Abstract
In the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe [Complete Works of Max Weber], edited by Horst Baier, Gangolf Hübinger, M. Rainer Lepsius, Wolfgang Schluchter, and the late Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Johannes Winckelmann, two texts appeared in Section III, Vol. Seven that are in part notes of a lecture course given by Max Weber and in part elaborations of these lecture notes. The notes were made by two students, Erwin Stölzl and Hans Ficker, in a course on “Allgemeine Staatslehre und Politik (Staatssoziologie)” [General Theory of the State and Politics (State Sociology)] “[A] total of in all 546 student and 22 guest auditors … [were] enrolled” in this course. (Translated from the original German. Editorial Report [Editorischer Bericht], p. 44. In the following all quotes from the book are translated from the original German.)
Among those who attended the lectures were scholars who were later active in the United States and Germany. One of the two students whose notes have survived, Hans Gerhard Ficker, later became a professor (ibid, p. 53). The lectures were given in the summer semester of 1920 at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and unfortunately were not completed, due to Weber’s illness and death in June 1920. It was so-to-speak the “endpoint” of his life’s work. Preceding the lecture notes are a foreword, introduction and an Editorial Report. “The report of Weber’s death on 14 June 1920 came as a complete surprise, particularly for many student course members [a student reports], and then came the day, in June 1920, when a notice on the door of the lecture hall announced that he was ill. Only a few days later he lay on a bier, a victim of pneumonia. Like all his students, I was present at the funeral ceremony in the East Cemetery [Ostfriedhof]” (Editorial Report [Editorischer Bericht] p. 51).
In the present edition, Stölzl’s lecture notes are reproduced on one page and the corresponding section by Ficker on the facing page. Further searches for other surviving records were unsuccessful, “so that the two sets of lecture notes…must be regarded as the only evidence of Max Weber’s last lectures on ‘state sociology’.” Johannes Winckelmann, one of the co-editors of the Complete Works of Max Weber, noted that there are “admittedly…a few gaps [in Stölzl’s notes], because he skipped class.” “The two sets of lecture notes have the identical wording in many cases, which is evidence of Weber’s lecture style of in places speaking slowly in order for students ‘to be able to take dictation’” (Editorial Report [Editorischer Bericht] p. 58f and p. 60f).
Not only the circumstance that this work consists of lecture notes in which students selectively wrote down only the essentials, but also that the lecture course was held at the end of his life's work, when he thus had had time to reconsider and reflect on several theses, makes the text more concise and concentrated. Thus he does not begin directly with the “Types of Legitimate Domination,” but rather—after a definition of the concept of the “state”—with the definitions of social action [Sozialem Handeln] (p. 70), social relationships [Sozialen Beziehungen] (p. 70), and so on, in order to finally, with organized action [Verbandshandeln], arrive at the question of rule(rship) [Herrschaft] [Herrschaftsverband]. Only then does he present the well-known “Types of Legitimate Domination/ Rule(rship)/ Authority” [Typen der legitimen Herrschaft]. This underscores the concise character of these lectures, permeated by the logic of the systematics. This is also shown by the fact that he states the reasons for the legitimacy of each of the three types of domination: The purest type of legal authority is the “modern bureaucratic state [moderne[r] Beamtenstaat]” (p. 78f). It has the “legitimacy of a legal order” (p. 79). It is the “impersonal character of obedience” (p. 76f) in the relationship of “superior-subordinate” (p. 76) that marks this type of rulership, with a “division between office and private dwelling!” (p. 78). In traditional authority, by contrast, a person is obeyed. “He/She rules…on the basis of tradition” (p. 76f). Thus, the legitimacy of the patriarchs is based on tradition (p. 82). It is the relationship of “master-servant [Herr-Diener]” (p. 76). Charismatic authority is based on “belief in the leadership…[and] on the sanctity and obligatoriness of the extraordinary [Außeralltäglichen]” in the relationship, for example, of “prophet-follower” (p. 78). Thereby charisma was “[o]riginally always understood as a magical quality” (p. 90, similar p. 91), and “[a]lso heroic power [is to be regarded] as likewise a magical quality” (p. 91). And likewise more concisely than in Economy and Society [Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft]: “The elements of compliance tend to be mixed or engaged in struggle with each other” (p. 98). “The pure forms very rarely [appear] in reality…Often 2 elements in conflict with each other” (p. 99).
Accordingly, with the tripartite division of each form of domination/rulership into ruler [Herrscher], administrative staff [Verwaltungsstab], and those ruled [Beherrschte], he names for each of his types of domination the concrete realization of this division: for legal authority this is superior, tenured civil servant [Beamter] and citizen (p. 78 and p. 91), in traditional authority, master, servant and subject (p. 82f, p. 91), and in charismatic authority, leader, disciple or follower in an administrative staff and supporters among the subjects (p. 90f). Weber had shortly before sent the relevant paragraphs from Economy and Society to the printer, that is to say they are of course not new and were long familiar to the public. But in contrast to the previously published texts, Weber includes essential additions and comments, for his aim was “to develop with regard to content aspects that he had only referred to in Economy and Society and present them to the listeners using current and topical [and historical, note RJ] examples” (Introduction [Einleitung], p. 2). Thus he explicitly names the Native Americans [Indianer] and Early Germans [Germanen] as examples for charismatic authority (p. 90f). In the “Types of Legitimate Domination” these are not mentioned, and in Economy and Society altogether he refers to them only marginally and only briefly to the Iroquois (Economy and Society, MWG I/22-4, p. 470f, p. 483f, and p. 736). For sources of charismatic authority among the North American Natives and Early Germans, he names hunting and war (p. 90f). The administrative staff is, in the case of the war hero, rewarded with booty (p. 92f). For the Early Germans, the example is the duke [Herzog], who arranges this (p. 90). Everyday domination and everyday economic leadership, to the contrary, is traditional (p. 90f). This shows that Weber had a “universal-historically extensive interest in the most remote rulership practices and their typification,” and the state sociological lecture course is “at the same time an historical theory of politics” (Introduction [Einleitung], p. 18).
“There have been long periods of history in which both [traditional and charismatic authority, note RJ] divided up life among themselves” (p. 94). “Originally the life of man occurs traditionally, charisma first makes breaches in traditional loyalty” (p. 94). Unlike in Economy and Society, the topic of “charisma” is not followed by a discussion of feudalism, but rather feudalism is discussed after traditional authority, where it fits better. This again underlines the character of Weber’s specification.
Due to the circumstances of his time, there is an extensive (and likewise more extensive than in Economy and Society) description of plebiscitary authority and of Ceasarism. One can clearly sense that precisely this theme concerned and captivated him. Weber himself was a member of a commission that in 1918 debated the basic principles of a new German constitution. He thereby spoke in favor of a president elected by the people and of strengthening Parliament. Thus he also names as a form of Caesarism, as well the American presidency, whereby presidents are elected by the people or respectively by electors (p. 100). The notes end finally with a discussion of the “party.”
In all this conciseness and specification, it is not only a matter of additions to the existing Weberian texts, but rather that the notes provide an indispensable and essential new source. “Insofar the two sets of notes represent…the most important source for the direction in which Weber’s [State Sociology] was concretely laid out, [which was] not explicated in the Compendium of Social Economics [Grundriß der Sozialökonomik], but was rather ‘still to be written’” (Introduction [Einleitung], p. 3).