rationalization and developmental history

8/8/2019 Rationalization and Developmental History

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-Sample of previous work II-

Ioannis Kyriakantonakis

Aspects of Developmental History and the rationalization schema in the analysis of Max

Weber(UCL History Graduate Course Weber for Historians, March 2004)

I. The rationalization theme is one of Webers major analytical tools. This idea and the

relevant analysis penetrates, as a cohesive element, into his work as a whole, but

particularly into his approaches to religion, bureaucracy, routinization of charisma, and

sociology of law. It constitutes a developmental schema, an ideal-type of historic

evolution, perhaps even an explanatory principle of universal significance (but not of

catholic authority)1. Two components of this schema could at this early point be traced.

The first one refers to religion and the elimination of metaphysics from its sphere, the

demagification of the world, -its disenchantment2. Religion itself did not of course cease

to exist, but, as Weber explained, was turned to a rational system of ethical norms and

beliefs, into which salvation was not the result of the irrational absolute liberty of the

Father, but a rational necessity (a necessity arising from rational data and a logical

process). The second characteristic of this schema refers to bureaucratization through theroutinization of charisma, the emergence of complicated administrative needs and the

demise of traditional structures. Both phenomena require the development of a

methodology of abstractions and deductions, of a rational system of law characterized by

typical consistency and calculability in terms of the relationship between ends and means,

as well as, the connection between the specific behavior and the production of (legal)

consequences3.

Now there are two important ways to view these schemas, both in weberian work and

sociohistoric enquiry in general. We could conceive them as ideal-types, according to the

1 Guenther Roth, Rationalization in Max Webers Developmental History, in Scott Lash, Sam Whimster

(eds), Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity, Allen & Unwin, London, 1987, 81.2 Translation ofEntzauberung. Max Weber cited by Ralph Schroeder, Max Weber and the Sociology of

Culture, Sage, London, 1992, 73.3 Charles Taylor, Rationality, in M. Hollis and Steven Lukes (eds),Rationality and Relativism, The MIT

Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, 87, 88, Max Weber, Economy and Society, University of

California Press, Berkeley, 1978, 956, 975.

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relevant abstract reasoning and method, which always refers to a possible explanation,

-understanding of historical reality. Weber seems to follow this method at the first

volume of Economy and Society, wherein he refers to the pure types of authority, as pure

types of legitimate domination (legal-rational, traditional, and charismatic)4. This

classification is made on the basis of the kind of claim to legitimacy typically made by

authority. However, we could also regard this process of rationalization as the

characteristic of historic development of a particular civilization, that of the West. In

doing so, western history would be approached as a process of rationalization and the

West itself as rationality, at least on the level of generality and abstraction5. This

approach is linked to Webers question in the Authors Introduction: Why the West, and,

as he repeatedly mentions, the West only? Why the West in science, in law, in

architecture, in the state and administration, in capitalism, in modernity. All these

categories are related to the rationalization process, a phenomenon that occurred in the

West in a unique way and degree (Weber speaks of the peculiar rationalism of western

culture6), although rationality is not something unknown to other cultures as well.

This particular aspect of Webers developmental history is manifested in the Protestant

Ethic, where rationalization is not only a basis for explanation, but, as Wolgang

Schluchter has argued, also a question to be analyzed. It would not be accurate, however,

to trace a distinction between the two above mentioned works in relation to this matter as

Webers interest in the West also appears in Economy and Society, for example in his

analyses of the unique evolution of Roman Law, or of the relation between Jewish

rationalism and Puritan Asceticism, or even of the Standestaat and the transition from

feudalism to bureaucracy.

Before entering to the more specific part of this essay, it could be mentioned in advance

that Webers analysis regarding rationalization is not in essence similar to other liberal-

theories that identify the rise of rationality with liberalism and the republican state. It is

rather the relationship between means and ends, methodical consistency in pursuing ends

and calculability, which determine rationalization. The instrumental nature of the

4Economy and Society, 215, 216.5 Wolfgang Schluchter, The Rise of Western Rationalism. Max Webers Developmental History, University

of California Press, Berkeley, 1981, 9-12.6 Authors Introduction, in Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , Unwin,

London, 1965, 24, 25.

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resulting rationality implies that it can be equally cultivated within a communist society

(as the experience of the historical bureaucracy in these regimes has shown), within the

organism of the church, or in the benefit of the bourgeois state with the same level of

success and effectiveness7. Moreover, in this same respect, the distinction between

public and private sphere is irrelevant. Both the enterprise and agency share the

bureaucratic element, which is accompanied by high level of regulation by law and

calculation, as well as separation of the household from either the business or the office8.

Further reference to these characteristics will be made below, but at this point we have

stressed the perhaps obvious idea that the sociological presuppositions for the

development of rational methodism of bureaucracy should only with attention be related

to the ideological nature of the authority that it sustains.

II. Bearing in mind the above reservation, we should point out that in Webers work

rationalization is indeed related to some cultural characteristics, or to a pattern of cultural

development. This originates from his view of social reality itself as essentially cultural

and it is a way to move from the ideal-typical level of analysis to the more empirical-

historic one. We believe that the birth of ideology could be viewed as one critical cultural

element within the weberian rationalization process. Weber does not refer to ideology but

to the process of disenchantment, which took place first within Judaism and later on

within Protestantism9. In our view this transformation of religion to ideology adequately

describes this weberian notion. It also refers directly to rationalization, if we regard

ideology as a consistent system of belief that in the case of salvation was rationally

ordained in order to ensure this goal. Religion itself (before disenchantment) could serve

salvation only through metaphysics, through a magical mediation and an unsystematic

intuition. But after disenchantment the certituto salutis was about to be inscribed in a

rational pathway, a methodology of salvation based on the strict performance of legal and

moralistic duties10. The notions of discipline, of obligation, and debt founded a purely

legalistic code, which constituted piety.

7Economy and Society, 221, 225.8Economy and Society, 217-9, 956.9The Protestant Ethic, 105.10 Idem, 104, 126, Schroeder, op.cit., 98.

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It is a temptation to approach Judaism and Puritanism as very similar and consistent to

each other religious systems, perhaps by ignoring the different social consequences that

they may have created11. But this can be attempted in relation to their role in

disenchantment and consequently rationalization process, in the way Weber analyses it.

Disenchantment presupposed an absolute dualism, that is a division between the

transcendental God and the imperfect creaturely world. This dualism resulted to the

abolition of salvation through the Church and its sacraments. There could be no magical

mediation within a system that had transformed the relativeness of the personal God-

Father to a completely set apart from the world being 12. However, to contest the will of

this God and his existence was of course unconceivable, in spite of Miltons brave and

early romantic reaction13. His power determined everything, the whole world history in

Judaism, as well as each individuals predestination in Calvinism. But each individual

had to follow the pathway to his destiny alone, given that no one could help him. No

priest, no sacraments, no Church, no God: metaphysics were abandoned and replaced by

individual perception, the practical religious belief, which took the form of the Puritan

rational- methodical plan of conduct in order to secure certainty for salvation and of the

Jewish moralistic legalism and intellectualism14.

In Calvinism the answer to the question which the evidence of grace? is essentially

determined by the above transformation, the abolition of the Church and the emergence

of religion as conviction (sola fide) and fulfillment of ethical orders and norms according

to a legalistic system of practical nature and presupposition. This legalism has, as Weber

explains, a rationalistic, or rationalizing consequence, in the sense of the typical

consistency and accuracy. In that respect every individual good work would be

meaningless, unless it was inscribed within a system, a methodology of self-control

which at every moment stands before the inexorable alternative, chosen or damned15.

This method of moral behavior, determinant of conduct as a whole (methodism) was

11Economy and Society, 622-3.12The Protestant Ethic, 117, Schroeder, op.cit., 75.13The Protestant Ethic, 101: Though I may be sent to Hell for it, such a God will never command my

respect. (Miltons reaction to the Westminster Confession). It was the beginning of another process, a

revolutionary one, which lead to atheism, as Albert Camus has showed in L Homme en Revolte.14 Idem, 104, 110-2, John Love, Max Webers Ancient Judaism, in Stephen Turner (ed), The Cambridge

Companion to Weber, Cambridge University Press, 2000, 208-9.15The Protestant Ethic, 115.

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rational and consistent. It was this rationalization which gave the Reformed faith its

peculiar ascetic tendency16. For Weber, asceticism exactly refers to the systematization

of ethical conduct. Of course, he acknowledges that this tendency was not unknown to

Catholicism, especially to Western monasticism (but also even to Augustine). But with

Reformation, it became a secular phenomenon, given that the Church had been abolished

and in its place remained only the authority of the text (sola scriptura). Secularization

contributed to the diffusion of asceticism to the whole social life, a fact that, according to

Webers argument in the Protestant Ethic, influenced the conduct of professions and

business in a critical way.

Having rejected the Sacred Tradition, this methodism derived its stable norms from the

Bible17. The objectification of infallibility in a concrete text and the latters absolute

authority (bibliocracy), even towards the Church that gave birth to it by recording there

its experience, is a central trait of the European historic experience with obvious

reference to Webers rationalization theme. (It could be stressed that the Occident

became a text-oriented civilization. Thus, ideas could not be conceived, unless

rationally- articulated in a text, which would function as an auctoritas)18. As a social

phenomenon, it is comparable to the codification of Roman Law, which, in combination

with the required rational expertise in order to meet technical needs arisen from the

complexity of legal cases, shaped its peculiarly rationalistic form. The concentration ofnorms to a legal corpus is closely linked to formalism and routinization, which also

constitute weberian concepts relevant to rationalization. The Old Testament was a

suitable text for such a concentration, given its small bourgeois rationalism and its

previous contribution to the suppression of the mystic element19.

Although Weber argues that it was the puritan spirit that culminated the process that had

started with the Jews, by stressing their perfectly unemotional wisdom, while rejecting

their traditionalistic aspect, time and again he underlines the affinity of Jewish legalism

and moralism to the methodical character of Puritan ethics consisting in a systematic and

rationalized conduct, the acknowledgement of authoritative rules and the absolute

determinism and transcendency of God. Articulate knowledge of the law was the basic

16 In contradiction to the realism of the Church. Idem, 117, 118.17 Idem, 123.18 For the relationship of articulation with rationality see Charles Taylor, op.cit., 90.19 Idem.

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quality of the Jewish wise man, not any metaphysical role of mediation. For Weber this

intellectualism was defied by Christ20, but had already survived in the Greeks (although

the linkage between Jews and Greeks is not analyzed and consequently remains on the

basis of only a typical similarity regarding the use of reason, but within distinct

sociohistorical contexts) and after the first Christian centuries it would re-emerge in

Europe. At this point we could add Scholasticism to this chain and the shaping of

theology as asacra scientia under its influence.

The Protestant ethic argument proposed that the universal systematization of life

determined the economic realm and led to a methodical, rationalized division of labor.

Not leisure and enjoyment, but only activity serves to increase the Glory of God, and

the active performance of His will in a calling is pleasing to God. But not activity, or

work were the crucial prerequisites, but work in order, rational -specialized labor in a

calling21. The most relevant model of conduct, which was about to be ethically

appreciated was that of the sober, middle-class, self-made man, as Jewish piety had

previously been oriented to the urban dweller and had for his sake formed its laws

according to his status22. It was this moralistic sobriety that was mostly suitable for the

puritan formalism, the emphasis on common type and the rejection of anything that had

no practical utility, of all designations of an irrational attitude without objective purpose,

thus not ascetic23. Weber refers to the conceptions of idle talk, of superfluities and of

vain ostentation, which, we believe, would be enough to describe the atmosphere, the

ascetic education that surpassed the mere influence of Puritanism as a religious

movement and survived its demise.

It is interesting to note that Weber viewed the culmination of this ascetic ethos in the

modern division of labor in a rather depressing way. His concept of the iron cage maybe

departs from the realm of objective enquiry, and hence it uncovers some of his inner

agonies regarding the evolutionary historic schema of rationalization, for regarding the

last stage of this cultural development, he argues that it might well be said: specialists

20 Economy and Society, 617. For Weber, Jesus was primarily a magician, someone endowed withcharismatic powers. He has referred to His indifference to the world on the basis of reliance to Gods will, a

fact that nevertheless bridged the gap between the divine ruler and humanity, given that early Christianity

was dominated by elements of salvation throughfaith, magic and ritual.21The Protestant Ethic, 161-2.22Economy and Society, 618.23The Protestant Ethic, 169.

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without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of

civilization never before achieved24. This possibly nietzschean extract concludes the

Protestant Ethic and leaves the reader with a kind of nostalgia for previous stages in

history that were perhaps less methodical, but also with a more personal side of the

German sociologist, who exhibits a hint of pathos at the conclusion of his essay on the

elimination of pathos from life by a rational control of every kind of conduct25. But that

does not of course undermine the theoretic significance of his argument, which is

moreover expressed in Economy and Society, perhaps in a more pure-typical way, but

always in accordance with the spirit that we have above tried to indicate.

III. Was this nullity the modern bureaucrat? As we have already mentioned, Webers

schema of developmental history applies to the transformation of types of legitimate

domination; and rational -scientific consistency characterizing bureaucracy can be

analyzed mutatis mutandis of the above comments, as the possible culmination of a

rationalizing process. He also exhibited a sense of nostalgia for the authentic charismatic

leader and he pointed out that history develops out of a struggle between charisma and

routinization. Charisma strives for revolutionary change due to the belief in its

extraordinary power (it revolutionizes the world), while bureaucracy is by nature

conservative and perhaps originates from the will to preserve an established order and the

privileges that derived from it26. It appears that nothing can be more efficient in this latter

conformist trend than standardized norms and procedures, a methodical system of dealing

with practical necessities and perpetuating authority.

What happens to charisma? Its fate is determined by the extra-ordinary element that is

inherent to it. That is why charismatic authority, according to Weber, exist only in statu

nascendi, at least in its pure form27. It cannot remain stable, but becomes either

traditionalized or rationalized, or a combination of both. The motives behind this

transformation (routinization of charisma) consist in the continuation, stability and

reassurance of the community and the primitive organization of the disciples, whose

24 Idem, 181-2.25 Alan Sica, Rationalization and culture in Stephen Turner (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Weber,

op.cit., 57, 58.26Economy and Society, 1115-7, 244, 246, 251.27 Idem, 246, 1148.

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interests and position need to be put on a stable everyday basis. The community of

disciples, which was endowed with a mission resulting from the revolutionary nature of

charisma, becomes an administrative staff, which will seek the creation and

appropriation of individual positions and the corresponding economic advantages for its

members28. But even the mission itself can more adequately be promoted, providing that

the administration is efficient. If this process is pursued by rational legislation, we are

able to refer to rationalization, according to the above analysis. Now bureaucracy is a

possible result of the transformation of the charismatic mission into an office, which

historically is linked to the modern Western world and Antiquity, whereas elsewhere it

is exceptional29. Thus, out of Christs charisma emerged the bureaucracy of the Catholic

Church, whose hierarchy and canon law preceded the modern state and its analogous

phenomena. Webers analysis of routinization of charisma is somehow deterministic, in

the sense of the inevitability of this process due to the forces of everyday routine

(everyday needs and conditions of carrying on administration) which appear as soon as

domination is established and above all as soon as control over large masses of people

exists30. This element (the fate of charisma) is particularly evident in the analysis of

discipline, as a consistently rationalized, methodically prepared and exact execution of

the received order. Discipline becomes a type-method of domination, under which

obedience, or devotion, is uniform, impersonal, and rationally calculated31. In that

respect, Webers reference to the puritan sense of duty and conscientiousness, in order to

stress disciplines impersonal character and matter-of-factness is enlightening, (not

only in regard to discipline, but also to the puritan ethos), although he does not confine

his analysis to the sober disciple of Cromwell.

From this schema, what is important for the present essay is obviously the rationalization

element and the emergence of bureaucracy (the most rational offspring of discipline).

A bureaucratic system of administration and an impersonal legal order are the

components of the type of legitimate domination that is based on legal authority32. The

legal order is comprised by abstract rules that are consistently (according to rational

28 Idem, 250.29 Idem, 251.30 Idem, 252, 1148.31Idem, 1149-50.32 Idem, 217, 220.

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induction) applied to particular cases. Weber seems to follow a rather positivist approach

in his sociology of law. Although we would like to keep some reservations about this

position, it is true that legal positivism was dominant in his time and basically

reminiscent of Webers concepts of rationality of the legal order and of the value of the

norm per se within a system of enforcement. Of course Weber is not primarily a

philosopher of law and, in that sense, his sociological approach can be regarded as value-

free in relation to critical questions of (ethical-political) legitimacy of authority and

implementation of rules. The important element in his analysis is the methodical function

of a system, of a corpus of laws, and not its ethical evaluation (although his relevant

political positions are well known and although he has conceptually distinguished

substantial justice from the methodical and consistent application of rules33).

Bureaucracy functions on the basis of legal competence, which is designated and

restricted by law (principle of official jurisdictional areas)34. This means that it is

methodical, formalistic and systematic. As a result, the official has to meet some

standards, which are relevant to the performance of his duties. More specifically, it is

required of him to exhibit technical qualification and specialized knowledge. This is

specific historical appearance of the spirit of legalism and intellectualism; because

technical expertise refers to the knowledge of rules, and training refers to a field of

specialization in the realm -and science of law35. What is achieved by this legalism is the

optimum possibility for carrying through the principle of specializing administrative

functions according to purely objective considerations. This objectivity introduces the

idea of calculated behavior, or we could argue that the notion of calculability is inherent

in the impersonal (objective) nature of the law and constitute the most important element

for modern bureaucracy36. It also introduces the impersonal character of the office. As

Weber says bureaucracy in its fullest development comes under the principle ofsine ira

et studio, which would be unconceivable without the separation of officials from the

means of administration. The office holder, who ruled by virtue of status privileges and

the appropriation of the powers of administration, was eliminated and replaced by the

principle of hierarchy and the appointment of officials whose professional and personal

33Economy and Society, 980.34 Idem, 956.35 Idem, 958.36 Idem, 975.

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legal status are distinguished37. This produced the rather impersonal character of

administration in its modern (ideal)type38. Again Weber cites another process, namely

dehumanization39, which means that no purely personal, irrational and emotional element,

which escape calculation, could be determinant of the administrative process and its

outcome.

We have mentioned that dehumanization process takes place due to the routinization of

charisma and the need to legitimize authority on the basis of an objective order rather

than a persons exceptional power. Moreover, the interests of modern capitalism

demanded precision, unambiguity, continuity and speed in the performance of public

administration40. Weber has linked modern capitalism and bureaucracy (in its highest

stage of rationalization) both conceptually and historically. The common elements in the

systems of the enterprise and the office are stressed in Economy and Society, maybe with

some exaggeration, as his comment on the European idea of the intrinsically different

character of the bureau activities from the management of private offices indicates. The

summation of those similarities is rationality, or the rational- methodical functioning of a

system. In that respect the nominal differences are irrelevant. It does not matter whether

the enterprise functions in the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, whereas the

state takes into account its own raison d etat41; because they are both characterized by

methodical consistency, that is by a specific means-goals ratio. Consequently, their inner

logic is identical, which indicates that they are simultaneous aspects of a particular

(pure)stage of historic development.

IV. Is this historical development identified with the emergence of a distinct cultural

entity, that of the Occidental civilization? Was, as we have already posed the question,

the Occident, and the Occident only? Admittedly, revolutionization through reason42

37 Idem, 226.38 Because Weber has acknowledged that in reality several elements of previous types of legitimate

authority can survive in modern bureaucracy. Thus, the separation of the official from the means ofadministration does not absolutely guarantee his formalistic impartiality, as obviously the case of many

administrative systems indicates. Corruption and bribery are not absent from modern bureaucracy, although

overt disregard of the formal-typical procedure would be a rare case. Consequently and moreover, the

persistence of many traditionalistic structures within rationalized modernity, would be a subject of a

separate analysis that cannot be attempted here.39 Bureaucracy develops the more perfectly, the more it is dehumanized,Economy and Society, 975.40Economy and society, 974.41Author s Introduction, 17,Economy and Society, 978.42Economy and Society, 1002.

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(rationalization) would first and foremost refer to the western world, as Weber argues in

several parts of his work, but particularly in the Authors Introduction. The trained

official is thereby characterized as the pillar of the Modern State and of the economic life

of the West. He forms a type of which there have heretofore only been suggestions

because no country and no age has ever experienced, in the same sense as the modern

Occident, the absolute and complete dependence of its existence () on a specially

trained organization of officials43. And most of Webers empirical references to

bureaucracies in Economy and Society are western, as well as his exemplification

regarding the transition from feudalism to bureaucracy44. We will try to add here some

relevant thoughts, which nevertheless we wish to distinguish from a potential dualist

schema, because it is possible to deduce from this developmental history of

rationalization some valid references to the West, without having to reject its possible

significance in relation to other historic contexts as well. This not reductive interpretation

refers to the way we have understood the function of the ideal type.

In Weber, the analysis on bureaucracy, capitalism and, as we pointed out above,

demagification contributes to a possible understanding of rationality, as a specific

outcome of a rationalization process, which, although partially (not everywhere in his

work) described in an ideal-typical manner, is nevertheless historical. This approach is

perhaps similar to the idea of Wolfgang Schluchter that for example- the theme of

bourgeois capitalism (which refers to the whole configuration of a specific cultural

manifestation) was, in Webers analysis transformed into that of rationalism45. Now vice

versa, from his rationalization scheme (demagification, routinization, and

bureaucratization) and due to its historicity some concrete historic phenomena arise, the

understanding of which can be enhanced in its light. The codification of Roman law,

Jewish moralism and legalism, Reformation and Secularization, the modern State, they

all refer to the coherent historic problem of the emergence of the Occident. But it is

perhaps the subjective interest of the theorist that imposed this question regarding

empirical reality and not another, which could possibly refer to a different cultural

43Authors Introduction , 16, 17.44Economy and Society, 1086-7.45 Schluchter, op.cit., 9.

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context. In that respect, Schluchter, although admitting that Weber acknowledges the

existence of rationalization (and rationalism) in all cultures, denies that Webers end was

the construction of a systematic typology and sociology of rationalization. He argues that

it is true that he wants [Weber] to contribute to such a sociology but only insofar as it is

related to the solution of his historical problem, which was the distinctiveness of

Western rationalism and the explanation of its historical origins46. According to this view

Weber was a cultural historian and less a systematic universal sociologist, or a world

historian. The (ideal)type was for him a means and not an end in his research.

He focused on cultural values and the subjective meaning of reality. We could possibly

contribute to this debate, if we examined the subjective significance of the rationalization

process. What is meant here is that in the Occident rationalization acquired a concrete

-and unique character, at least in the subjective level. It became and constituted the basic,

determinant of a whole civilization. Elements of rationalization may be found elsewhere.

But only the Occident universally tended to be self-defined as rationality, in a scale of

ideology. Apart from ideological questions we believe that the schema of rationalization

is particularly important for the western cultural experience and is constructed for its

understanding. It does not merely refer to the structure of the state and the market but is

also significant (as Weber partially showed in the Protestant Ethic) for most of the inner

situations of the western man, the history of ideas and mentalities, the disenchantments in

religion, in politics and social relationships. That was therefore the reason for writing this

essay.

Bibliography

Abraham, Gary, Max Weber and the Jewish Question, University of Illinois Press,

Chicago, 1992.

46 Idem, 10-12.

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rationalization and developmental history

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