CHAPTER ONE
Basic Sociological Concepts
Preamble: No claim of novelty is in any way made for the method employed in these introductory conceptual definitions. It is hard to avoid beginning in this way, despite the inevitably abstract character of these definitions, and their apparent disengagement from reality. Nonetheless, the method adopted aspires only to formulate—using, I hope, a more suitable and somewhat more accurate form of expression—what every empirical sociology really means when it speaks of the same things. While the approach might perhaps seem pedantic, this pursuit of precision also applies where apparently unfamiliar or new expressions are employed. The terminology has been simplified as far as possible by comparison with my essay in Logos IV,1 and has therefore been altered in many respects to make it as easy to understand as possible. All the same, the need for unconditional popularisation could not always be reconciled with the need for the greatest possible conceptual precision, and in such cases the former has had to give way to the latter.
On “understanding,” see Karl Jaspers’s Allgemeine Psychopathologie (and some remarks by Heinrich Rickert in the second edition of his Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriiffsbildung, and also by Georg Simmel in his Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie).2 As to method, I refer the reader here, as I have often done before, to that followed by Friedrich Gottl in his Herrschaft des Wortes3 (certainly not the most well-written and easily understood of texts, and really in places not fully thought through); for the subject-matter, above all Ferdinand Tönnies’s fine book, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft.4 See also the very misleading book by R. Stammler, Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung, together with my critique of it in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 24 (1907),5 which contains the foundations of much that follows here. I deviate from the method Simmel adopted in his Soziologie and Philosophie des Geldes6 in that I make as clear as possible a distinction between intended and objectively valid “meaning,”7 a distinction that Simmel not only sometimes fails to make but often deliberately allows to run together.
§1. Sociology, in the meaning understood here of a word often used in quite different senses, shall mean: a science that in construing and understanding social action seeks causal explanation of the course and effects of such action. By “action” is meant human behaviour linked to a subjective meaning8 on the part of the actor or actors concerned; such action may be either overt, or occur inwardly—whether by positive action, or by refraining from action, or by tolerating a situation. Such behaviour is “social” action where the meaning intended by the actor or actors is related to the behaviour of others, and the action is so oriented.
I. Methodic Foundations
1. “Meaning” is here either9
a) the actual meaning that is
α) subjectively intended by one actor in a historically given instance, or
β) subjectively intended by several actors in approximating the average of a given number of cases; alternatively it is
b) in a conceptually constructed pure type, the meaning subjectively intended by actor or actors conceived as a type.
But it is not, for instance, some kind of objectively “correct” meaning, nor any such “real” meaning arrived at metaphysically. Here lies the difference between the empirical sciences of action—of sociology and of history—and those dogmatic sciences, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, and aesthetics, that seek the “correct” and “valid” meaning of their objects of study.
2. There is an entirely fluid border separating meaningful action from what is here called merely reactive behaviour, that is, behaviour unrelated to a subjectively intended meaning. A very significant part of all sociologically relevant behaviour, especially purely traditional action (see below), can be found directly on this border. Meaningful action, in other words action that can be understood, is in many cases entirely absent from psychophysical events, or is in other cases only evident to the specialist. Mystical events, which are by definition only incompletely communicable in words, cannot be fully understood by those untouched by such experiences. On the other hand, one’s capacity to replicate action is not a condition of its being understood: “One need not be Caesar to understand Caesar.” The capacity of fully and inwardly “reliving” something (Nacherlebbarkeit) is important to clarity (Evidenz) of understanding, but is not an absolute condition for the construal of meaning. The understandable and the nonunderstandable elements of an event are often blended and related to one another.
3. All construal of meaning aspires to a condition of being self-evidently true (Evidenz)10—this is common to all the sciences. This self-evident quality of understanding can be either of a rational character (and as such, either logical or mathematical), or founded on an empathetic reliving—hence, emotional or involving an artistic receptiveness. In the domain of action, that which is rationally evident primarily takes the form of that which can be exhaustively and transparently understood intellectually.11 Action that is evident empathetically involves the full inner reliving of an experienced emotional context. That which is rationally understandable (defined here as meaning that is, directly and unambiguously, intellectually accessible) is most fully developed with respect to meaningful contexts created by the relation of mathematical or logical propositions. We understand the meaning quite unambiguously when someone, in thought or in argument, employs the proposition 2 × 2 = 4, or makes use of Pythagoras’s theorem, or completes a chain of reasoning “correctly” (and so to our own way of thinking). We likewise understand if, for given ends, he uses “facts of experience” that we “know” to be valid when selecting those “means” that are, in our own experience, unambiguously appropriate to his action. Any construal of such rationally oriented purposive behaviour possesses—for an understanding of the means employed—the greatest possible degree of Evidenz. A lesser degree of Evidenz, but one quite sufficient for our need of explanation, is used to understand “errors” (including here problems whose elements have become entangled one with another) to which we ourselves might be susceptible, or whose origins can be empathetically realised (einfühlend erlebbar). On the other hand, we are very often not capable of understanding the self-evidence of many of the ultimate “purposes” and “values” to which, in our experience, human action can be oriented. While we might possibly be able to understand them intellectually, the more radical the divergence of such ultimate values from our own, the greater also our difficulty in understanding them by empathetically reliving them in imagination.12 We must, then, as circumstance dictates, be satisfied with construing them intellectually; or, failing that, simply accept them as givens, making the best of such intellectual or empathetic appreciation as can be mustered in understanding the course that action motivated by them takes. Among these belong, for example, many acts of religious or charitable virtuosity whose motivating force is inaccessible to those not susceptible to their appeal. Also included here is extreme, rationalistic fanaticism (involving, e.g., “human rights”) whose imperative eludes those who have radically rejected any such mandate. The more we are prey to emotional reactions such as anxiety, anger, ambition, envy, jealousy, love, enthusiasm, pride, vengefulness, piety, dedication, desires of every sort, and their (from the standpoint of purposively rational action) irrational consequences, the greater the degree to which we are capable of reliving them emotionally as self-evident. And even when they far exceed our own capacities in intensity, we are nonetheless able to understand their meaning empathetically, and take account intellectually of the orientation and chosen means of action motivated by them.
For a scientific approach that constructs types, all irrational, affectively conditioned, meaningful contexts for behaviour that influence action are best studied and represented as “diversionary elements” with respect to a constructed, purely purposively rational course for such action. For example: explanation of the course taken by a stock exchange panic will first establish what would have happened if action had not been influenced by irrational emotions, following which these irrational components are introduced as “disturbances.” Similarly, in the case of a political or military action, it would first be established how things would have developed if the action had been informed by complete knowledge of circumstances and participants’ intentions, consequently selecting those purposively rational means that in our experience appeared most appropriate. Only after this has been done is it possible to impute causal influence to these conditional irrationalities determining deviations from this construct. The construction of rigorously purposive-rational action therefore in these cases furthers the self-evident clarity of a sociology whose lucidity is founded on rationality. In this way, a type is presented (“ideal type”) in relation to which real and concrete action, influenced by all manner of irrationalities (affect, mistakes), can be understood as a “deviation” from action directed by purely rational behaviour.
To this extent, and only for the purposes of methodic convenience here, is the method of a sociology of Verstehen “rationalistic.” This procedure should not be understood as a reflection of sociology’s rationalistic prejudice, but only as a means, a method. It should not, for instance, be reinterpreted as a belief in the real predominance of the rational in life. It suggests absolutely nothing about the extent to which, in reality, actual action might or might not be determined by a rational evaluation of ends. (Which is not to deny that there is a constant danger of misplaced rationalistic construction. Experience, unfortunately, shows this to be all too manifest.)
4. All sciences of action treat events and objects devoid of meaning in terms of the manner in which they stimulate or result from, or foster or inhibit, human action. “Devoid of meaning” is not the same as “lifeless” or “nonhuman.” Every artefact—for instance, a machine—can only be construed and understood by reference to the meaning that human action of possibly quite diverse kinds has given, or has sought to give, to its production and use; in the absence of such reference, the artefact remains entirely beyond understanding. What is therefore here “understood” is the relation of the artefact to human action, as a “means” or as an “end” envisaged by actor or actors, and to which their action is oriented. Understanding of such objects can only be effected through these categories. By contrast, without an intended meaning all events or circumstances—animate or inanimate, human or nonhuman—remain senseless so long as they cannot be related to the “means” and “ends” of action, but merely stimulate, foster, or inhibit such action. Perhaps the flooding of the Dollart in the late thirteenth century13 had “historical” significance, prompting a pattern of resettlement that had considerable historical significance. Mortality and the life cycle, from the helplessness of the child to that of the elderly, naturally has preeminent sociological significance on account of the different ways human action has been, and is, oriented to this existential fact. A different category is represented by unintelligible (nicht verstehbar) empirical propositions regarding the experience of physical or psychophysical phenomena (fatigue, habituation, memory, etc.), together with, for instance, euphoric states typical of certain forms of ascetic mortification, or typical differences in the speed, form, and precision of modes of reaction. Ultimately, the substantive issue here is the same as with any other factor that cannot be understood: both the pragmatic actor and the application of understanding take account of them as “data.”
There is the possibility that future research might also find regularities underlying action taken to be meaningful that cannot be understood, although this has not yet happened. Hereditary biological differences (between “races”), for example, would have to be accepted by sociology as given data if statistically persuasive proof were produced indicating their influence on the form taken by sociologically relevant behaviour—that is, social action in its relation to meaning. Such acceptance would be equivalent to that granted to physiological facts such as the nature of nutritional need, or the effect of ageing on action. Recognition of its causal significance would not, of course, alter the tasks of sociology, or of the sciences of action in general, in the slightest; this would remain the construal and understanding of meaningfully oriented action. Sociology would, as it does today, introduce at certain points into its construal and understanding of motivational contexts only those facts that could not be understood (e.g., that particular goal-directed action recurs with a typical frequency, or the degree of its typical rationality, using a cephalic index, skin colour, or any other kind of physiologically heritable characteristic).
5. Understanding can mean
- 1) direct and immediate14 understanding of the intended meaning of an action, including a verbal utterance. Our “understanding” of the meaning of the proposition 2 × 2 = 4 is immediate in this sense, since we hear or read it (the rationally immediate understanding of thoughts). We understand in like fashion a fit of anger manifested in facial expression, interjections, or irrational movements (the irrationally immediate understanding of affect). Similarly, we understand the behaviour of a woodcutter, or someone who reaches for the handle to close a door, or who aims a gun at an animal (the rationally immediate understanding of actions). But understanding can also mean
- 2) explanatory understanding. We “understand” in terms of a motivation the meaning that a person who has expressed, or written, the proposition 2 × 2 = 4 associated with it, moving him to do just this now and in this context, if we see him to be involved in an accounting calculation, a scientific demonstration, a technical computation, or some other kind of action to which in this context the proposition “belongs” in a sense that we understand. In other words, it acquires a contextual meaning that we understand (rational understanding of motivation). We understand the chopping of wood not only directly but motivationally, if we know that the woodman is working for a wage or is pursuing his own needs, simply taking some exercise (rational), or is possibly working off a fit of anger (irrational). Likewise, we understand the aiming of a gun motivationally if we know that the rifleman is under orders as part of a firing squad, or firing at enemies (rational), or that he is acting out of revenge (affective, and therefore in this sense irrational). Finally, we understand motivationally a fit of anger if we know that jealousy, affronted vanity, or wounded honour underlies it (affectively determined; hence, motivationally irrational.) All of these are understandable contexts of meaning, understanding of which we treat as an explanation of the actual course taken by action. For a science concerned with the meaning of action, “explanation” amounts to identification of the meaningful context to which directly understandable action belongs, corresponding to its subjectively intended meaning.15 In all of these cases, including affective events, we shall call the subjective meaning of such episodes, together with their context of meaning, their “intended” meaning. This goes beyond common usage, where “intention” generally refers only to rational and purposively intentional action.
6. In all of these cases, “understanding” means the construal of
a) what in an individual instance was really intended (viewed historically), or
b) what was really intended as an approximation or average (as a massed sociological appraisal), or
c) what is for the pure type (ideal type) of a frequently recurring phenomenon the sense or context that must be scientifically (“ideal typically”) constructed.
Ideal typical constructions of this kind are, for instance, those concepts and “laws” developed in pure economic theory. They represent the course that a particular sort of human action would follow if its purposive rationality were rigorously formulated, its execution undisturbed by error and affect, and if, moreover, it were quite unambiguously oriented to one (economic) objective.16 Only in rare cases, such as the stock exchange, does action in reality follow this course, and then only as an approximation to that defined by the ideal type.17
Of course, any construction (Deutung) aspires to self-evidence. But even an obvious construction whose meaning is quite evident cannot, simply by virtue of this self-evidence, immediately claim to be the causally valid construction. It is always, intrinsically, an especially self-evident causal hypothesis.
a) Often enough, supposed “motives” and “repressed factors” (primarily unacknowledged motives) conceal from the actor himself the real context forming his action, to such a degree that only limited value can be attached to sincere personal expression of an actor’s motivation. In this case, sociology18 has the task of investigating this context and construing it, although this context has not been, or has not usually been, completely fixed in consciousness as something that was definitely “intended.” This is a limiting case in the construction of meaning.
b) External properties of action that appear to us as “the same” or “similar” can be founded on very different contextual meanings for an actor or actors, and we also “understand” action that is quite deviant, and sometimes quite contradictory, with respect to situations that we treat as intrinsically quite “similar.”19
c) Acting human beings very often find themselves, in given situations, driven by contradictory imperatives that we on the whole “understand.” All experience tells us that very often we cannot be certain—in many cases, we cannot even begin to form a judgement—of the relative strength with which meanings underlying this motivational conflict are expressed in action, meanings that are nevertheless to us equally intelligible. Only the actual outcome of this motivational struggle clarifies this. As with every hypothesis, it is vital that the evaluation and reappraisal of our understanding of a construed meaning is made on the basis of the eventual real outcome. This can be done more or less precisely only in those (unfortunately very few) special cases suited to psychological experiments. Variable degrees of approximation can be achieved in a similarly limited number of cases of mass phenomena susceptible to numerical representation and exact statistical calculation. For the remainder, the only prospect is a comparison of as many historical or everyday events as possible. Although these might otherwise be very similar, they can be differentiated by one significant factor: according to the practical significance of the “motive” or “impulse” that closer investigation discloses. This is an important task for a comparative sociology. Unfortunately, we are often compelled to employ the uncertain means of “thought experiments,” isolating and building upon individual components of a motivational chain and then constructing the probable path that will ensue, so that we might then arrive at a causal imputation.
What is known as Gresham’s Law,20 for example, is a clear and rational construal of human action under given conditions and assuming ideal-typical purposively rational action. How far action does in fact correspond to this law is an empirical matter, ultimately and in principle to be expressed as some form of “statistical” estimation: the actual disappearance of undervalued coinage from circulation. In this case, experience shows the general validity of this principle. Cognition here took the following path: first, there were observations based on experience, and then these were construed. Without this successful construal, our need to identify a causal mechanism would obviously remain unsatisfied. On the other hand, without proof that, as we wish to assume, a theoretically predicted course of individual behaviour does in fact occur to some sort of degree, even such an apparently evident “law” would be a worthless construct for knowledge of real action. In this case, the coincidence of meaningfulness and empirical test is quite persuasive, and instances are numerous enough to treat the test as having been met satisfactorily. To take a different example, Eduard Meyer has put forwards an inspired hypothesis concerning the causal significance of the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platea for the specific developmental character of Greek, and therefore occidental, culture. His hypothesis proceeds from symptomatic events—the behaviour of Greek oracles and prophets towards the Persians—that are open to meaningful elucidation, and can be verified only by reference to the behaviour of Persians in cases where they were victorious (Jerusalem, Egypt, Asia Minor). But this is an explanation that in many respects must remain incomplete. Resort therefore has necessarily to be made to the significant rational Evidenz of the hypothesis itself. In many cases, however, even such seemingly self-evidently true historical imputations cannot be tested in the manner still possible here. Consequently, imputation necessarily remains ultimately a matter of “hypothesis.”
7. A “motive” is the meaningful context that appears, to the actor himself or to an observer, to be the relevant and appropriate “basis” for a form of behaviour. We consider behaviour that is contextualised in this way to be “meaningfully adequate” according to our usual ways of thinking and feeling, to the degree that we consider that the relationship among its elements form a typically meaningful context—or, as we usually say, the “proper” context. “Causal adequacy,” by contrast, refers to a sequence of events where it is known from experience that there is the chance that the sequence will always recur in exactly the same manner. (We understand by “meaningfully adequate” here our usual norms for calculating or conceiving correct solutions to an arithmetical problem. Statistically speaking, “causal adequacy” is the probability, according to proven empirical rules, that a “correct” or a “false” solution exists in terms of norms that are current today—the latter being a typical “calculation mistake” or a typical “entanglement of problems.” “Causal explanation” therefore involves the idea that there is some kind of calculable rule governing the way that one particular observed (inward or manifest) event is succeeded by another particular event (or occurs at the same time). In the ideal case, this rule can be expressed as a numerical probability, but such instances are rare.
A true causal construal of a given action means that its external execution and its motive are properly recognised, and at the same time are rendered meaningfully understandable in its context. A true causal construal of typical action (an understandable type of action) requires that the circumstances typically claimed for such action to some degree appear meaningfully adequate, and also that these circumstances can to some extent also be treated as causally adequate. Without such meaningful adequacy (Sinnadäquanz), then even where there is the greatest, precisely quantifiable probabilistic regularity in its occurrence (both external and psychic), we are left only with an unintelligible (or only partially intelligible) statistical probability. On the other hand, even the most evident meaningful adequacy has significance for sociological knowledge only to the extent that a correct causal statement can be given—as proof of the existence of a (specifiable) Chance that action does tend to follow an apparently meaningful course with specifiable frequency, or something close to it (either on average, or in a “pure” case). Only those statistical regularities that correspond to the understandable intended meaning of social action are in the sense used here understandable types of action, that is, “sociological rules.” Only such rational constructions of meaningfully intelligible action are sociological types of real events that are observable in reality to some degree.21 It is certainly not the case that in parallel with the degree of inferred meaningful adequacy, the actual Chance of frequency of the corresponding events always increases. Whether or not this occurs must be demonstrated for each instance through external experience. There are statistics for events lacking meaning (e.g., mortality statistics, statistics on fatigue, machine performance statistics, rainfall statistics) in exactly the same way that there are meaningful statistics. Sociological statistics (e.g., crime statistics, occupational statistics, price statistics, cultivation statistics) are, on the other hand, composed only of the latter kind (of course with cases that include both being frequent: e.g., crop statistics).
8. Processes and regularities that are not “sociological events” or rules in the sense used here because they are not amenable to understanding are of course no less important on this account. This also goes for sociology in the sense used here, a sense that limits it to a “sociology of understanding” that cannot be, ought not be, forced on anyone. They shift instead—and this is quite unavoidable given the method—into a category distinct from that of intelligible action: the “conditions,” “causes,” “inhibitions,” and “promoters” of such action.
9. Action, in the sense of the meaningful and comprehensible orientation of one’s own behaviour, is for us always the behaviour of one or more individual persons.
It may be useful or necessary for other cognitive ends to conceive of this individual as, for example, a sociation of “cells,” or as a complex of biochemical reactions, or to consider this individual’s “psychic” life as one composed of individual elements, however these might be qualified. Important things are learned in this way about, for example, causal rules. But we do not understand the behaviour of these elements as expressed in such uniformities. This is also true of psychic elements, and in fact the more scientifically exact their expression, the less we understand them; this never opens a path to the construal of an intended meaning. For sociology (in the sense used here, as also for history), the object of study is the contextual meaning of action. We can (at least in principle) observe the behaviour of physiological units, of cells for example, or some form of psychic elements, or seek to derive rules (“laws”) based on such observation with the aid of which we can arrive at causal “explanations” of discrete processes, which means: subsume them under a rule. However, the construal of action pays only as much regard to these facts and rules as it does to any other meaningless psychopathological events, or the scientific conditions of technical events—whether physical, astronomical, geological, meteorological, geographic, botanic, zoological, physiological, or anatomical.
For other cognitive purposes, such as legal knowledge, or for purely practical ends, it might be useful (and indeed unavoidable) to treat social constructs (e.g., the “state,” “association,” “companies,” “charitable foundations”) as if they were individual persons with rights and duties, or as the performers of legally relevant actions. By contrast, for sociological construal and understanding of action these entities remain merely processes and specific contexts for the action of individual people, since for us these are the sole understandable agents of meaningfully oriented action. But of course even for its own ends, sociology cannot simply ignore the collective conceptual apparatus of other intellectual perspectives. For the interpretation of action has a threefold relationship to these collective concepts:
a) It is itself often compelled to operate with very similar collective concepts, even designating them in the same way, to establish some kind of intelligible terminology. For instance, both legal and everyday language represents with the term “state” both a legal concept and those facts of social action to which legal rules apply. As far as sociology is concerned, the object “state” is by no means only, or necessarily, constructed from legally relevant components. And in any case, for sociology there is no such thing as the “action” of a collective personality. If it talks about the “state,” the “nation,” a “limited company,” a “family,” an “army corps,” or any other similar kind of construct, then this solely refers to a specific kind of actual, or conceivable, social action on the part of individuals, imputing a completely different meaning to a legal concept that has been employed for the sake of precision and familiarity.
b) The interpretation of action has to acknowledge a fundamental and important fact: that collective constructs drawn from everyday thought, from the law or other discipline, are ideas in the heads of real people (not only judges and officials but also the wider “public”), ideas in part about what exists, in part about what should exist, and ideas to which they orient their action. As such, these ideas have a quite powerful, often even dominating, causal significance for the manner in which the action of real persons occurs. This is especially true of ideas about what should, or should not, exist. (A modern “state” therefore exists not inconsiderably in this way: as a complex of a specific mutual interaction between people—because particular men and women orient their action to the idea that the state exists in this form, or should exist in this form; they believe, in other words, that orders of this legally oriented kind have validity: more about this later.) While it would be possible, if extremely pedantic and long-winded, for sociology to completely eliminate from its own terminology language used not only for what should legally prevail but also concepts in common use for real events (reales Geschehen), replacing them with neologisms, this would of course be, in this important connection at least, quite out of the question.
c) The method of so-called organic sociology (classically represented by Schäffle’s stimulating book, Bau und Leben des sozialen Körpers)22 seeks to explain mutual social action by starting with the “whole” (e.g., an “economy”), and proceeding to interpret the individual and his behaviour in much the same way that physiology relates the location of an anatomical “organ” within the “household economy” of the organism, considering it, for instance, as an element contributing to the maintenance of the whole. (As with the well-known dictum from a lecture by a physiologist: “§10: The Spleen. We know nothing about the spleen, gentlemen. That deals with the spleen.” In fact, the person in question “knew” rather a lot about the spleen: its position, size, shape, and so on. But he could not say what its “function” was, and he called this incapacity “knowing nothing”.) How far this kind of functional consideration of the relation between “parts” and a “whole” is definitive for other disciplines must remain undiscussed here; we know that that the biochemical and biomechanical perspective do not allow this to limit them. For a sociology seeking to construe events, this much can be said:
- 1) This functional frame of reference serves for practical illustration and provisional orientation (and is as such extremely useful and necessary, although it must be said that an overestimation of its cognitive value and a faulty conceptual realism23 can have very detrimental effects.) And
- 2) In some circumstances, this is the only way of identifying social action whose construed understanding is important to the explanation of context. But the task of sociology (as understood here) simply begins at this point. In the case of “social forms” (and in contrast to “organisms”), we can rise above the mere registration of functional relationships and rules (“laws”) typical of all “natural science” (where causal laws are established for events and patterns, and individual events then “explained” on this basis) and achieve something quite inaccessible to natural science: namely, an “understanding” of the behaviour of participating individuals, whereas we do not, for example, “understand” the behaviour of cells, but merely register them functionally, and then determine their activity by reference to rules. The superiority of constructive over observational explanation is, of course, bought at the cost of the substantially more hypothetical and fragmentary character of its results. Nonetheless: this is what is specific to sociological knowledge.
The extent to which we find the behaviour of animals meaningfully “understandable,” and vice versa (both of these being of a very uncertain nature and of problematic scope), must here remain unexamined. Hence likewise the extent to which there could theoretically be a sociology of the relation of humans to animals (whether pets or hunting animals)—many animals “understand” commands, anger, love, hostility, and quite obviously often do not react to these in an exclusively mechanical and instinctive way, but with respect to some consciousness of meaning and experience. The extent of our empathy with the behaviour of “primitive men” is certainly no greater.24 But we either lack any certain means of establishing the subjective situation for an animal or can assess it only in a very incomplete way—the problems of animal psychology are known to be both interesting and also riddled with pitfalls. Animals associate, of course, in the most varied manner: there are monogamous and polygamous “families,” herds, packs, and even functionally structured “states.” (The degree of functional differentiation of these animal sociations is in no respect matched by the degree of physical or morphological differentiation in the development of the species concerned. The functional differentiation displayed by termites, and consequently that of their artefacts, is far greater than is the case for ants and bees.) In these cases, the purely functional perspective establishes what, for the time being, is the most definitive knowledge attainable by research: ascertaining the conditions for the preservation of animal societies (their sustenance, defence, reproduction, and social reconstitution) together with the functions of specific types of individuals—“kings,” queens,” “workers,” “soldiers,” “drones,” “propagators,” “surrogate queens,” etc.). Anything beyond this was for a long time mere speculation, or investigation of the degree to which heredity or environment contributed to the development of these social proclivities. (This marked the controversy between Weismann and Götte: Weismann claimed the “omnipotence of natural selection,” underpinned in fact by deductions made with little empirical foundation.)25 Genuine scientific research is at one in agreeing that this restriction to functional knowledge is a necessary one that, it is hoped, has to be accepted only on a provisional basis. (See, e.g., the state of termite research in Escherich’s work [1909]).26 For not only would one want insight into the degree to which functions were “important for the maintenance” of such individually differentiated types, something that is relatively easy to effect; and so gain some sense of the degree to which this differentiation can be explained without assuming the inheritance of characteristics, or in reverse, assuming such inheritance (and in this case, how we might construe this assumption). We would also want to know
- 1) what determines the specific form assumed by the differentiation of an originally neutral, undifferentiated individual;
- 2) what moves the differentiated individual to behave on the average in such a way as to actually further the interest in survival of the differentiated group.
Wherever research has made any progress in this respect, it has been through experiments with solitary individuals, demonstrating or hypothesising the presence of chemical stimulation or physiological circumstances such as nutritional processes or parasitic castration. Today, even an expert would find it hard to say how far there might be grounds for the problematic hope of substantiating experimentally “psychological” or “meaningful” orientation. The idea that we could have a verifiable picture of the psyche of these individual social animals founded on meaningful “understanding” seems scarcely attainable even as an ideal objective. In any case, it is not from this direction that we might expect “understanding” of human social action; rather it is the reverse: human analogies are used in such research, and this has to be so. But we might perhaps expect that these analogies will become of use to us in posing the question of how in the early stages of human social differentiation we might judge the relation between purely mechanical, instinctive differentiation and the domain of individual meaningful understanding, and hence conscious rationally formed differentiation. A sociology of Verstehen has to be quite clear on this point: that in the very earliest times of human development, the first of these factors is entirely dominant, and in later developmental stages a sociology of this kind must continue to register their constant influence—indeed, their decisively important influence. “Traditional” action27 and large areas of “charisma”28 (wherein lie the seeds of psychic “contagion” and hence sociological spurs to developmental processes) are, in fact, very close to those phenomena conceivable only in biological terms, and which are either inaccessible to construed understanding and motivational explanation, or if in some way accessible, then only in a very fragmentary fashion. But none of this absolves a sociology of Verstehen from its obligation to do what it alone can do, while conscious of the narrow limits to which it is confined.
The various works of Othmar Spann—often full of suggestive ideas alongside occasional misunderstandings and, above all, arguments based on value judgements not accessible to empirical investigation—have quite rightly laid emphasis on the importance for any sociology of a preliminary functional problematic (Vorfragestellung), what he calls a “universalistic method” that is really disputed by no one. We certainly need to know first of all what kind of action is functionally important for “survival” (and more, the maintenance of a specific “cultural distinctiveness”!), together with its importance for a deliberate development of a type of social action. Only then can we pose the question: How does this action come about? What motives define it? One first has to know what a king, an official, a businessman, a pimp, or a magician does—the action that alone stamps them as of this category; hence, before we can move to any analysis, it is important to know with what typical “action” we are dealing (“value-relatedness” in H. Rickert’s sense). Only this analytical perspective is capable, and should be capable, of the sociological understanding of individual human beings (and only human beings) differentiated by type. We should discount the monumental misapprehension that an “individualistic” method involves an individualistic evaluation of any kind, just as we preclude the view that the inevitably rational character of concept formation involves a belief in the primacy of rational motives, or even a positive evaluation of “rationalism.” Even a socialist economy would have to be construed and understood “individualistically,” that is, on the basis of the action of individuals, the types of “functionaries” who arise in it, just as exchange transactions would be understood by marginal utility theory (or a yet-to-be-found “better” alternative that in this respect has a similar method). For even there, the most significant empirical sociological work always begins with the question: Which motives determined, and do determine, the individual functionaries and members of this “community” to behave in such a way that this community was first created, and continues to exist? All functional concept formation that starts at the level of the “whole” is only a preliminary for such an investigation, a preparation whose utility and indispensability—if done properly—no one can dispute.
10. It is usual to call some principles of the sociology of Verstehen “laws”—Gresham’s “Law,” for example. Such principles are formed from observation and represent the typical chances that, given the existence of particular circumstances, we might expect a certain pattern of social action that can in turn be understood in terms of the typical motives and typical intentions of the actor. These motives and intentions are most likely to be understandable and unambiguous where the typical pattern of action observed is founded on purely purposively rational motives—or where such action can for reasons of expediency be attributed to a methodically constructed type—such that the relation between means and ends is clearly unambiguous according to empirical principles; where, for example, the means selected were “unavoidable.” In this case, we might say: if action were strictly purposively rational, then action would have to take this course and no other (for the participants, in pursuing their explicit and specifiable ends, can, for “technical” reasons, avail themselves of these and no other means). This also goes to show how wrong it is to regard some form of “psychology” as the ultimate foundation of a sociology of understanding. Today, everyone has their own and slightly different understanding of “psychology.” The quite specific methodic aims of a natural scientific study of particular processes justifies the separation of the “physical” from the “psychic,” a separation that is in this sense quite alien to the disciplines of action. The “findings” of a “psychic” science really working solely in terms of natural scientific method—and hence not at all along the same lines as a psychology of human action and the intended meaning of such action, whatever methodic form this might take—could, of course, occasionally acquire specific significance for sociological investigation, as might be true of the findings of any other science. This has often happened. But sociology’s relation to psychology is not generally any closer than it is to any other discipline. The mistake lies in the concept of the “psychic”: what is not “physical” is supposed to be “psychic.” But the meaning of an arithmetical calculation that someone makes is of course not “psychic.” When a person makes a rational assessment of whether the anticipated outcomes of a particular course of action advance or injure specific given interests, and according to the result of this assessment makes a particular decision, no “psychological” considerations will make this process a jot more intelligible. Sociology, including economics, constructs most of its “laws” on just such rational assumptions. By contrast, there is no doubt at all that an interpretive psychology can contribute a great deal to the sociological explanation of the irrationalities of action. But that does not alter the fundamental methodological29 position in any respect.
11. Sociology constructs concepts of types and seeks general rules for events—this much has been repeatedly assumed in the foregoing. This contrasts with history, which seeks the causal analysis and imputation of individuated, culturally significant action, constructs, and personalities. Paradigmatically, conceptual formation in sociology takes its material largely, although not wholly, from realities of action that are also relevant to the historical perspective. Sociology likewise forms its concepts and seeks its rules also primarily from the perspective of whether, in so doing, it can be of any service to causal historical imputation with respect to important cultural phenomena. As with any generalising science, its abstractions are necessarily relatively empty of content as compared with the concrete reality of the historical. On the other hand, it does offer enhanced conceptual precision (Eindeutigkeit). This enhancement in precision is achieved through the optimisation of meaningful adequacy for which sociological concept formation strives. Hitherto it has primarily been acknowledged that concept formation of this kind can be most fully realised with respect to rational concepts and rules, whether they be value rational or purposively rational. But sociology also seeks to develop theoretical, meaningfully adequate concepts with respect to irrational phenomena (mystical, prophetic, pneumatic, and affectual phenomena). In all cases, rational or irrational, sociology distances itself from reality and serves knowledge of it in the following way: by registering the degree of convergence of a historical phenomenon to one or more of these concepts, and so placing this phenomenon as part of reality. The same historical occurrence can, for example, be in one respect “feudal”; in another, “patrimonial”; in yet another, “bureaucratic”; or again in another, “charismatic.” If these words are to mean anything unambiguous, sociology has for its part to form “pure” (“ideal”) types of such constructs, each of which displays the consistent uniformity associated with the maximisation of meaningful adequacy, but which because of this degree of conceptual consistency will probably never assume this absolutely ideal pure form in reality, just as little as a physical reaction is calculated assuming absolutely empty space. Sociological casuistry is only possible in terms of pure (“ideal”) types. Of course, sociology also on occasion employs the idea of a statistically average type, a construct that does not require any special methodic elaboration. But when sociology refers to “typical” cases, it can ordinarily be assumed that the reference is to ideal types, which can be rational or irrational and which are for the most part (always in the case of economic theory) constructed rationally, but which are always constructed as meaningfully adequate.
It has to be recognised that in the sociological domain, “averages,” and so “average types,” can only be constructed with some precision only where there are clear differences of degree in action whose meaning is determined by qualitatively similar factors. This does happen. But in the majority of cases, historically or sociologically relevant action is influenced by qualitatively heterogeneous motives from which a genuine “average” cannot be struck. Those ideal-typical constructions of social action made, for example, in economic theory are in this instance “unrealistic” insofar as they ask: How would someone behave given ideal, and hence purely economically oriented, purposive rationality? The question is posed in this way to assist understanding of action that is not purely economically determined but that is in actuality also influenced by traditional constraints, emotions, mistakes, and the influence of noneconomic aims or considerations, so that we might (1) be able to understand the degree to which it is actually jointly influenced in the given instance by economic, purposively rational motivations, or tends to be so when viewed as an average, or also (2) precisely because of the distance separating the actual course of events from their ideal typical course, because it aids in the understanding of real motivation. An ideal typical construction of a consistent, mystically determined, acosmic way of life (in, e.g., politics, or the economy) would necessarily proceed in this way. The more sharply and unambiguously constructed ideal types are (in other words, the more unreal that they are in the sense here), the better they serve their purpose—terminologically, classificatorily, heuristically. Substantive causal imputation with respect to individual events in historical studies here proceeds no differently. If, for example, one seeks to explain the course of the 1866 campaign, we must first determine, for both Moltke and Benedek, how, assuming ideal purposive rationality, they would have manoeuvred had they possessed complete knowledge of their own position and that of their opponent. Then we can compare this with how they did in fact dispose their forces, and hence causally explain the observed difference, attributable as it may be to false information, genuine error, intellectual failure, personal temperament, or extrastrategic considerations. Even here, an ideal typical purposively rational construction is employed, if implicitly.
The structuring concepts of sociology are ideal typical not merely overtly, but also inwardly. Agents engage in real action for the most part in a drearily half-aware condition, perhaps entirely unaware of its “intended meaning.” The actor “senses” meaning more indefinitely than consciously or positively acknowledges it, and generally acts by instinct or habit. Only occasionally, often involving the very frequent repetition of the same action among individuals, does anyone become conscious of a rational or irrational meaning. Genuinely effective, fully conscious, and explicitly meaningful action is always in reality quite a marginal case. Analysis of reality through historical or sociological study has to keep this circumstance constantly in mind. But this should not prevent sociology from constructing concepts by classifying the possible “intended meanings,” as if action were actually conducted with conscious orientation to its meaning. Sociology must constantly keep in view this distance from reality when dealing with substantive, concrete reality, taking into account both its degree and nature.
As regards method, one very often has only a choice between unclear and clear terms, and then unreal and “ideal-typical” terminology. In such a case, the latter are scientifically preferable.30
II. The Concept of Social Action
1. Social action (including refraining from an action, or tolerating a situation) can be oriented to the past, present, or future anticipated action of others (revenge for earlier assaults, resistance to present assault, defence measures taken with respect to future assaults). These “others” can be individual and familiar, or indefinitely numerous and quite unfamiliar (e.g., “money” signifies an exchange good that the actor accepts in an exchange because he orients his action to the expectation that very many other people who are unknown and of indeterminate number will be prepared in the future to accept it in exchange).
2. Not every form of action—even overt action—is “social” action in the sense defined here. Overt action is not social action when it is solely oriented to the anticipated behaviour of material objects. Inner comportment is only social action when oriented to the behaviour of others. Religious behaviour, for example, is not social action when it assumes the form of contemplation, or solitary prayer, and remains so. Or again, economic activity (on the part of an individual) becomes social action only when, and to the extent that, it takes account of the behaviour of third parties. To put this last point quite generally and formally: insofar as this activity reflects acknowledgement by a third party of one’s own effective power of disposal over economic goods. Materially: insofar as in consumption others’ future desires are taken into account and one’s own form of “saving” is oriented accordingly. Or insofar as in production the future desire of a third party determines his orientation, and so forth.
3. Not every form of human contact is social in character; it is social only when one’s own behaviour is sensibly oriented to that of others. The collision of two cyclists is, for instance, a mere event, just like any natural occurrence. On the other hand, their prior efforts to avoid each other, and the succeeding dispute, fisticuffs or amicable discussion, are all “social action.”
4. Social action is identical with neither
a) similar action on the part of many, nor
b) all action influenced by the behaviour of others.
a) If on the street at the beginning of a rain shower, a number of people put up their umbrellas simultaneously, normally the action of any one is not oriented to that of the others, but instead the action of all is a common response to the need for protection against the rain.
b) It is well known that the action of the individual is strongly influenced by the mere fact of being part of a crowd in a confined space (the object of research in “mass psychology,” e.g., in the work of Le Bon). This is action determined by the mass. Even within a dispersed mass, it is possible for the individual to be subject to simultaneous or successive influence, through, for example, the press, where the sensed behaviour of the many influences that of the individual. Particular forms of reaction are facilitated, or hindered, by the mere fact that the individual feels himself part of the “mass.” Consequently, a specific event or human behaviour can evoke quite varied responses—laughter, anger, enthusiasm, despair, passions of every form—that would not be so prompted in a solitary individual, or at least not so easily. In the majority of cases, none of this requires that a meaningful relationship exist between the individual’s behaviour and the fact of his being part of a mass. Action prompted by a reaction to the mere presence of a “mass,” or to which such presence contributed, without there being a meaningful relation, is not “social action” in the sense used here. Naturally, the distinction is a highly fluid one. Differences—both of degree and of intelligible extent—in meaningfulness can be attributed to the “mass condition” not simply in the case of demagogues but also with a mass public itself. Simple “imitation” of an other’s action (the importance of this is rightly emphasised by G. Tarde) should not be conceptualised as specifically “social action” where it is purely reactive, lacking the orientation of one’s own action to that of the other. The boundary is so fluid that often a clear distinction seems impossible. The simple fact that a person adopts from someone else an apparently useful procedure is not social action in our sense. The action is not oriented to the behaviour of the other, but the actor has, through observation of this behaviour, become aware of certain objective Chancen, and it is to these possibilities that his action is oriented. His action is causally, but not meaningfully, determined by the action of others. If, by contrast, the action of another is imitated because it is “fashionable” or is considered to be traditional, exemplary, socially (ständisch) “proper,” or anything similar, then meaning is oriented either to the behaviour of the source of imitation, or to that of third parties, or to both. Naturally, these shade into each other. Both instances, that of mass determination and of imitation, are fluid and borderline cases of social action, as we shall see below in dealing with traditional action, for instance. The reason for this fluidity is to do here as elsewhere with the fact that orientation to the behaviour of others, and the meaning of one’s own action, are not always something that can be established unambiguously or of which one is even conscious, and even more rarely completely conscious. Mere “influence” and meaningful “orientation” are, for this reason, not always easily distinguishable. Conceptually, of course, they can be distinguished, although it goes without saying that simple “reactive” imitation has at least the same sociological consequence as that which represents “social action” in a genuine sense. For this reason, sociology is not only concerned with “social action,” for the sociology pursued here is simply its central referent, what could be said to be constitutive for it as a science. But this is to say nothing about the importance of this referent as compared with that of others.
§2. As with any form of action, social action can be determined either (1) by purposive rationality: through expectations of the behaviour of external objects and other people, and employing these expectations as a “condition” or “means” for one’s own rational ends, as sought after and considered objectives; or by (2) value rationality: through conscious belief in the unconditional and intrinsic value—whether this is understood as ethical, aesthetic, religious, or however construed—of a specific form of particular comportment purely for itself, unrelated to its outcome; or by (3) affect, especially emotion: through actual emotions and feelings; or by (4) tradition: through ingrained habituation.
1. Rigorously traditional behaviour, just like purely reactive imitative behaviour (see the preceding section), lies at the very extreme of what one could dub “meaningfully” oriented action, and it is often quite beyond it. For it is very frequently merely an empty reaction to familiar stimuli following an ingrained pattern. The greater part of everyday action approaches this type, which not only represents a marginal case for any systematic taxonomy but also because adherence to the familiar can be sustained with various degrees of self-consciousness (more about this later) and in different senses; in this case, the type approaches (2) above.
2. Rigorously affectual comportment likewise lies at the boundary, and often beyond, of what is consciously “meaningfully” oriented; it can be uninhibited reaction to some exceptional stimulus. It is sublimated when affectually determined action involves the conscious release of feeling, in which case it usually, but not always, finds itself on its way to “value rationalisation,” or to purposive action.
3. Affectual and value-rational orientation of action differ in their conscious elaboration of the ultimate details of action and consistent planful orientation with respect to these details. Otherwise, they share in common the idea that the meaning of action is not contained in its eventual success but in the particular form taken by the action itself. He who acts according to emotion seeks instant revenge, instant enjoyment, instant dedication, instant contemplative bliss, or seeks to satisfy through abreaction current emotions (no matter how great or sublime they might be).
Whoever acts in a purely value rational manner acts without regard to the foreseeable consequences of action in the service of convictions, following the apparent bidding of duty, honour, beauty, religious pronouncement, piety, or the importance of a “cause” of whatever kind. Value rational action is in our sense always action made at the “bidding” of “demands” that the actor believes to be imposed on him- or herself. We will talk here of value rationality only to the extent that human action is oriented to such demands—something that occurs in greatly varying degrees, and mostly only in a very small number of cases. As we shall see, this form is important enough to be distinguished as a special type, although there is no intention here of establishing an exhaustive typology of action.
4. Whoever acts in a purposively rational manner orients their action to the purpose, means, and associated consequences of an act, and so rationally weighs the relation of means to ends, that of the ends to the associated consequences, and that of the various possible ends to each other; hence, action that is neither affective (especially not emotional) nor traditional. The decision between competing and conflicting aims and consequences can in this way be oriented value-rationally; in this case, only the means are selected by purposively rational criteria. Alternatively, the individual can deal with competing and conflicting aims without resorting to value rationality, taking “dictates” and “demands” simply as given subjective feelings of need arranged on a scale that is consciously balanced according to their urgency, orienting action so that they will, as far as is possible, be satisfied in this sequence (the principle of “marginal utility”). Hence, there are many ways in which the value rational orientation of action can relate to purposive rationality. From the perspective of purposive rationality, however, value rationality must always be irrational, the more so when action is governed by absolute values. For the more that action elevates such absolute values, the less it reflects on the consequence of such action, and the more unconditional do considerations of inner disposition, beauty, the absolute good, and absolute duty become. Absolutely purposive rational action is for the most part a marginal case, however.
5. Action, especially social action, is very rarely oriented solely to the one or the other type. Similarly, these types of orientation are in no way exhaustive with respect to types of action, but are instead conceptually pure types created for sociological ends, to which real action more or less conforms, or from which it is more often combined in reality. Only their outcome can determine their utility for us.
§3. Social “relationship” shall refer to the meaningful content of the mutual disposition of several persons, and comportment arising from such an orientation. A social relationship therefore consists entirely and quite exclusively of the Chance that action will be social in a (meaningfully) manifest sense, leaving to one side for the moment the basis of this Chance.
1. A leading characteristic of the concept shall therefore be the existence in the relationship of a minimum of mutual orientation one to another. The content can be quite various: conflict; enmity; sexual love; friendship; piety; market exchange; “fulfilment,” “evasion,” or “breach” of an agreement; economic, erotic, or other forms of “competition”; or communal relations based on social rank, nation, or class (in the event that these last circumstances create “social action” that goes beyond the mere sharing of this circumstance—more about this below). Hence, the concept implies nothing about “solidarity” between the actors, or its direct negation.
2. It is always a matter of the intended, empirical meaning of participants for each actual or average case, or in a constructed “pure” type—never of a normatively “correct” or metaphysically “true” meaning. A social relationship—even where it is a matter of so-called social constructs such as state, church, cooperative association, marriage, and so forth—consists exclusively and solely in the Chance that action whose meaningful content demonstrably arises from mutually orientated action has occurred, occurs, or will occur. This must be constantly born in mind if one is to avoid a “substantive” view of these concepts. A “state,” for example, ceases to “exist” sociologically with the disappearance of the Chance that particular forms of meaningfully oriented social action occur. This Chance might be very great, or infinitely small. The relevant social relationship exists, or did exist, to the extent and degree that this Chance can be estimated to actually exist, or did exist. There is no alternative and clearer meaning for the statement that, for instance, a particular “state” “exists,” or “no longer exists.”
3. This in no respect implies that those involved in mutually oriented action attribute in each case the same meaning to a social relationship, or that each inwardly reciprocates the orientation of the other, so that “mutuality” arises in this sense. “Friendship,” “love,” “piety,” “contractual fidelity,” “national spirit”—everywhere the sentiments of one side can encounter quite different attitudes on the other. In this case, participants attribute a different meaning to their action—here the social relationship is on both sides objectively “one-sided.” But such action is nevertheless mutually related to the degree that the actor assumes (perhaps entirely, or in part, mistakenly) that their partner has a particular disposition towards the actor, and orients their own action to such expectations; this can have, and usually will have, consequences for the ensuing action and the construction of a relationship. The relationship is naturally also only objectively “mutual” to the degree that the meaningful content for each—according to their average expectations—“corresponds,” such that, for example, the child’s attitude relates to the father’s in a manner at least approximating that which the father expects, whether for each instance, or on average, or typically. A social relationship based on a perfectly symmetrical correspondence of such attitudes is in reality a rarity. Absence of mutuality should in our terminology only rule out the existence of a “social relationship” if there is an actual lack of reciprocity in mutual action. As elsewhere, in reality all kinds of transitional cases are the rule.
4. A social relationship can be quite transitory, or long-lasting—such that there is a Chance that behaviour corresponding to its meaning will recur, that is, anticipated behaviour conforming to its meaning. To avoid any misunderstanding, we must always remember that it is only the existence of this Chance—the greater or lesser probability that action corresponding to this meaning takes place, and nothing more than this—that signifies the “existence” of the social relationship. That a “friendship” or a “state” exists, or did exist, means exclusively and only that: we (the observers) consider that a Chance exists or existed that, given the particular disposition of particular people, action will follow a specifiable path according to an averagely intended meaning—and no more (see the latter part of 2. above). From a legal perspective, there is an unavoidable alternative—that a legal statute with a certain meaning is either legally valid or not, that a legal relationship either exists or not—but this is not applicable to a sociological perspective.
5. The substantive meaning of a social relationship can alter—for instance, a political relationship originally based on solidarity can turn into a conflict of interests. In such cases, whether one says that a “new” relationship has been created, or that the existing relationship has gained a new “substantive” meaning is only a matter of terminological convenience and the degree of continuity in the transformation. Substantive meaning can also be in part perpetual, in part subject to variation.
6. The substantive meaning that perpetuates a social relationship can be formulated in “maxims,” general adherence to which participants expect from their partner(s), and according to which they in return generally orient their action. This is more frequently the case the more (purposively or value) rationally oriented the general character of the action is. With an erotic relationship, or emotional relationships in general (e.g., a relationship of “piety”), the prospect of a rational formulation of the intended substantive meaning is quite naturally much less than that in a contractual business relationship.
7. The substantive meaning of a social relationship can be agreed by mutual consent. This means: those involved make promises regarding their future behaviour, whether towards each other, or otherwise. Each participant—insofar as each calculates rationally—initially assumes (with a varying degree of certainty) that the other will orient their action to that meaning of the agreement understood by the first actor. Actors orient their own action to this expectation partly in a purposively rational manner (expressing some degree of “loyalty”), and partly value-rationally, as a “duty” to “adhere” on their own part to the concluded agreement as understood by them. All this is by way of preliminaries (for the remainder, see §9 and §13 below).
§4. Actual regularities can be observed within social action, that is, regularities whose intended meaning is typically similar in action repeated by the same actor, in action replicated by many actors, or in both of these at the same time. Sociology is concerned with typologies of such modes of action, unlike history, which concerns itself with causal imputation with respect to important, fateful, singular events.
An actually existing Chance of regularity in the orientation of social action will be called a practice if and to the extent that the Chance of its existing among a group of people depends solely on its actual performance. A practice that has become familiar through lengthy exercise shall be called a custom. A custom is regarded as having been “determined by interests” if and to the extent that the Chance of its empirical existence is determined solely by the purposively rational orientation of individual action to similar expectations.
1. “Fashion” is also a practice. By contrast with the definition of “custom,” fashion is a “practice” if the source of an action’s orientation becomes the novelty of the relevant behaviour. It is close to the meaning of “convention,” for these both mostly arise from the prestige accruing to status differences and the interests formed around them. This will not be considered any further here.
2. By contrast with “convention” and “law,” “custom” does not involve an externally guaranteed rule to which the actor actually adheres voluntarily (whether such adherence is “unthinking,” for “convenience,” or for any other reason) and whose probable observance he can for these reasons expect from others belonging to this group of people. Custom would not, in this sense, be something “validating”: no one can “require” its observance, that one conform to it. There is a fluid transition from here to established convention and law. Established actual practices have always been the source of that which is later enforced. Today, it is “customary” that we breakfast every morning in a more or less predetermined way, but there is nothing “obligatory” about this (except for hotel guests) and it was not always a custom. By contrast, forms of dress, even where they are derived from “custom,” are today, for the most part, not only custom but convention. The relevant passages on practice and custom from Ihering’s Zweck im Recht, Bd. II [1883], can still be read with benefit today.31
3. Many very obvious regularities in the course of social action, especially (but not exclusively) in the case of economic action, are in fact quite independent of some “valid” prescribed norm, or of custom. They arise instead solely from the circumstance that the form of social action adopted generally corresponds most closely to participants’ normal, subjective evaluation of their interests, hence orienting their action according to this subjective opinion and understanding. An example of this can be found in the process of price formation in a “free” market. Market agents orient their behaviour purposively, employ it as a “means” in the realisation of their “end”—their subjective, typified, economic interests—and treat others’ prospective behaviour as so many “conditions” for the realisation of this end. The more rigorously purposively rational their behaviour—the greater the degree to which means are matched to a desired end—the more that they react in similar ways to any given situation. From this there arise similarities, regularities, and continuities in outlook and action, and these are often a great deal stronger than action oriented by norms and duties thought of as “binding” for a particular group of people. That the orientation to the naked self-interest of oneself and to that of others creates effects entirely similar in character to those sought (often vainly) in the forcible imposition of uniform conditions. This phenomenon is well known in the economic domain and was a principal source for the development of political economy as a science. But this holds for all domains of action in a quite similar manner. The self-awareness and lack of scruple associated with self-interest is the polar opposite of any kind of inner commitment arising from conformity with the familiar, with “custom”; it also contrasts with a dedication to norms, belief in which is value rational in character. One important component in the “rationalisation” of action is the replacement of this inner conformity to habitual custom by planful adaptation to given interests. Of course, this process does not exhaust the concept of the “rationalisation” of action. For in addition, the process can be positive where there is a conscious rationalisation of values, and negative where it is not only at the expense of custom but also of affective action. Ultimately, the process can also work in favour of nihilistic, purposively rational action at the expense of action linked rationally to absolute values. This ambiguity in the concept of the “rationalisation” of action will be returned to again. (Some conceptual remarks on this can be found in the conclusion.)32
4. The strength of (mere) custom derives for the most part from the fact that he who fails to orient his action to custom acts “inappropriately” and has to put up with greater or lesser humiliation and mortification so long as the action of the majority of those around him presume the continued existence of the custom and is so oriented.
Likewise, the strength of given interests derives from the fact that he who fails to orient his action to others’ interests—does not “count on” them—provokes their opposition, or succeeds in a manner he had neither wanted nor foreseen and, consequently, risks damaging his own interests.
§5. Action, especially social action, and even more specifically, a social relationship, can be oriented by an actor’s conception of the existence of a legitimate order. The Chance that this actually occurs will be called the “validity” of the relevant order.
1. The “validity” of an order means more here than mere regularity of the course taken by social action conditioned by custom or by given interests. If moving companies routinely advertise their services when leases expire, then this regularity is dictated by their “given interests.” If a door-to-door salesman seeks out a specific group of customers on particular days of the month or of the week, then that is either a familiar custom, or alternatively a product of his particular interests (it is his turn to work a given locale). But if an official routinely appears in his office at the same time each day, then that is not only the result of a familiar custom, nor only determined by his given interests to which he can conform or not as he pleases. This happens as a rule generally because of the imperative “validity” of an order (an office rule), infringement of which would not only bring disadvantage but which would normally be abhorrent to his “sense of duty,” a sentiment linked to value rationality but which can manifest itself in numerous ways.
2. We will call the substantive meaning of a social relation
a) an “order” only when action is (on average and approximately) oriented to definable “principles.” We shall
b) only speak of this order being “validated” if this actual orientation to those principles is also in practice followed because these principles are in some way or another recognised as binding or exemplary for the action. In fact, the orientation of action to an order occurs for a wide variety of motives. But besides other motives, the circumstances that for at least a proportion of actors the order seems exemplary, or obligatory, and hence is something that should have validity, naturally increases the Chance that action will be oriented to this order, often to a very significant extent. An order that is internalised only for purely purposively rational motives is generally a great deal more volatile than an orientation based solely on custom, from the sheer familiarity of a mode of behaviour; this is the most frequently encountered internalised attitude. But such an order is even more unstable than an order with the prestige of being considered exemplary or obligatory, or as we might say, which enjoys “legitimacy.” The transition from merely traditional or merely purposively rational motivated orientation to an orientation based on a belief in its legitimacy is, of course, in reality an extremely fluid one.
3. “Orientation” of action to the validity of an order does not only imply “adherence” to its (averagely understood) meaning. Even where this averagely understood meaning is “evaded” or “infringed,” it is likely that this validity will still, to some extent, remain effective as a binding norm. This is initially purely purposively rational. The thief orients his action to the “validity” of criminal law, since he conceals his action. The fact that an order is “valid” within a human group is expressed in the fact that the thief must conceal his violation of the order. Besides this extreme case, violation of an order is mostly limited to numerous more or less partial infringements; or such violations might be represented, with varying degrees of good faith, as legitimate infringements. Or it might happen that several conceptions of the meaning of an order coexist, which (for sociology) can in turn have “validity” to the extent that they do determine actual conduct. Sociology has no difficulty recognising a variety of coexisting, contradictory orders within the same human group, for even the individual can orient his action to mutually inconsistent orders. And this can occur not only successively, as happens daily, but in the self-same action. Anyone involved in a duel orients his action to the code of honour when concealing his action, or, conversely, orients his action to the criminal code if he gives himself up to the police. Of course, if evasion or violation of the generally accepted meaning of an order becomes the rule, then the order retains only a limited “validity” or loses it altogether. For sociology (unlike jurisprudence with its inescapable purpose), there exists no absolute alternative between the validation and the nonvalidation of a particular order. There are instead fluid transitions from one to the other, and as noted above, mutually inconsistent orders can be simultaneously “valid”—each to the extent that there is a Chance that action will actually be oriented to it.
Those familiar with the literature will recall the role played by the concept of “order” in R. Stammler’s work cited above,33 a book that is like all his work no doubt quite brilliantly written, but which is, as I note in the Preamble above, nevertheless fundamentally misconceived and fatally confused in its appreciation of the problems. (See my critique cited there, which unfortunately became rather sharp in form because of my irritation with the confusion engendered.) Stammler not only fails to distinguish empirical and normative validity but also fails to recognise that social action is not only oriented to “orders”; above all, he develops a quite mistaken logical argument in which order becomes the “form” of social action, which is related to “content” in a manner that is analogous to the contrast between “form” and “content” in an epistemological sense (this quite apart from his other mistakes). For instance, action that is predominantly economic in character (see the following chapter) is oriented to the scarcity of disposable means to satisfy need compared with the (assumed) need, and to the present and expected action of third parties who have these same means in view. But such action also involves an orientation in the choice of “economic” measures to those “orders” that the agent recognises as having “valid” laws and conventions; that is, this recognition implies an expectation that a third party will react in a specific manner if these laws and conventions are flouted. Stammler has quite hopelessly muddled these quite simple empirical principles and in particular declared the conceptual impossibility of a causal relationship between an “order” and actual action. There is, of course, no causal relationship between an empirical event and the normative validity of an order in the strictly legal sense; there is only the question of whether the order properly interpreted in the legal sense “applies” to the empirical event. Should the order have normative force for the event? If so, what does this normative prescription imply? By contrast, there is of course a causal relationship in its quite usual sense between the Chance that action will be oriented by a belief (of whatever kind) in the validity of an order and economic action. But for sociology, as opposed to the law, this Chance of orientation by a belief “is” “the” valid order.
§6. The legitimacy of an order can be guaranteed
I. purely inwardly,34 either
1. purely affectively: by instinctive dedication; or
2. value-rationally: by belief in its absolute validity as the embodiment of ultimate, obligatory values (ethical, aesthetic, or of whatever kind); or
3. through religion: by belief that salvation depends on inner adherence to the order;
II. also (or only) by expectations linked to specific external consequences, hence given interests, but also by expectations of a quite particular kind.
An order will be called a
a) convention, where its validity is externally underwritten by the Chance that deviation from its observance will, in a given human group, result in relatively general and in practice tangible disapproval;
b) Law, where its validity is externally underwritten by the Chance that physical or mental coercion will be applied by a specialised staff of people35 whose task is to enforce conformity or punish contravention.
On “convention,” see besides Ihering and Weigelin, F. Tönnies, Die Sitte (1909).36
1. The term convention denotes a “custom” treated as “valid” within a human group and where disapproval acts as a guarantee against infringement. By contrast with the law (as here defined), there is no specialised staff of people charged with its enforcement. Stammler distinguishes convention from law in terms of the absolutely “voluntary” nature of subordination to it, but this does not coincide with common usage, nor is it appropriate for his own examples. Following a “convention” (in the usual sense)—for instance, ordinary greetings, what counts as decent clothing, and the rules governing the form and content of social intercourse—has an obligatory or exemplary force for the individual, on whom such conventions are most definitely imposed, quite without option, and have nothing in common with the mere “custom” of taking one’s meals in a particular way. Violation of a convention such as a “custom marking social rank” is often more effectively and painfully penalised through social boycott than any legal compulsion could effect. All that is missing is the specialised staff charged with enforcing conformity to a specific mode of action (in our case, judges, state attorneys, administrative officials, executors, and so forth). There is no hard and fast distinction, however. The conventional guarantee of an order that comes closest to a legal guarantee is the institution of a formal, threatened, and organised boycott. In our terms, this would be a legal means of compulsion. We are not concerned here with the fact that a convention can be effected by means other than mere disapproval—for example, the invocation of house rules where behaviour flouts convention. For what is decisive here is the fact that it is the individual, by virtue of conventional disapproval, who applies (often drastic) coercive means, and not a dedicated and specialised staff.
2. For the concept of “law” as employed here, the existence of a staff dedicated to its enforcement is its most decisive feature, although for other purposes it might be defined quite differently. This agency, of course, does not have to resemble, in any respect, those with which we are familiar today. In particular, there is no necessary requirement that a “judicial” body exists. A clan fulfils the requirements of this staff in reprisals and feuds if the form of its reaction validates orders of some kind. Of course, this is an extreme case of what we otherwise refer to as “legal compulsion.” The “legal” character of international law has often been disputed because of the absence of transnational coercive force. The terminology employed here for the sake of convenience would in fact not designate as “law” an order guaranteed externally solely though the anticipation of disapproval and retaliation on the part of injured parties, hence guaranteed conventionally and according to given interests, but which lacked a staff whose action was exclusively directed to enforcing adherence to this order. Nonetheless, in legal terminology the opposite could well be the case. The means of coercion are not relevant. Even the “brotherly admonishment” commonly used by many sects as the first step of gentle pressure on sinners belongs—if conforming to a rule and applied by a staff—here. Likewise the use of the censorious reprimand as a means of guaranteeing “moral” behavioural norms. And also, of course, the psychic coercion exercised by church disciplinary methods. There is, of course, “law” guaranteed hierocratically as well as politically, or through the statutes of an association, or through the caretakers of a house, through cooperatives and other unions. The rules of a “commentary” also treat this conceptual definition as “law.” The case of Para. 888, Section 2, of the German Code of Civil Procedure, dealing with unenforceable rights, belong quite naturally here, too.37 “Leges imperfectae” and “natural obligations” are likewise forms of legal language that express indirect restrictions or conditions on the use of coercion. A coercively imposed “rule of moral conduct” is in this respect law (BGB [Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch], Paras. 157, 242). For the concept of “good customs” (i.e., customs that might be approved of and that thus enjoy the sanction of the law), see Max Rümelin in Schwäbische Heimatgabe fuer Theodor Haering.38
3. Not every valid order necessarily has an abstract and general character. A valid “legal principle” and a “legal decision” arrived at in a given case, for instance, would not be as distinct in every circumstance as we are today accustomed to think. An “order” can be simply the order governing a single situation. Any further detail is a matter for legal sociology. To begin with, and where not stated otherwise, for the sake of convenience we shall assume the modern appreciation of the relationship of legal principle and legal decision.
4. Orders that are guaranteed “outwardly” can also be guaranteed “inwardly.” Sociology has no problem with the relation between law, convention, and “ethics.” For sociology, an “ethical” standard is simply one that applies a specific type of value-rational belief on the part of humans as a norm for human action, and which claims the label “ethically good”—in the same way that action labelled “beautiful” is evaluated in terms of aesthetic standards. Conceptions of ethical norms of this kind can have a very profound influence on action, while still having no kind of external guarantee. This tends to happen if the interests of others are barely affected by the violation of such norms. They are, on the other hand, frequently guaranteed by religion. But, in the sense used here, they can also be guaranteed by convention: through disapproval of their violation together with the imposition of a boycott. Or they can also be guaranteed by law: through criminal law, police response, or the consequences of civil law. Every actually “valid” ethic (in the sociological sense) generally tends to be guaranteed by the Chance that disapproval will follow from its violation—and is therefore conventional in our terminology. By contrast, not all conventionally and legally guaranteed orders (necessarily) claim the character of ethical norms, and this is much less often the case with legal orders, which are often formulated in a purely purposively rational manner, than it is with conventional orders. Whether or not a prevailing conception of validity is to be ascribed to the domain of “ethics”—thus as “mere” convention or “mere” legal norm—is a problem to which an empirical sociology can only respond by examining the concept of “the ethical” actually prevailing among that human group. For this reason, nothing can be said about this in general.
§7. Actors can ascribe legitimate validity to an order
a) by virtue of tradition: the validity of the ever-existing;
b) by affective, especially emotional, belief: the validity of the newly revealed, or the exemplary;
c) by virtue of value-rational belief: the validity of that which has been revealed to be absolutely certain;
d) by virtue of positive statute, whose legality is believed.
Legality with such a positive source can be treated as legitimate
α) by virtue of an agreement among interested parties;
β) by virtue of its imposition, on the basis of the legitimacy ascribed to the rule of man by man, and conformity.
Further details (apart from some concepts that will be elaborated below) will be dealt with in the sociology of rule and of law. Here it can be observed that
1. The original and most universal validity ascribed to orders lies in the sanctity of tradition. Superstitious belief in the dangers of magic reinforces psychic inhibition with respect to any sort of change in habitual action, together with the many interests that tend to underwrite conformity to an existing order thought valid, support its maintenance. This will be discussed further in Chapter 3.
2. Conscious formation of new orders originally resulted almost exclusively from prophesy, or at least sanctioned by prophecy and as such thought of as holy, right down to the statutes of the Greek aisymnetai. Conformity depended on belief in the legitimation of the prophet. In the absence of new revelations, during the period in which a rigorous traditionalism prevailed, the formation of new orders, those that would be perceived to be new, was only possible if it was claimed that they had always been valid though not hitherto properly recognised as such, or that they had been obscured for a long time and were now for the first time restored to their rightful place.
3. The purest type of value-rational validity is represented by “natural law.” However limited it may be in comparison with its ideal claims, it cannot be disputed that no little part of its real influence on action derives from its logically constructed principles, and this can be distinguished from revelation, statute, or traditional law.
4. Today, the most common form of legitimacy is a belief in legality: conformity with formally correct statutes that have been established in the usual manner. Here the contrast between an order based on assent and one that is simply imposed is relative, not absolute. For as soon as the former type of order ceases to depend on unanimous agreement—often thought in the past to be a requisite of genuine legitimacy—but depends for its existence on the compliance of a dissenting minority with the will of the majority (as frequently happens), then an order agreed among a majority is in fact imposed on this minority. But the reverse of this is also common: where a minority imposes an order by force, or by virtue of a certain ruthlessness and clarity of purpose, which order is then subsequently accepted as legitimate by those who had previously resisted it. Where “voting” is a legal means for the creation or alteration of orders, it is very common for the minority will to gain a formal majority, and for the majority to comply with this, such that the principle of majority is mere facade. There is a fairly lengthy tradition of belief in the legality of freely agreed orders and examples can be found among so-called primitive peoples, although this is nearly always reinforced by the use of oracles.
5. As a rule, compliance with imposed orders on the part of one or more persons, and so long as mere fear or purposively rational motives play no decisive role but instead conceptions of legality exist, presumes a belief in some form of legitimate rulership on the part of a hegemonic agent or agents (this is dealt with separately below).39
6. As a rule, and besides circumstantial interests of all kinds, compliance with orders is secured through a mixture of an allegiance to tradition and conceptions of legality, except in the case of entirely new statutes. In many instances, here the compliant actor is quite naturally unconscious of whether custom, convention, or law is involved. Here it is the task of sociology to determine the typical form of validity.
§8. A social relation is contested (Kampf) where an actor is oriented to the imposition of their own will on an unwilling partner or partners. “Peaceful” means of conflict are those that do not actually involve physical force. “Peaceful” conflict will be called “competition” where there is a formally peaceful attempt to gain powers of disposition for oneself over Chancen that are also desired by others. “Regulated competition” is where the ends and means of competition are oriented to an order. “Selection” involves the latent contest for the Chance of existence, or of survival, among humans or types, although such contest is not a conscious intention: “social selection” refers to Chancen arising during the lifetime of an actor, and “biological selection” where it concerns the Chance for the survival of inherited characteristics.
1. There is an entirely seamless transition between the two extremes of conflict: from a contest aimed at the destruction of an opponent’s life, refusing any binding rules of engagement, to the conventionally regulated encounters of medieval chivalry. Typical for the latter was the cry of a herald before the battle of Fontenoy: “Messieurs les Anglais, tirez les premiers.”40 Other instances are regulated games (sport); unregulated erotic competition among admirers for the favours of a woman; the regulated, competitive contest for exchange opportunities constrained by market order; regulated artistic “competitions”; and finally, “electoral contests.” The conceptual distinction of violent from nonviolent conflict can be justified by the special nature of the normal means employed, and the particular characteristics of the sociological consequences following from their use (see Chapter 2 and elsewhere).
2. Typical, repeated mass conflict and competition eventually leads, despite all manner of decisive but accidental twists of fate, to the “selection” of that actor who has the greater endowment of those personal qualities essential for success. These qualities might be quite various: greater physical strength or unscrupulous cunning; greater intensity of intellectual capacity; greater stamina; a superior demagogic technique; a greater devotion to superiors, or to the flattering of masses; greater originality or greater social adaptability; more extraordinary qualities, or on the other hand, a greater than average degree of ordinariness. Whatever traits possessed by adversaries, the conditions of conflict and competition work in favour of those who, besides all conceivable forms of such qualities, belong to the orders to which behaviour in the course of conflict is oriented—whether it be traditional, value rational, or purposively rational. Each of these influences the prospect of social selection. Not every form of social selection is a “contest” in the senses used here. “Social selection” means rather that particular forms of comportment, and probably also of personal qualities, are favoured in the possibility of achieving a certain social relationship (e.g., as a “lover,” “husband,” “representative,” “official,” “site foreman,” “general director,” “successful businessman,” and so on). There is no implication here that this Chance of social advantage will be necessarily realised in “conflict,” or indeed whether the biological Chance of survival of the type is thereby improved, or damaged.
We shall only talk of “conflict” where there is genuine competition. All previous experiences demonstrate that conflict is really inevitable only in the sense of “selection”; only in the sense of biological selection is it inevitable in principle. Selection is “eternal” since no means can be conceived that might eliminate it. A rigorously pacifist order is only able to deal with conflict by seeking to eliminate the specific means, objects, and aims of conflict. But this would mean only that other forms of conflict would emerge through open competition. Even on the utopian assumption that all competition was eliminated, conditions would still lead to a (latent) process of selection over Chancen of existence and survival, favouring those with opportunities available to them by virtue of biology or of education and upbringing. The elimination of conflict is limited empirically by social selection, and limited in principle by biological selection.
3. “Conflict” and “selection” that involves social relations must naturally be distinguished from the conflict of individuals for Chancen of existence and survival. In this case, one can only use these concepts in a metaphorical sense, for “relationships” only exist as substantive meanings determined by human action. “Selection” or “conflict” between them means that a particular form of action is displaced over time by another, involving the same people, or a different group of people. This can happen in different ways. Human action can be
a) consciously oriented to: the disturbance of particular, existing social relationships, or to the disturbance of more generally defined social relationships whose substantive meaning corresponds to particular action; or be oriented to an attempt to prevent their foundation, or persistence. Examples would be to seek the destruction of a “state” by war or revolution, or of a “conspiracy” by bloody suppression, the control of “concubinage” by police measures, and of “usurious” commercial dealings by denial of legal protection and punishment; or by consciously seeking to favour the existence of one category over another—individuals or a number of conjoined individuals might pursue such ends. It can also be
b) the unanticipated consequence of a course of social action and the many circumstances conditioning it: that specific relationships, or specific forms of relation (i.e., the corresponding action) have a reduced Chance of persistence or of reformation. Changes to natural and cultural conditions of all kinds work in some way or another to alter the differential Chancen of survival of different social relationships. Anyone can in such circumstances talk of the “selection” of social relationships—for example, that among states the “strongest” (in the sense of the “fittest,” the best adapted) prevails. It must be remembered, however, that this alleged “selection” has nothing to do with the selection of human types in either the sociological or the biological sense. In every single case, one must examine reasons for the displacement of Chancen for this or that form of social action and social relationship; or for the shattering of a social relationship; or for the basis for it being allowed to persist as compared with others. All these reasons are so many and various that no single expression seems appropriate. There is always a danger here of importing evaluations unchecked into empirical research, and above all, justifying the success of a single case where quite individual and “coincidental” reasons played the major part. There have been more than enough examples of this in the past few years. The fact that an actual or qualitatively specific social relationship has been eliminated for reasons particular to a given situation proves nothing about its “adaptability” in general terms.
§9. A social relationship will be called a “communalisation” (Vergemeinschaftung)41 if and to the extent that the disposition of social action rests—in the individual instance, or on average, or as a pure type—on a subjectively felt (affectual or traditional) mutual sense of belonging among those involved.
A social relation will, on the other hand, be called “sociation” (Vergesellschaftung) if and to the extent that the disposition of social action is directed to a balance of rationally motivated interests (whether value rational or purposively rational), or to the connection of interests motivated in the same way. Vergesellschaftung can typically be based on rational agreement arrived at through mutual consent, but not exclusively so. In such a case, sociated action is rationally oriented (a) by value, to a belief in one’s own obligations; or (b) purposively rationally, to the expectation of loyalty from one’s partner.
1. This terminology echoes that distinction used by Ferdinand Tönnies in his pioneering volume Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. However, Tönnies used the distinction in a much more specific way than would be useful here for our purposes. The purest types of sociation are
a) rigorously purposively rational, freely agreed exchange in a market; a current compromise between opposed, but complementary, interested parties;
b) the pure, voluntarily formed, association with specific aims (Zweckverein), continuing purely in the pursuit, by intention and means, of its members’ material interests (both economic and noneconomic);
c) the voluntary association of individuals sharing a common value-rational disposition (Gesinnungsverein): a rational sect to the extent that it disregards emotive and affectual relationships, seeking only to dedicate itself to a “cause” (this, of course, only arises as an entirely pure type in very special cases).
2. Communalisation can have any kind of affective, emotional, or traditional basis. Examples are a religious brotherhood, an erotic relationship, a relation based on piety, a “national” association, or a military unit bound together by comradeship. The easiest example is that of the family community. The great majority of social relationships are part communalisation, part sociation. Even the most soberly conceived and directed purposively rational association (e.g., of retailer and customers) can evoke an emotional allegiance that transcends its chosen purpose. Any long-term social relationships between the same members of such a purposive association, but which transcend that association, a sociation that is not from the very first strictly limited to particular individual activities—for example, sociation within the same military unit, in the same school class, in the same office or workshop—tends in some way in this direction, although of course in quite various ways. By contrast all, or some, of those participating in a social relationship normally thought to be a communalisation can render its orientation, in part or in whole, purposively rational. The degree to which, for example, a “family” is felt by its members to be a “communalisation,” or might be exploited as a “sociation,” is quite variable. The concept of “communalisation” employed here is quite deliberately general, and hence covers a wide range of circumstances.
3. Communalisation is in the sense intended here normally the most radical opposite of “conflict.” But this should not divert our attention from the fact that it is quite normal for there to be violation (Vergewaltigung) of all kinds in the most intimate communalisations with respect to those who are more pliant emotionally, and that “selection” by type, leading to a diversity in Chancen of existence and survival, occurs within these communities in just the same way as anywhere else. By contrast, sociations are very often purely compromises between antagonistic interests, compromises that eliminate (or seek to eliminate) just one element of this antagonism, while leaving unaltered the existing conflict and competition over Chancen arising from it. “Conflict” and community are relative concepts; conflict can assume many forms, the means used being violent or “peaceful,” and the degree of ruthlessness with which such means are applied is likewise quite variable. And as has already been stated, every order of social action, however constituted, in some way permits pure and actual selection to exist in the competition between different human types over life-Chancen.
4. Not every quality, situation, or behaviour shared in common engenders communalisation. For example, the possession of a common biological stock thought to be a “racial” characteristic naturally implies no communalisation among those so identified. External restrictions arising from the environment on marriage and commercial relations might well impose similarities arising from their common orientation to this external environment. But even if they react similarly to this common situation, this does not constitute communalisation, nor in itself does the mere “feeling” of sharing a common situation and its consequences do so. It is only when on the basis of this feeling that their behaviour is in some way mutually oriented that a social relation is formed among them, not only a relation between each of them and their environment, and it is only when this social relationship is registered as such that a “community” can be said to have formed. For example, besides Zionist-oriented circles and the activities of a few other sociations concerned with Jewish interests, Jews have relatively weak social relationships of this sort, and indeed Jews often repudiate the notion of a Jewish “community.” A common language, created by a similarity of tradition reinforced by family and neighbourhood, greatly facilitates mutual understanding, and hence the formation of all social relationships. But in itself, it implies no sort of communalisation; it only fosters intercourse among the relevant group—hence, the formation of sociations. It is not the existence of a common language that promotes communality, but rather a relationship between individuals based on interests of a particular kind; an orientation to the rules of a common language is primarily a means of mutual understanding, not a substantive basis for social relationships in itself. It is only the emergence of conscious differences with respect to third parties that place those in a linguistic community in a common situation, prompting a feeling of community and the formation of sociations whose conscious foundation rests on their common language. Participation in a “market” (see Chapter 2) is structured differently. A market creates sociational relationships between individual exchanging parties, and a social relationship (principally one of “competition”) between prospective exchanging parties, for in each case these agents have to orient their behaviour towards each other. But sociation only develops from this if some of the participants seek to improve their competitive situation or reach agreement on ways to regulate and stabilise transactions. (The market and the commercial economy42 based on it is incidentally the most important type of mutual influence of action by naked interests, as is characteristic of the modern economy).
§10. A social relationship, whether communalisation or sociation, will be called open to outsiders to the degree that participation in the mutual social action oriented to the substantive meaning that constitutes such action is not proscribed by prevailing valid rules to anyone so inclined and able to participate. By contrast, a social relationship is closed to outsiders to the extent that its substantive meaning or its prevailing rules exclude such participation, or restrict or permit it only according to specific conditions. Openness and closedness can be defined traditionally or affectively, by value or by purposive rationality. Rational closure can in particular arise for the following reasons: admission to a social relationship lends participants the Chance that inward or external interests can be satisfied, whether this be on account of the purpose of the relationship itself or because of its successful prosecution, whether it arises from solidaristic action or from a balance of interests. If the participants anticipate that wider dissemination of the relationship will improve the degree, nature, certainty, or value of their own Chancen, then they are interested in the openness of the relationship; if on the other hand they anticipate that their own Chancen are improved by monopolising it, then they will be interested in closure against outsiders.
A closed social relationship can secure its monopolised Chancen to participants in a number of ways. Such allocation might be (a) freely arrived at, (b) regulated or rationed by degree and form, or (c) appropriated43 on a more or less permanent basis by specific individuals or groups. This represents internal closure. Appropriated Chancen can be called “rights.” According to the order concerned, such appropriation can be made (1) to those participating in particular communities and associations (e.g., communal households); or (2) to individuals, and here a distinction can be made between (a) purely personal appropriation, and (b) appropriation made in such a way that, in the event of the death of the person enjoying such Chancen, one or more persons linked to them by a social relation, by birth (kinship), or by designation succeeds to the appropriated Chancen. It can also made by (3) the holder (a) transferring the Chance to a particular person, or finally, (b) transferring the Chance to any number of others in a more or less free manner through agreement (alienable appropriation). A party to a closed relationship will be called a member (Genosse), and where participation is regulated in such a way as to secure Chancen to that party, a legal member (Rechtsgenosse). Chancen that are appropriated to individuals through inheritance, or to heritable communities or associations, will be called property (of the relevant individuals, communities, or associations), and where appropriated as an alienable Chance, free property.
The apparently useless and “wearisome” definition of these circumstances is illustrative of the fact that what is “taken for granted” because tangible and familiar tends to be “thought” about least.
- 1. a) traditionally closed communities tend, for example, to be those whose membership is based on family relationships;
b) personal relationships based on feelings tend to be affectively closed (relationships of an erotic or pious nature);
c) communities that are closed with regard to value rationality tend to be communities of strict belief;
d) economic organisations (Verbände) of a monopolistic or plutocratic character are typically closed and purposively rational.
A few examples can be cited here:
The extent to which a linguistic sociation is open or closed depends on content (light conversation as opposed to intimate or business communication). The market relation tends in the main to be open. We can observe that many communalisations and sociations alternate between expansion and closure. This is true of gilds, for example, and also of the democratic cities of ancient and medieval times, whose members alternately expanded and contracted their number, sometimes seeking as great a number as possible as a means of securing their Chancen through power, while at other times they sought to restrict such growth in the interest of their monopoly. A similar process can be observed in monastic orders and sects, shifting from expansion in the interests of religious propaganda to restriction as a way of maintaining ethical standards, or for material reasons. There is a similar relationship between the extension of the market in the interest of greater turnover, and its monopolisation. Today, the interests of writers and publishers lead as a matter of course to greater uniformity of language (Sprachpropaganda), as contrasted to private languages formerly closed by social rank, or privy to particular persons.
2. The means and extent of regulation and external closure can be quite various, so that the transition from openness to regulation and closure is fluid. The most varied levels of condition for participation can be set: admission tests; probationary periods; the purchase of a share in the membership; election of new members by ballot, membership, or eligibility by birth (heritability), or by virtue of competitions open to anyone; or (where there is closure and the appropriation of rights) through the attainment of an appropriate right—membership conditions are graduated in a wide variety of ways. “Regulation” and outward “closure” are therefore relative concepts. An exclusive club, a theatre performance for which entry is by ticket, a widely advertised party rally, a church service open to all, the act of worship of a sect and a secret society—all sorts of transitions are conceivable.
3. Inner closure—among the agents themselves and in their relationship to each other—can also assume the most various forms. For example, a caste, a gild, or even a stock exchange association can be closed externally while at the same time offering free competition among members for the allocation of all Chancen so monopolized, or it might strictly allocate to each member Chancen with respect to clients or business prospects for life, or on a heritable and alienable basis, as in India. Or an externally closed agricultural community (Markgenossenschaft) may allow its members either free use of its resources, or allocate them strictly to individual households, while a closed group of settlers might permit use of land in common, or assign specific holdings on a permanent basis. In all these cases, a wide variety of intermediate conditions can be found. Historically, closure of eligibility to fief, benefices, and offices within the group, and their assignment to those with right of enjoyment, has assumed a wide variety of forms, and can continue to do so. This is why the development of “works councils” could be, but does not have to be, the first step in a sequence where eligibility and the holding of positions in the workplace runs from the closed shop,44 on the one hand, to a right to a particular position on the other; a preliminary stage for this is prohibition of dismissal without the agreement of workers’ representatives. Details of this must be reserved for substantive individual studies. The greatest extent of permanent appropriation occurs where particular Chancen are guaranteed to an individual, or particular groups of individuals such as households, clans, or families in such a way that
1. in case of death, their transfer to specified persons is regulated and guaranteed by orders; or
2. the possessor of such Chancen is free to transfer them to any third party, who thereby becomes a participant in the social relationship. This is, therefore, in the case of such internal appropriation, at the same time outwardly a relatively open relationship (to the extent that this relationship does not require the acquisition of membership to be subject to the agreement of other legal members).
4. The motivation for closure can be
a) the maintenance of quality and also probably thereby of prestige, with the associated Chancen of honour and (probably) profit. Examples here are groups of ascetics, monks (especially the Indian case of mendicant orders), (Puritan!) sects, warriors, ministerial and other officials, political citizenry (e.g., in antiquity), craft gilds;
b) the growing scarcity of Chancen in relation to consumption needs (the “margin for consumption”); monopoly of consumption (archetype, the agrarian community);
c) the growing scarcity of Chancen of acquisition (the “scope for acquisition”): monopoly of acquisition (archetype—guilds, or the old fishery organisations, and so forth). The first motivation is usually found in combination with the second or the third.
§11. A social relationship can, for those involved according to tradition or statute, have as a consequence
a) that particular kinds of action are imputed by each participant to all (in “solidarity”), or
b) the action of particular participants (“representatives”) can be imputed to the other members (“the represented”), such that they both enjoy the Chancen or bear the consequences.
Power of representation (authority) can be appropriated as prevailing rules dictate
- completely, in all its forms and degrees (self-appointed authority), or
- in accordance with particular criteria, whether permanently or for a specified period, or
- by specific acts on the part of members or third parties, temporarily or permanently (statutory authority).
Whether social relationships (communities or societies) are treated as solidaristic or as representative is determined by a number of factors, and it can be said quite generally that the degree to which action is directed towards (a) violent conflict or (b) peaceful exchange is decisive here, while recognising that only individual studies would identify the numerous special circumstances critical to this issue. Naturally, this tends to follow the least where purely ideal goods are pursued with peaceful means. The degree of outward closure is often, but not always, linked to the incidence of solidarity or power of representation.
1. “Imputation” can imply in practice:
a) Both passive and active solidarity: everyone is answerable for the action of one participant in the same way that that each is answerable for their own; on the other hand, all have just as legitimate claim to the use of Chancen secured in that way. Responsibility can be towards spirits or gods, hence religiously oriented. Or it can be with respect to other humans, in this case regulated conventionally or legally—the former including blood feuds within clans or reprisals against the inhabitants of a city or fellow nationals; the latter, the punishment of relatives or of fellow household members or of communal members, or personal liability on the part of members of a household or of a commercial partnership for each others’ debts.—Solidarity in relation to gods has also had important consequences for ancient Israeli, Christian, and Puritan communities.
b) But it can also (at least!) only mean that that those involved in a closed relationship governed by tradition or statute consider themselves legally entitled to the enjoyment of Chancen of whatever kind (especially economic Chancen) procured by a representative. Examples are the “validity” of powers of disposal exercised by the “executive committee” of an “association” or on the part of the representative of a political or economic organisation with respect to material goods that are intended to be used “for the purposes of the organisation.”
2. “Solidarity” is typically found
a) in traditional communities based on birth or the sharing of a common way of life (typical—the household and the clan);
b) in closed relationships that maintain monopolised Chancen by their own use of violence (typical—political organisations, especially in the past, but most extensively during wartime, including those of the present);
c) in sociations based on acquisition whose activity is conducted personally by its participants in person (typical—an open trading company);
d) in some cases, in societies based on labour (typical—the artel). “Representation” is most frequently encountered in organisations formed for a specific purpose, or statutory bodies, especially where funds have been collected for a specific purpose and require administration (more on this in my treatment of legal sociology).
3. Power of representation is conferred according to “criteria” when, for example, this occurs by seniority or some other rule.
4. The details of these circumstances cannot be dealt with here; they must be investigated in individual sociological studies. The most ancient and universal phenomenon here is that of reprisal, whether for purposes of revenge or of hostage taking.
§12. An organisation is an externally regulating limited or closed social relationship if the observance of its order is guaranteed by the behaviour of particular persons charged specifically with its implementation, such as a director (Leiter) and, quite possibly, of an administrative staff that normally also has powers of representation, where appropriate. Control of the managing instance, or participation in the activity of the administrative staff—the “governing powers”—can be permanently, or temporarily, or for particular cases, assigned (a) by appropriation, or (b) by prevailing organisational orders, to particular persons, or to persons selected for particular characteristics, or to persons selected according to particular forms. “Organisational action” will mean (a) the legitimate action of the administrative staff itself in the realisation of the order by virtue of its governing powers or powers of representation; or (b) action by organisational participants directed by ordinances of the organisation.
1. Whether this involves a communalisation or sociation has no initial consequences for our conceptual definition. The presence of a “director” should suffice: a head of a household, chairman of an association, chief executive, prince, state president, or head of a church who is committed to the implementation of the organisational regime. For this specific form of action is oriented not simply to the order itself, but also to the enforcement of such action, and sociologically this adds an entirely new feature to the existence of a closed “social relationship.” For not every closed communalisation or sociation is an “organisation”—for instance, an erotic relationship or a leaderless clan community is not.
2. The “existence” of an organisation depends entirely on the “presence” of a director, and possibly of an administrative staff. To put it more exactly: on the existence of the Chance that there is action by specifiable persons whose meaning lies in the effort to execute the organisation’s orders and that there are therefore people “committed” to act in this sense. It is initially a matter of conceptual indifference whether this disposition arises from traditional, affective, or value-rational dedication (feudal fealty, loyalty to an office, or to a service), or from purposively rational interests (in a salary and so forth). In our terminology, an organisation is no more than the Chance that action will take its course oriented in the way described. In the absence of the Chance of such action by a staff or a specifiable individual in the manner defined, there is in our terminology just a “social relationship” and no “organisation.” The organisation “exists” for as long as the Chance of such action being performed exists, sociologically speaking, despite the change of personnel who orient their action to the order in this way. (The purpose of this form of definition is to include exactly this circumstance.)
3. a) Besides the action of the administrative staff itself, or under its leadership, there may be other cases in which members’ action is intended to uphold the realisation of the order (contributions or personal services of all kinds serving the common good, such as jury or military service).
b) The prevailing order can also include norms to which the action of members should be oriented in other matters; for example, the laws of the state do not only enforce the prevailing organisational order, but secure “private economic” action serving individual interests, as in “civil” law. In the case of a), we can refer to “action related to the organisation,” whereas in b) we might refer to “action regulated by the organisation.” Only the action of the administrative staff itself, together with all planful action under its direction, should be called “organisational action.” “Organisational action” would, for instance, be engaged in by all those involved in a war that a state “waged,” or a contribution decided on by an association’s managing committee, or a “contract” concluded by the director and whose “validity” is compulsorily imposed on members of the organisation, and to which it is assumed all will conform (§11); also “legal proceedings” and “administration.” (See also §14.)
An organisation can be
a) autonomous or heteronomous;
b) autocephalous or heterocephalous.
Autonomy means that the order cannot (as in heteronomy) be subordinated to the statutes of outsiders, but only by members by virtue of being members (and regardless of how this is done). Autocephaly means that the executive and corporate staff act according to the directives of their own organisation and are not subject to directives (of whatever kind) from outsiders, as with heterocephaly.
An instance of heterocephaly occurs where Canadian provincial governors are appointed by the central government. A heterocephalous organisation can also be autonomous, and an autocephalous can be heteronymous. An organisation can be partly the one, and partly the other, in both respects. Autocephalous German states were, despite their autocephalous status, heteronymous within the sphere of competence of the Reich, but autonomous in matters relating to church and school. Alsace Lorraine enjoyed a degree of autonomy within the German Reich before 1918, but was also heterocephalous since the governor was appointed by the Kaiser. All of these circumstances can coexist to a degree. An organisation that is entirely heteronymous as well as heterocephalous (such as a “regiment” within an army) can usually be said to be a “part” of a larger whole. Whether this is in fact the case or not depends on the actual extent of independence in the orientation of action in each individual case and is terminologically a pure matter of convenience.
§13. The statutory orders of a sociation may originate
a) by voluntary agreement; or
b) through imposition and compliance.
The governing power of an organisation may claim a legitimate power to impose new orders. The constitution of an organisation denotes the actual Chance—varying in degree, form, and preconditions—of compliance with the power of imposition enjoyed by the existing governing bodies. Prevailing rules might specify that among these preconditions particular groups or sections of the corporate membership be heard, or be called upon to express their agreement, in addition to which there are the most varied other possible preconditions.
An organisation’s orders can be imposed on members and also, in particular circumstances, on nonmembers. Territorial circumstances are especially relevant here (presence, place of birth, performance of certain actions in the area). This is “territorial validity” (Gebietsgeltung). An organisation whose order is imposed primarily by virtue of territorial validity will be called a “territorial organisation,” regardless of the extent to which the claim of validity over its own members only has a territorial basis (which is possible, and at least occasionally occurs).
1. An imposed order in the sense used here is any order not established on the basis of a free personal agreement by all participants. This includes therefore a “majority decision” with which a minority complies. The legitimacy of a majority decision therefore (see later in the sociology of rule and law) often goes unrecognised for a long time or gives rise to problems (see, e.g., the position of medieval estates, or the Russian obsnchina45 right up to the present day).
2. It is generally acknowledged that even formally “free” agreements are often in fact imposed (as in the obsnchina). As far as sociology is concerned, it is the actual nature of the relationship that is important.
3. The concept of “constitution” used here is the same as that used by Lassalle. It is not the same as a “written” constitution and is certainly quite distinct from the legal sense. The sociological question is simply: when, involving which objects, within which boundaries, and (probably) under which special conditions (e.g., approval on the part of gods or priests, or the assent of elected bodies) do the members of a corporate body accept the leadership of the executive, and under what conditions is the administrative staff and corporate conduct at its disposal when the executive “makes decisions,” or in particular, when the executive imposes orders.
4. The principal type of imposed “territorial validity” is in political corporate bodies: the norms of criminal law and many other “legal statutes” for which residence, birthplace, location of action, or place of realization, and so forth, in the territories of the organisation are preconditions for the application of the order.46
§14. An order regulating the action of an organisation will be called an “administrative order.” An order that regulates other social action and guarantees to actors Chancen that such regulation creates will be called a regulatory order. Insofar as an organisation is oriented only to orders of the first kind, it will be called an “administrative organisation”; insofar as an organisation is solely oriented to the second, it will be called a regulatory organisation.
1. Of course, the majority of organisations include both characteristics. A solely regulatory order would, for instance, be the theoretically possible pure form of a state based on the rule of law, a regime of absolute laissez-faire that would naturally also involve the transfer of monetary regulation to the private sector.
2. On the concept of “organisational action,” see §12, no. 3. The concept of “administrative order” includes all rules that govern the behaviour of the administrative staff as well as that of members “in respect to the organisation,” as one says, behaviour that is directed to those ends whose attainment prescribed, planfully oriented action on the part of both administrative staff and organisation members strives to secure. In a pure communist economic system, practically all social action would fall under this category, whereas in a state strictly based on the rule of law only the action of judges, police authorities, jurors, and soldiers, and the activity of legislators and voters, would do so. In general—although not in every case—the boundary between administrative and regulatory orders coincides with the political distinction of “public” and “private” law. (More detail on this in the sociology of law.)
§15. Activity (Betrieb) is continuous purposive action of a particular kind; an enterprise (Betriebsverband) is a sociation with a continuous and purposively acting administrative staff.
An association (Verein) is a voluntary organisation whose statutes are valid only for those who are members by virtue of joining on a personal basis.
An institution (Anstalt) is an organisation whose statutes can, within a given domain, be (relatively) successfully imposed on all whose action has specified particular characteristics.
1. The concept of “activity” naturally includes the prosecution of political and ecclesiastical affairs and of associations so long as these are characterised by purposeful continuity.
2. “Association” and “institution” are both organisations with rational (planful) statutory orders. Or more exactly: an organisation should be called a “voluntary association” or an “institution” insofar as it has rational statutory orders. The prime instance of an “institution” is the state, along with all its auxiliary heterocephalous organisations—and the church, so long as its orders are rationally expressed as statutes. The orders of an “institution” make a claim of validity for all who meet particular characteristics (place of birth, residence, use of certain facilities), whether or not they have joined in person (as with an association), or contributed to the formation of the organisation’s rules. They are therefore imposed orders in a quite specific sense. The institution can in particular be a territorial organisation.
3. The contrast between an association and an institution is relative. The rules of an association can affect the interests of third parties, and recognition of their validity can then be imposed on such third parties, through usurpation or simply by the arbitrary power of the association, or by legal statute (e.g., the law regulating share dealing).
4. It hardly needs emphasising that “association” and “institution” do not exhaust all conceivable organisations. They are, furthermore, “polar” contrasts (e.g., as are “sect” and “church” in the religious domain).
§16. Power can be defined as every Chance, within a social relationship, of enforcing one’s own will even against resistance, whatever the basis for this Chance might be.
Rulership is the Chance that a command of a particular kind will be obeyed by given persons. Discipline is the Chance that, because of a practised disposition, a command will find prompt, automatic, and schematic obedience among a definite number of persons.
1. The concept of “power” is sociologically amorphous. Any conceivable quality of a person, and all conceivable constellations, can place someone in a position of being able to enforce one’s own will in a given situation. The sociological concept of “rulership” must therefore be more precise and can be used only in the sense of the Chance: that a command will meet with compliance.
2. The concept of “discipline” includes the “habituation” characteristic of uncritical and unresisting mass obedience.
The fact of rulership turns only on the presence of one person successfully issuing commands to others, independently of the existence of an administrative staff or of an organisation, although in all normal cases one of these is true. An organisation will be called a ruling organisation (Herrschaftsverband) insofar as its members are subordinated, by virtue of a valid order, to relationships of rule (Herrschaftsbeziehungen).
1. The head of a household rules without an administrative staff. The Bedouin chief raising tribute from caravans, persons, and goods passing his stronghold exercises domination by employing his followers as an administrative staff able to forcibly impose themselves on a changing and indefinite number of individuals who, though not common members of an organisation, find themselves in a common situation. (This kind of rule would also be theoretically conceivable where one person acted without any administrative staff.)
2. Thanks to the existence of an administrative staff, an organisation is always, to some extent, a ruling organisation. But the concept is relative. The normal ruling organisation is also as such an administrative organisation. The way the organisation is administered, the character of the persons doing the administrating, by what means administrative functions are carried out, the objects administered, and the extent of its effective jurisdiction all determine the specific nature of the organisation. The first two of these are especially dependent on the way the legitimate basis of rule is founded. (On this, see Chapter 3.)
§17. A political organisation will be called a “ruling organisation” to the extent that its existence and the validity of its orders can be continually guaranteed within a given geographical area by the application and threat of physical coercion by an administrative staff. An institutionally organised political enterprise (Anstaltsbetrieb) will be called a state if, and to the extent that, its administrative staff can lay claim to a monopoly of legitimate physical force in the execution of its orders. Social action is “politically oriented,” especially also organisational action, when it is directed to influence over the leadership of a political organisation, in particular, the appropriation, expropriation, redistribution, or allocation of powers of government.
A ruling organisation will be called hierocratic where it guarantees its order through the employment of psychic coercion through the distribution or denial of religious benefits (hierocratic coercion). A church is a hierocratic institutional enterprise where its administrative staff lays claim to the monopoly of legitimate hierocratic coercion.
1. Violence is of course neither the sole, nor the usual, administrative means employed by political organisations. Their leaders have instead made use of all possible means for the realisation of their ends. But the threat of violent means, and possibly their use, is their specific means and always the last resort when other means fail. It is not only political organisations that have used, and do use, violence as a legitimate means, but just as much clans, households, gilds, and, in the Middle Ages, sometimes all who were entitled to bear arms. Beside the use of violence as a means of securing “order,” the political organisation is characterised by the manner in which its administrative staff claim rule over a definite territory and secure it by force. Where organisations make use of force—whether it is a village community, single households, or organisations of gilds or workers (“councils”)—they must to this extent be called political organisations.
2. Neither a political organisation, nor the “state,” can possibly be defined in terms of the purpose of its organisational action. In everything from the provision of food to the patronage of art—there is no conceivable purpose that political organisations have not at one time or another pursued, and none at all from the protection of personal security to the administration of justice. The “political” character of an organisation can therefore only be defined in terms of the means not necessarily unique to it, and sometimes becoming an end in themselves, but all the same specific to it and indispensable to its nature: violence. Linguistic usage does not entirely conform to this, but without being made more precise, it is quite unusable. One talks of the “foreign exchange policy” of the Reichsbank, of the “financial policy” of the managers of an association, or of the “educational policy” of a commune and means by this the planful treatment and execution of a particular substantive matter. In a much more characteristic manner we separate from others the “political” aspect or implication of an issue or matter, or the “political” official, the “political” newspaper, the “political” revolution, the “political” club, the “political” party, and the “political” consequences of action; from others such as the economic, cultural, or religious aspects of the persons, affairs, or processes in question. By “political,” here we generally mean that which is linked to relations of rule related to (in our usage) a “political” organisation, the state. We refer in this way to factors likely to maintain, alter, overthrow, hinder, or promote the interests of the state, as distinct from persons, things, and processes that have nothing to do with it. This usage therefore seeks to bring out the features shared by the various means of exercising rulership within the state to enforce its order, abstracting them from the ends they serve. Hence, it is legitimate to claim that the definition made here is only a more precise form of common usage in that it sharply emphasises the most characteristic of those means: the actual or threatened use of violence. Of course, everyday language applies the term “political” not only to organisations that are the agents of the legitimate use of violence but also to parties and clubs that seek to influence the action of a political organisation quite peaceably. We wish to make a distinction here between this kind of “politically oriented” social action and genuine “political” action (the organisational action of political organisations as defined in §12, no. 3).
3. Since the complete development of the concept of the state is quite modern, it is best to define it in terms of the modern type, while at the same time abstracting from those changing substantive purposes with which we are familiar today. Formally characteristic of the modern state is an administrative and a legal order subject to change by statute, to which the organised activity of the administrative staff, likewise governed by statute, is oriented. This order lays claims to validity not only for its members—citizens, the majority of whom have acquired membership by birth—but also to a great extent over all action taking place under its jurisdiction. Today, the use of force is considered “legitimate” only to the degree that it is permitted or prescribed by the state (e.g., reserving the “right of chastisement” to the head of the household as a survival of the former independent power of the head that stretched to a power to decide on life or death for children or slaves). This manner in which the state lays claim to the monopoly of violent rule is as essential a current feature as its character as a rational “institution” and continuing “organisation.”
4. In formulating the concept of a hierocratic organisation, we cannot use the nature of its prospective religious sanctions—worldly, otherworldly, external, inner—as decisive characteristics; rather, their ministration can form the basis for spiritual rule over men and women. What is most characteristic of the concept of church, even in common (and practical) usage, is that the forms of its orders and administrative staff are expressive of a rational, compulsory organisation and that it claims monopolistic rule. The normal striving of a church institution for monopoly suits its own hierocratic territorial rule and parochial territorial constitution, although from case to case the means through which this monopolistic claim is effected differ. But, just as for the political organisation, actual monopolistic rule over a given territory was not essential in former times, and is not at all so today. This “institutional” character, especially the circumstance that one is “born into” a church, distinguishes a “church” from a “sect,” whose characteristic feature is that of an “association” that admits on a personal basis only those who are religiously qualified. (More detail on this belongs in the sociology of religion.)
1. “Ueber einige Kategorien der verstehenden Soziologie,” Logos 4 (1913): 253–94; Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, 5th ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1982; henceforth WL), pp. 427–74.
2. Karl Jaspers, Allgemeine Psychopathologie. Ein Leitfaden für Studierende, Ärzte und Psychologen (Berlin: J. Springer, 1913); Heinrich Rickert, Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung. Eine logische Einleitung in die historischen Wissenschaften, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck, 1913); Georg Simmel, Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie. Eine erkenntnistheoretische Studie, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1905).
3. Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld, Die Herrschaft des Wortes. Untersuchungen zur Kritik des nationalökonomischen Denkens (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1901).
4. Ferdinand Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundbegriffe der reinen Soziologie, 2nd ed. (Berlin: K. Curtius, 1912).
5. Rudolf Stammler, Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung. Eine sozialphilosophische Untersuchung, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Veit, 1906); “R. Stammlers ‘Ueberwindung’ der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung,” in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, Bd. 24 H. 1 (1907): 94–151; WL, pp. 291–359.
6. Georg Simmel, Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, Duncker und Humblot, Leipzig (Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1908); Philosophie des Geldes (Lepizig: Duncker und Humblot, 1900).
7. Sinn. WuG, p. 1.
8. Here subjektiver Sinn. Parsons (TSEO, pp. 88–9n3) discusses the translation of Sinn and adjectival derivatives, indicating that he consistently translates it as “meaning.” In fact, he often qualifies this as “subjective meaning,” a redundancy in Weber’s sense and an addition that can be misleading. E & S follows this practice. “Subjective” is only used in this translation where Weber explicitly uses subjektiv.
9. Weber’s concatenating lists are usually placed undivided within the body of his paragraphs, but I have opted here and below to open them out the so that the reader is able to see more clearly the distinctions he makes.
10. Evidenz. TSEO (p. 90): “clarity and verifiable accuracy of insight and comprehension”. Note 6 on the same page does draw attention to the difficulties of translating the term, Parsons stating that his response is to employ a range of terms that seem fitting to the context. Although “verification” is intelligible with respect to the philosophy of science, it is too strongly suggestive of empirical evidence.
11. Intellektuel, that is, not geistig.
12. “desto schwieriger uns durch die einfühlende Phantasie nacherlebend verständlich zu machen.” Nacherlebend is consistently translated here as an inner “reliving,” whereas Einfühlen is rendered as “empathy.”
13. This refers to when the River Ems broke into a low-lying area; MWG I / 23, p. 153n15.
14. E & S, p. 8n7 (p. 58), follows TSEO (p. 94n12) in stating that aktuell is translated as “observational,” a translation that carries with it undesirable baggage, however. Aktuell denotes something that is “live,” “here and now,” contemporary, and I have therefore rendered it as “direct and immediate” (since the use of “contemporary” or “immediate” on their own might be ambiguous). My translation otherwise follows Parsons closely here, since his rendering is unusually lucid.
15. See the following section for clarification of the causal significance of this “explanation.” [MW]
16. TSEO (p. 96) and E & S (p. 9) render this last passage “the maximisation of economic advantage.” There is no warrant for this since Weber simply qualifies Zweck with (Wirtschaft).
17. On the purpose of such constructions, see my article “Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, Bd. 19 (1904): 64 ff. [MW]; as reprinted in WL, pp. 190ff., and section 8 below.
18. TSEO (p. 97) and E & S translate Soziologie here as “sociologist.”
19. See the examples given by Simmel in his Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, pp. 9–14 (MWG I / 23, p. 156n22). [MW]
20. Generally known as “bad money drives out good,” the “law” suggests that where coins of differing base metal content circulate at equal face values, the more valuable coins will tend to be withdrawn from circulation.
21. Parsons interjects “empirical” twice in his version of this sentence. TSEO, p. 100.
22. Albert Eberhard Friedrich Schäffle, Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers: encyclopädischer Entwurf einer realen Anatomie, Physiologie und Psychologie der menschlichen Gesellschaft mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Volkswirthschaft als socialen Stoffwechsel, 4 vols. (Tübingen: H. Laupp, 1875–1878).
23. Parsons (TSEO, p. 103n25) uses “reification” here, which is an extremely unfortunate decision since in his explanation he betrays no awareness of its Hegelian resonance, noting that the idea is similar to Whitehead’s “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.”
24. Parsons dissents from this view in a long footnote. TSEO, p. 104n27.
25. August Friedrich Leopold Weismann, Die Allmacht der Naturzüchtung; eine Erwiderung an Herbert Spencer (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1893); Alexander Götte, Lehrbuch der Zoologie (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1902).
26. Karl Escherich, Die Termiten oder weissen Ameisen. Eine biologische Studie (Leipzig: W. Klinkhardt, 1909.
27. See §2 below. [MW]
29. Here Weber does write methodologisch, not methodisch as elsewhere.
30. See “Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis.” [MW]
31. See also Paul Oertmann, Rechtsordnung und Verkehrssitte. Zugleich ein Beitrag zu den Lehren von der Auslegung der Rechtsgeschäfte und von der Revision (Leipzig: Deichart, 1914), and most recently, Ernst Weigelin, Sitte, Recht und Moral (Berlin: Rothschild, 1919), which is in agreement with my criticism of Stammler. [MW]
32. It is not clear which passage Weber is referring to here; it is certainly not the end of this chapter.
34. Innerlich (subjective), E & S, p. 33, is not Parsons’s translation, but that of Roth and Wittich. In fact, E & S diverges markedly from TSEO in §6. See TSEO, p. 127n52.
35. Stab in Weber; Roth and Wittich omit the important qualification, but it is retained in Parsons. Altogether, Parsons’s (TSEO, p. 127) original translation is here closer to the original than that of Roth and Wittich (E & S, p. 34). Starting at this point, the Roth and Wittich version diverges at times quite dramatically from that of Parsons, whose translation becomes the more reliable of the two.
36. Ferdinand Tönnies, Die Sitte (Frankfurt am Main: Rütten & Loening, 1909).
37. MWG I / 23, p. 188n69, outlines the protocol of 30 January 1877 that details how a third party can resort to civil process for enforcement, except in the case of the breakdown of a marriage or where a contract to provide services exists.
38. Theodor Haering, ed., Schwäbische Heimatgabe fuer Theodor Haering zum 70. Geburtstag (Heilbronn: Salzer, 1918).
40. “Englishmen, please fire your opening shots.”
41. In TSEO, p. 136n65, Parsons draws attention to the difficulties inherent in translating Vergemeinschaftung, which derives from Tönnies’s distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. See the discussion in the Translation Appendix.
42. For Verkehrswirtchaft, TSEO (p. 139) has “competitive economy.”
43. See the discussion of Weber’s usage of Appropriation in the Translation Appendix.
44. English in original, without quotation marks, as in TSEO, p. 142.
45. A rural Russian community; see Steven A. Grant, “Obshchina and mir,” Slavic Review 35 (1976), pp. 636–51.
46. See the concept of “territorial corporation” as used by Otto Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, Bd. 2: Geschichte des deutschen Körperschaftsbegriffs (Berlin: Weidmann, 1868), and Hugo Preuß, Gemeinde, Staat, Reich als Gebietskörperschaften. Versuch einer deutschen Staatskonstruktion auf Grundlage der Genossenschaftstheorie (Berlin: Springer, 1889.