationally manifested. Supra-rationality, rather than irrationality, would be the proper expression.

For a thoroughly Thomistic discussion of the relationship between ethics and political activities see J. Maritain: End of Machiavellianism. The Review of Politics, January, 1942; for a good exposition of Nature and Functions of Authority, the Aquinas Lecture, 1940, by Yves R. Simon, Milwaukee, 1940. A general criticism of Max Weber's fundamental concepts can be found in Gustav Gundlach, S.J., Zur Soziologie der katholischen Ideenwelt und des Jesuitenordens. (Herder, Freiburg, 1927).—Ed.

15 Politische Schriften, p. 443.