Important Concepts of Marx Weber

Introduction
The Concepts of Legitimacy and Authority

On the Concept of Domination or Authority
Legitimate Authority

Legitimate Traditional Authority
Legitimate Charismatic Authority
Rational Legitimate Authority

On the Doctrines of Ideas and Interests according to Weber

The Four Groups of Ideal Types

Concluding Remarks

Introduction

This article attempts to examine some important concepts of Marx Weber, one of the founding fathers of sociology and an important figure in the world of sociology. As indicated in the title of the post, we will discuss his views on the notions of legitimacy and authority, as well as ideas and interests. Moreover, the post follows the following order. First, we discuss his teachings on authority and legitimacy. The focus is on how power or authority can be ratified in different ways, i.e. by tradition or by charisma or by deliberately enacted rational rules. Below we will discuss Weber's thoughts on ideas and interests. The central message that will hold our attention is the way in which Weber draws inspiration from Marx and Nietzsche to develop his own points of view.

The Concepts of Legitimacy and Authority

The concepts and notions of legitimacy and authority are some of Weber's famous doctrines that draw special attention to his writings. As a starting point, it is important to keep in mind that these notions - legitimacy and authority - while not meaning the same thing, are so intrinsically related that understanding both provides an integral picture of Weber's understanding of socio-political authority.

To begin with, it is important to make a few observations about the concept of authority. First, the translators of Weber's writings have used different terms (words) to designate the same thing. For example, Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich used "authority", "domination" and sometimes "power" interchangeably. A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, on the other hand, also used "coercive coordination" or coercive control" to denote authority. This suggests that in this article we will use or use these terms interchangeably. Second, while acknowledging that leadership / authority for Weber is a sort of relationship between those in power and their subjects and that his interest in authority was less limited to political ones, as he believed that every social institution was governed by his authority and was equally interested in studying it, the fact is that he often placed much emphasis on political leadership.Thirdly, politically, it seems that Weber was for and for democracy. Remarkably, however, his claim to democracy was not based on the confidence of the majority, that is, the best the people could do for the state, but on its dynamism or flexibility, which in turn provides an appropriate environment "to create responsible political leaders." “In view of these few remarks, will follow experiments which aim to examine in the smallest details his views on the relevant teachings.

On the Concept of Domination or Authority

Weber describes authority/domination as the ability to give "orders" on the basis that people or certain groups of people or people obey them. Remarkably, Weber begins his analysis of authority in the context of social action and relationship. Here, Weber argues that although an action takes on a subjective meaning, which may be based on self-interest or traditional roots, there are actions that individuals do on the basis of enacted rules. Such actions presuppose authority or order. For example, an entrepreneur who comes to the cell in his company is mainly linked to his personal interest. But for a "servant" who comes to the office every day at the appointed time, he does not do so mainly according to his interest or his tradition, but according to the established rules of his company or his boss. In this sense, Weber argues, some actions are based on "command" or authority. Even if a social relationship is bound by an action whose subjective meaning is fundamentally based on established rules, Weber assigns this relationship to the category of an order. For example, the relationship between boss and work is bound by agreed rules. Or a manager and a gardener of a certain company, their relationship is bound by the rules of that company. A director will act and act like a director and a gardener will act like a gardener.

Furthermore, this power or authority may be legitimate or illegal. It is legitimate if it is affirmed by the people or by tradition or by law. On the contrary, it is obvious that it is considered an illegitimate authority. Since Weber was very interested in legitimate authority, we will later discuss and examine his views on the concept of legitimacy and the different types of legitimate authority.

Legitimate Authority

Weber's analysis of the doctrine of the legitimacy of authority can be best understood by asking the following questions: Why do some people have the power to command, legislate, or govern others? Or why are some people obeyed when carrying out an order or giving orders and others not? In other words, on what basis do we justify the existence of certain individuals considered leaders, and on what basis do these leaders derive their authority to command, dominate or govern others? To answer these questions, Weber introduces his concept of legitimacy.

In the sense of this idea, legitimacy would be synonymous with ratification. It is on the basis of legitimacy that power or domination is accepted and a person exercises his power with authority. Likewise, it is on the basis of legitimacy that subjects obey those in a position of authority. Furthermore, Weber outlines three main types of legitimate authority, namely: traditional legitimate authority, charismatic legitimate authority, and rational legal or legitimate authority.

Legitimate Traditional Authority

For Weber, legitimate traditional authority is one of three pure types of authority. He describes him as an authority sanctioned and accepted "by virtue of the sanctity of secular rules and powers". Here the traditions become the binding norms of the person who holds the authority and the reason to obey. Also, a person in authority is not considered a "superior," nor does he hold any position. But he or she is considered a "teacher" and should be true to the traditions upon which his or her authority is based. Again, command code legislation may or may not be essential to this form of authority, and wisdom is often held to be the standard by which innovations from traditional rules can be introduced and accepted. An authority figure, such as a chief or king, may rule with or without an administrative staff.

Legitimate Charismatic Authority

Legitimate charismatic authority is the second pure type in Weberian thinking about authority. This is authority legitimized by the charisma. The term charisma, according to Weber, refers to a sum of qualities that characterize an individual as an extraordinary person, as his personality stands out among his peers, leading him to be considered an example, to use Weber's words: " supernatural or superhuman" who is endowed with extraordinary "powers". Following this line of thought, Weber saw legitimate charismatic authority as authority exercised by a person by virtue of his exemplary personality. Indeed, a person with authority is considered a leader by virtue of those qualities. Prophets, religious leaders, heroes and heroines are some examples of charismatic leadership.

Moreover, Weber asserts that the administrative organs of such an agency should not be subject to any formal training, and its members are not treated as "official" rules, abstract legal principles, and therefore no rational judicial decision-making process. oriented toward them.” And again, by the way, holds Weber who finds that charismatic authority is rarely aligned with economic interests. Instead, it gives empathetic and compassionate attention to any situation that needs a helping hand.

Rational Legitimate Authority

Rational legal or legitimate authority, the third [pure] form of authority, is rooted in "belief in the legality of rules enacted and in the right of those elevated to authority under those rules to issue orders." forms of authority, rational legal authority established laws, rules and regulations enacted, for example, by the legislative body over which the leader and his governing body rule and exercise their power. The laws enacted remain abstract, and only when they are implemented do they become practical and binding. Consequently, Weber argues, a leader in legitimate rational authority is obeyed not by his qualifications or personality, but by laws and norms established through agreement based on rational principles.

Furthermore, a leader with rational and legitimate authority does not exercise his power based on his conventions and beliefs. He must be faithful to the law, because the law in nature is an impersonal legal norm. In this form of authority, a ruler is therefore conditioned to exercise the power conferred on him for rational reasons, i. H by impersonal rules “fixed by law”. Although superior, a ruler with rational authority should in no way claim superiority over the law. On the other hand, members of the administrative staff are qualified as “civil servants”; They are elected on the basis of their "professional" merits and assigned to their positions according to a hierarchical criterion, and receive a fixed salary capital as a symbol of their remuneration.

This understanding leads to a different line of thought, the thrust of which is the consideration and promotion of bureaucratic leadership as the ideal-typical rational legal authority. In fact, this is evident in his statement, which reads: "The purest mode of exercising judicial power is one employing bureaucratic administrative personnel." Perhaps a better understanding will be facilitated if we deepen this idea by discussing its notion of bureaucracy.

On the Notion of Bureaucracy

Elwell tells us that Weber's notion of bureaucracy is a product of Weber's attempt to apply his method of rationalization to the study of social phenomena; and therefore to speak of it is to speak of a form of rationalization more in conformity with human organisation/disposition. Indeed, Elwell argues, Weber saw bureaucracy as a typical system of modern social structures. Here is the list of requirements that characterize a bureaucratic system, especially what he called the ideal type: the "hierarchy of authority, impersonality, written rules of conduct, performance-based promotion, specialized division of labour, the efficiency". other. This would mean that in any bureaucratic system, including the political bureaucratic administrative system, there should be
(i) a hierarchy of authorities and offices,
(ii) rule/government based on impersonal laws which value nothing of their own preconceived desires,
(iii) there there must be a written code of laws and regulations governing the functioning of the authorities involved in the system,
(iv) there must be efficiency, both in work and in administration,
(v) the election of leaders should be based on qualities or merits which show that they require intellectual ability and training, (
vi) and there should be a fixed salary for the payment of workers.

While Weber saw bureaucracy as a system technically capable of achieving the highest degree of efficiency, and in that sense it is the formally most rational means known to exercise authority over people, as well as being superior to any other form in accuracy., in stability , in the rigor of his discipline and in his reliability”, he was also aware of its disadvantages. Ritzer, for example, speaks of Weber's awareness of the great dangers of a bureaucratizing system, that is, endangering the freedom of individuals. The fact here is that the bureaucratic system of life functions so much under the principle of "rationalisation" that the individuals/workers involved in it, for example in factories or economic associations, through their knowledge of "rational calculation" tend to become machine-oriented to such an extent that they become almost machine-like. Furthermore, it should be noted that for Weber bureaucracy exists in the systems of modern political organizations as well as in economic ones: in capitalist economic and political systems as well as in socialist ones, since in all these organizations there are strong structures that meet the criteria of bureaucratic systems

On the Doctrines of Ideas and Interests according to Weber

When we speak of Weber's ideas, we believe that this obliges us to speak of his concept of ideal types; and for that it is necessary to borrow the analyzes of Ritzer, Elwell and Coser on the subject in question. As Ritzer puts it, Weber describes ideal types as ideas or concepts "constructed by a social scientist on the basis of his interests and theoretical orientation in order to grasp the essential characteristics of a social phenomenon". More importantly, they serve as tools of great utility and help in the process of studying, understanding and interpreting the reality of the "social world" and the phenomena of human life; they help a social scientist in the process of empirical research of social reality. According to Ritzer, ideal types are not empirical concepts per se, but are "inductively" derived from concrete events "in social history". Moreover, since ideal types are dynamic in nature, changing from time to time depending on interests and social situations, they should be used as a "gauge road" to discover the similarities and differences of various aspects of social life, like social life. B. social institutions, social groups, etc.

Elwell has similar ideas. In his analysis of Weber's concept of ideal type, he states that for Weber the concept of ideal type is neither synonymous with concepts such as "best of all" nor does it invoke moral necessity. No, it simply refers to "logically consistent features of social phenomena such as social institutions or social behavior." As Elwell tells us, Weber described ideal types as conceptual tools created by sociologists to study and understand existing social institutions and measure their similarities and differences.

It is also important to note that, according to Weber, ideal types are useful for analyzing and [perhaps] determining the elements necessary to qualify a social organization as a social institution, or a human act as a social action. For example, capitalism is defined according to the ideal type of capitalism. Accordingly, according to its ideal type, capitalism is understood as a social phenomenon consisting of four main characteristics, namely 'private ownership', profit orientation, 'competition between private enterprises' and 'government enforcement of contracts'. and non-interference in economic affairs". . .” The presence or absence of these characteristics therefore determines whether a given economic system is capitalist or non-capitalist. Further, Ritzer argues that, from Weber's perspective, ideal types can be divided into four major groups. What are you?

The Four Groups of Ideal Types

The first group is known as the "historical ideal types". It is a set of ideal types used to recount and understand events "at a particular historical time"; a modern or contemporary capitalist system characterizes these ideal types. While the second group of ideal types is known as "general sociological ideal types". It is a set of ideal types, to use Ritzer's words, used to study and relate "phenomena that cross a range of historical periods and societies". Ritzer calls the appropriate example of this type of ideal type “bureaucracy”. The third group of ideal types, the so-called "ideal action types", refers to ideals called "pure action types", which are based on the intention of the acting subject or person; as an "affective action" or an action aimed at love are typical examples of ideal types of action. Fourth, we have "structural ideal types". They are ideals formed on the basis of the "causes and consequences" of all social action and used to understand it. An example is rational or traditional or charismatic forms of legitimate authority.

Second, we can talk about Weber's conception of ideas and interests from the point of view of their interaction with interests. Here we must recall the views of Marx and Nietzsche on this subject in their context. As for Marx, ideas are important in terms of their public function in class and party struggles. Nietzsche, on the other hand, approached ideas in terms of their psychological service to the individual thinker. If for Marx ideas became, from a practical point of view, ideologies which in turn served as weapons in group struggles, for Nietzsche they became rationalizations of individuals or, at best, of " masters and slaves.

In this context, Weber tries to give an integrative perspective on the ideas of Marx and Nietzsche in his concept of interest-related ideas. From Marx, he takes a sociological approach to ideas, seeing them as powerless tools in the history of social phenomena unless they are merged with material interests. This means that ideas should help us better understand the reality of human life and social phenomena and bring about positive change. It is this desire to understand the phenomena of human social life that drives sociologists to develop theories and principles (ideal types) useful in the study and process of understanding society and its individuals. Moreover, Weber develops from Nietzsche a deeper concern with the importance of ideas for psychic responses. But unlike Nietzsche and Marx, Weber refuses to see ideas as mere reflections of psychological or social interests. Social interests alone do not shape an idea, nor do psychological factors. Ideas are the result of both social interests and mental contracts. They are constructed from concrete events of social life in order to study, understand and interpret precisely this phenomenon of human social life. As we saw in Ritzer's analysis, Weber believed in the dynamic nature of ideal types. He believed that ideal types are not static; they change from time to time depending on the situations and interests of the company. When a new situation arises, a need arises for new ideal types, which will be of great help in studying, understanding and interpreting the situation in its context. Therefore, ideal types reflect the interests of the social issues in question, and so an ideal type that no longer appeals to a particular event or events or situations or situations should be abandoned and new ideal types developed .

Concluding Remarks

Any investigation is a process which may have a beginning but which can hardly claim to have reached a culmination where everything is removed from its obscurity. In other words, all intellectual endeavor is an ongoing process that may have a starting point but no end point. Based on that thought, we're skeptical enough to make one final point. However, that does not prevent us from making a few comments on what was discussed. Therefore, in the following sections we try to give a preliminary assessment of what has been discussed so far. Hardly anyone would argue that Weber's views on authority and its legitimacy, and on ideas and interests, are laden with merit. First, he deserves credit for his ability to analyze the phenomenon of authority from a social point of view. Indeed, we believe that his analysis of power and its legitimacy reveals what is happening in society; Because in a traditional setup, the leader is acquired through traditional ties, he follows traditional customs and rules in his exercise of leadership, and is expected to remain true to those traditions. Again, his claims of charismatic authority are also entirely true, as it is based on a person's personality and lifestyle that one is accepted or made a leader. Currently we remember some leaders who are often said to be charismatic: Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nelson Mandela, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, among others. Moreover, his critical, questioning and reflexive attitudes are striking insofar as he understood how to decode the reality of life and social phenomena and to mark them out in a reflexive way. For example, when he spoke of bureaucracy, Weber knew that it had inevitable negative effects, however necessary they may be to a certain degree, of which alienation is one. To recall that, unlike Marx, Weber believed that the alienation of the worker from his work, which in turn is considered his essence, will always exist as long and to the extent that bureaucracy, that is, say the rationalization of social institutions, exists and is concerned. Therefore, there is no escape from alienation. Likewise, he criticized Marx, who believed that there was no place for bureaucracy in socialism or communism, noting that bureaucracy exists in capitalist and socialist economic and political systems; Therefore, there is no escape from bureaucracy in either system. Indeed, he argued that in any social system where rationalization is accepted, individuals would have to sacrifice their own interests and personal rules for its smooth functioning. So alienation is inevitable.

Another merit of Weber's sociological insights is his theory of rationalization leading to the bureaucratic functioning of social institutions, which is typical of modern society. In fact, he is right when he says that the most common domain or authority in the world today is bureaucratic. In today's world, both socialism and capitalism have taken over this bureaucratic system to such an extent that we find all over the world a form of formalism/rationalization which endangers individual freedom. In a sense, there are sorts of positive effects of bureaucracy, especially when it comes to political leadership. As we've been told, it doesn't place much emphasis on individual views and decisions; the law and the system of regulations in rational leadership and rationalized social institutions become the excellent entities, and leaders must abide by them, and not by their personal decisions; they are obeyed in the name of the law. And that is why individual prejudices have no place in this system.

However, the problem arises when, for example, a law conflicts with ethical principles. How to reconcile both realities! To some extent, personal decisions are needed, especially when it comes to conflicting moral issues. Therefore, the impersonal nature of the guiding principles and norms of the bureaucratic system has its limits and should be reviewed when it comes into conflict with moral norms or values of human life.

His teachings on ideas and interests are also full of merit. In fact, ideas shouldn't just be for intellectual gratification. Ideas should lead to a better understanding of the reality of the world, of one's own life and of society. In the act of understanding, one comes into contact with the reality of life and grasps not only social phenomena but also the individuals who make up the members of that society. Therefore, any idea that has no relevance to social life or that is not based on the reality of life remains almost meaningless or abstract.

Reference

Bendix, Reinhard. (1960). Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, London: Heinman.
Freund, Julien. (1968). The Sociology of Max Weber, New York: Random House
Indira Gandhi National Open University Course Material (2005). Sociological Thought (ESO 13), IGNOU: New Delhi