Politics as a Vocation

Politics as a Vocation

"Politics as a Vocation" (German: Politik als Beruf) is an essay by German economist and sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). It originated in the second lecture of a series (the first was Science as a Vocation) he gave in Munich to the "Free (i.e. Non-incorporated) Students Union" of Bavaria on 28 January 1919. This happened during the German Revolution when Munich itself was briefly the capital of the Bavarian Socialist Republic. Weber gave the speech based on handwritten notes which were transcribed by a stenographer. The essay was published in an extended version in July 1919, and translated into English only after World War II. The essay is today regarded as a classic work of political science and sociology.

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Three grounds for legitimate rule

Weber defines politics as a form of "independent leadership activity". In this essay, the "state" serves as the placeholder for the analysis of political organizations. The grounds for the legitimate rule of these political organizations, according to Weber, fall into three major categories, or types:

Traditional Authority

The authority of "eternal past," based on habit. Weber defines custom as largely patriarchal, patrimonial, and traditional in scope.

Charisma Authority (Gift of Grace)

The authority of the "revelations, heroism, or other leadership qualities of an individual". Associated with "charisma" of prophets, demagogues, and popular vote.

Legal Authority

Legal rational authority, legality based on valid statutes which are enforced by technically trained civil servants. Legal authority assumes a rational competence and conditioned obedience of both the civil servants and the people to the legal apparatus.

The two forms of the state

Weber focuses his analysis on "political organizations", i.e. "states", and identifies two general forms of the state, supposedly encompassing all state forms at the most general level:

1. The administrative staff beneath the ruler in status and power has its own means of administration separate from those of the ruler. This can include various forms of wealth and possessions, as well as means of production and control over labor. This administrative staff is essentially aristocratic, subdivided into distinct estates;
2. The administrative staff is completely or partially separated from the actual tools of administration, similar to Marx's conception of how the proletariat is separated from the means of production. This staff become confidants without means in a patriarchal organization of deference and delegation.

Weber delineates two different ideas of the "state" based on the relationship between the administrators and their access to the actual means of administration. The first form is "patrimonialism" and dependent on the personality of the ruler, and the loyalty of his followers. There is no emphasis on technical capacity as there is in the second form of the state, which is considered to be modern. In the modern form, the administrators do not personally own the money, buildings, and organizations they direct. Executive decisions often remain with political figures, even though they do not have the technical ability that the modern professional administrators do.

Translations

"Politik als Beruf" has been translated into English at least four times, in:

• Weber, Max (1946). From Max Weber, tr. and ed. Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Free Press.
• Weber, Max (1978). Weber: Selections in Translation, tr. E. Matthews and ed. W.G. Runciman (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.)
• Weber, Max (2004). The Vocation Lectures, tr. Rodney Livingstone and ed. David Owen and Tracy Strong (Illinois: Hackett Books).
• Weber, Max (2015). Weber's Rationalism and Modern Society, tr. and ed. Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan); as "Politics as Vocation".

See also

• Gandhi as a Political Strategist (chapter 11 critiques Weber's ethical typology)
• Verstehen

External links

• "Politik als Beruf" (1919)
• "Politics as a Vocation" (English translation)
• "Politics as Vocation" (English translation by Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters (2015)