International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 11oi. 3, No. 4, 1990

MAX WEBER AND HIS CRITICS. Critical Theory's Reception of Neo-Kantian Methodology Sven Eliaeson

INTRODUCTION Perhaps too much has already been said about Max Weber's views on politics. For example, controversy over his views on plebiscitary leadership democracy clearly delayed the reception of his methodological writings in Germany. For a long time Weber's method appeared to be designated exclusively for the Anglo-Saxon export market, as German scholars fretted over Weber's relationship to Carl Schmitt, his complicated role as a would-be forerunner to Nazism, and so forth. Strangely enough Weber is simultaneously regarded as a pioneer for both parliamentary democracy and authoritarian charismatic dictatorship. This paradox suggests that there may still be lessons to be learned from the posthumous controversies about Weber and German politics. The publication of the young Wolfgang Mommsen's dissertation on M a x Weber and German Politics in 1959 touched off a lively debate about topics suggested by the books's title. Disagreements were further intensified five years later at the Heidelberg centenary commemorating Weber's birth. However, the debate had begun even earlier. In 1940, in the Swiss-German emigree-journal Mass und Wert, Karl LSwith published a penetrating essay about Weber and his followers which focussed on Weber's complicated relationship to Nazism. In the early 50s Weber's friend and pupil Georg Lukfics dedicated a whole chapter to Weber in his book on German irrationalism during the last few centuries. Lukfics argued that German irrationalism had culminated in the Nazi take-over in 1933, an event for which Weber might bear some historical coresponsibility. No one has claimed that Weber would have had any sympathies with Hitler and his mob had he lived long enough to experience Nazi-rule. 1 Rather, his role in the German catastrophe is attributed to his contribution to the 513 9 1990 Humma Sciences Press, Inc.

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Weimar constitution: he helped formulate the first draft, and at least according to his wife's biography, evidently felt his contributions were well received by the other founders. Among other things, Weber is held to be somewhat responsible for the strong position of the president and particularly for the famous Article 48 on extraordinary presidential powers, the section put to fatal use in the early 30s. 2 This paper takes its departure from Georg Luk~ics's influential assessment of Weber. Luk~ics's work is the apparent inspiration for many other reactions to Weber including, for example, those of Marcuse and Habermas, who launched a normative and moralistic critique of Weber in Heidelberg in 1964. Luk~ics is also echoed in such "neo-Marxist" conceptions of Weber as those of Prewo, Weiss, and others, Furthermore, both Carlo Antoni's earlier study of Weber and Lucio Colletti's more recent reflections share Luk~ics's ambiguous response to Weber's work, combining admiration and repudiation. All of these critics are skeptical of the intellectual ascendancy of sociology over historiography that took place at the turn of the century, as it took form, and each tends to reduce Weber's scientific statements to his political views. I shall argue that their reactions are at bottom methodologically determined due to their historcist background) It is notable, paradoxically, that some of Weber's angriest critics are nevertheless quite influenced by his thought. This is especially true for Luk~ics and Marcuse, the latter leading the left-wing attacks on Weber and the Weberians in Heidelberg in 1964. One gets the impression that while communication across the so-called paradigm-boundaries might not always take the form of fertile and nuanced discussion, influences across these boundaries nonetheless do occur. For example, Luk~ics evidently regarded Weber's intellectual movement from history to sociology as a decline, but he still synthesizes Marx and Weber in his own theoretical work. 4

Lukdcs's Conception of Weber Luk~cs's Die Zerst~rung der Vernunft is one of the best known conceptions of Weber. Not only has it influenced (some) Marxist scholars, especially in the German cultural sphere, but it also anticipates a widespread critique of Weber in later debates. The book as a whole is an ambitious exposition of a general intellectual trend in Germany towards increased irrationality, from Schelling and Fichte to its culmination in the Nazi era. The story is basically well known: the romanticism and nation-building efforts of German intellectuals constituted a reaction against the Enlightenment and formed a background to what was later regarded as Germany's special destiny, the spiritual expression of the peculiarities of German development (deutscher Sonderweg). Early Get-

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man historicists were against the Enlightenment, the themes of which were so dominant in neighbouring countries. 5 Luk~ics ascribed a key-role to Weber, although the chapter dealing exclusively with him is rather modest. The portions of Luk~ics's book that deal with Weber must be seen in the broader context of Luk~ics's attempt to expose the intellectual spirit of the time (Zeitgeist). Along with Sombart, Simmel, and a few others, Weber is regarded as the central figure of the sociology that arose in Wilhelmine Germany during the era of imperialism. Classical Sociology. Sociology is very young as an institutionalized academic discipline. For example, the German Sociological Association was not founded until 1909. Sociology was in fact established gradually, due in part to the countervailing influence of "the prolonged historicist influence" in German social thought. As I have suggested elsewhere Weber's famous essay on objectivity (1904), in which his ideal-type procedure is elaborated, may be understood as an attempt to distance himself from the historicist mainstream while preserving his desire to influence contemporary fellow historicists. Weber's essay takes its point of departure from the controversy over method (Methodenstreit) between the schools of Schmoller and Menger and is, I would suggest, a vindication of theory, as opposed to the earlier dominant historicist practice of traditional German historical economy (Volkswirtschaftslehre). 6 Luk~ics's interpretation of Weber can be best understood as a reaction to Weber's refined neo-Kantian methodology. This is a problematic proposition to which we will return. Although critical of Weber's path out of the controversy over method, i.e., the conflict between history and marginalist economics, Luk~cs himself, of course, did not embrace the historical school in the sense, for instance, of Ranke. In a broader sense, however, Luk~ics--and Weber and, in fact, most German scholars at the time--are historicists. It is not idiography, but rather epistemology, that qualifies Luk~ics as a historicist. 7 To Luk~ics it is fatal to surrender the ambition to grasp societal development as a whole, s Specialization--the growing cleavage between history and sociology--eases and perhaps even encourages such a surrender, which might in some respects be traced to the neo-Kantian philosophical movement. Weber's general philosophy of history--which stresses the growing rationalization of all sectors of modern life--is the unifying theme under which his views on science and politics are to be subsumed. But Weber does not claim the status of theory for his views on the irrevocability of rationality as the fate of modern man. Weber on Rationality. Many attempts have been made to clarify what Weber really meant by his notion of rationality. Indeed, this seems to be a favorite pastime for those involved in the modern Gesamtdeutungs-debate, i.e., to search for the unifying principle that might provide The Key to Weber's work as a whole, a total comprehensive interpretation. 9 Weber's work does not

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readily lend itself to such a unified interpretation. For example, it is paradoxical that at the same time as rational purposive action, Zweckrationalitdt, is such a central notion for Weber's methodology, the growing trend of rationalization (Entzauberung, i.e., demystification) diminishes the applicability of Weber's rational action methodology. We are left with a process which has the nasty tendency to bring with it the gradual loss of freedom, since rationality is accompanied by societal co-ordination and large-scale institutions. The sharpening of the methods that would attain means-end-rationality appears to be self-destructive, since the number of free, not predetermined, actors is ever decreasing. For Luk~cs, Hegelian superrationalism remains a strong inheritance. He sees no reason to oppose the vaulting ambition of "total reason," i.e., to rationally conceive of reality as a whole. Weber by contrast--a neo-Kantian--is less sanguine about the potential for discovering the proper borderline with metaphysics. An element of Enlightenment is reflected in the Hegelian position, although as early historicists such as Meinecke and others pointed out the Hegelian tradition is primarily a reaction against the Enlightenment. But "rationalism" is an oscillating concept. Luk~ics noted a certain duality in Weber's work, that it contains both a historical and fragmentary, formal sociology, and an irrational view of the historical discipline which restricted it, to use Wilhelm Windelband's terminology, to an idiographic endeavour distinguished by its conception of the unique character of the historical object. This conception leaves considerable room for speculation in the field of the philosophy of history, since there is no logical relation between idiography and the scope of the scientific object. Weber's plea for value-neutrality/value-freedom has a similar character. The exclusion of all values from the scientific sphere stimulates compensatory laments about "the tragedy of culture" etc., or for traditional German discussions a b o u t the " p h i l o s o p h y of l i f e " (Lebensphilosophie), a c o m p l e x phenomenon we will retum to. Such concerns, however, were central to Luk~ics's scientific work, probably because he regarded this fashionable preexistentialist philosophy as antagonistic to his own. 1~ Luk~ics's main impression is that Weber excludes irrationalism from his methodology, only to see it emerge again in his world-view. This criticism depends largely on the fact that "rationality" can be understood in at least two different senses, either as a cultural philosophical term, as Weber used it in his metaphor about the iron cage, or in a more restricted sense, as rational action or means-end-rationality, i.e., what I would call normative empirical theory. There is no inherent contradiction in the fact that one can speak of rationality on different levels; there is even a Sophistic element in a critique creating imaginary paradoxes.

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Nevertheless Luk~ics has a point in his objection to Weber. In society the several antagonistic value-hierarchies tend to collide, and the poor individual cannot count on any assistance in choosing between them. This is Weber's view, and it imposes an existential dilemma upon the helpless modem individual. In the concrete case, however, a choice is often forced upon the individual, who then has to make an irrational choice of uppermost values, still guided and determined by some substantially founded preferences. In an election, for instance, there is a choice in many systems between parties representing d i f f e r e n t i d e o l o g i e s (i.e., n o r m a t i v e orientations, u l t i m a t e l y non-cognitive), although at the same time the voter knows that he has as an economic actor to choose between different substantial positions in the field for instance of taxation, determining in part, his economic fate. Given Weber's plea for scientific rationality, how is it that Luk~ics could regard him as an exponent of a more advanced and insidious irrationalism? For Luk~cs, Weber's contribution to the destruction of reason lies mainly in his refutation of what Hans Albert characterized as the "myth of total reason." Luk~ics believed in a rationality of history as such. History could take either the wrong or right direction. In the latter case, it would achieve harmony with its own intentions. Lukfics embraced a form of classical Utopian thinking that was consistent with Hegelian perspective, but it contradicted his own critical assessment of older state idealism, which in fact has a certain affinity with his own approach, although with another normative content. Luk~ics regarded Weberian sociology as too limited an undertaking, and as representing a more advanced form of irrationalism. For him, the duality in W e b e r ' s thought appears in two ways, distinguishing science from both metaphysics and from reality in the neo-Kantian manner. In the neo-Kantian tradition secular science proceeds as a human construct, the object of science distinguished from the real object, in a way paralleling Karl Popper's famous "World III." Ultimately it is a matter of paradigmatic discrimination whether Weber's formal "constructive epistemology" and his view on the limited scope of science constitute an intellectual decline or advance. In order to fully understand Luk~cs's assessment of Weber, one must accept his initial assumptions and presuppositions, many of which were not shared by Weber. Among these presuppositions, for example, is an element of "political reductionism," which derives more from Luk~ics's very un-Weberian doctrine of concept formation than from some broader paradigmatic distinction. At heart, Luk~ics is a pre-neo-Kantian, reacting against the methodological achievements of the Back-to-Kant movement, while Weber utilizes neo-Kantian tools to promote the advancement of "polytheistic" objectivity. According to Lukhcs, banning political values from science promotes an increasing irrationality in the political sphere. Had Weber only recognized the class struggle as the driving force in history, Luk~ics seems to say, he would not have had to abstain from

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total reason. In their ambitions the Hegelians are more rational than the neoKantians, in this sense. The anti-metaphysical neo-Kantian philosophy of science is often questioned in terms of the crucial fact-value distinction characteristic of Weber's own work. When Marxism was developed, the fact-value distinction had not really gained intellectual stature, and certainly had not become an orthodox position in value-philosophy or accepted strategy of concept formation. In the early 19th century, both Marxism and classical liberalism, despite the secularizing efforts of Hume, strongly adhered to a lingering and more Aristotelian intermingling of is and ought. Utilitarianism typically reflected reality both as it was and as it should be. As social science rejected its roots in practical philosophy to embrace a scientific programme that emphasized testability of accepting proposals about reality, such mixtures became increasingly difficult to maintain. Weber's anti-Marxism. Sociology as such, in Luk~ics's view, is connected to revisionism. In his conception of the relationship between scientific and social development it is only natural that immanent revisionism in politics is reflected at the theoretical level in social science. In more mature capitalist societies successful imperialism provided the aristocracy of laborers with a standard of living, which made them less prone to revolutionary activities. In this sense, Luk~ic's - as well as Weber's - observations are apparently consistent with Lenin's better known ad hoc explanation of the development of revolution in the most advanced countries. The class struggle fades away under this circumstance and a new spirit of compromise emerges as democratization in the form of universal suffrage is offered to the people and, in some countries, even socialists entered government. Sociology, Luk~ics suggests, has been influenced by this development. The increased strength of the labor movement made earlier vulgar criticism of historical materialism somewhat old-fashioned. Instead of crude animosity against Marxism, its body of thought was broken up into bits and pieces, with the portions that proved useful to the bourgeoisie being incorporated into the new sociology. In some respects, Marxism was thought to have already been refuted. Under the influence of Austrian marginalism the theory of surplus value was bypassed in the bourgeois economic tradition, which strongly affected early sociologists. A general anti-Marxist tendency was present in the formation of academic sociology. Luk~ics probably overestimated the deliberate anti-Marxism of early German sociology. The controversy over method between the younger historical school and Austrian marginalism, between Schmoller and Menger - between history and theory, essentially - was probably just as important a background for sociology as the theories of Karl Marx and his followers. Luk~ics was in fact well aware of the marginalist influences on the early German sociologists, although he viewed them as a manifestation of a general anti-Marxism. This

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is a doubtful assumption since the controversy over method--which probably contributed most to the transition from history to sociology--did not deal with Marxism, which evidently played a secondary role in that dispute. Luk~ics did not sufficiently demonstrate the role of Marxism in the establishment of sociology as an academic disciplineJ 1 The Birth of Capitalism. This does not mean that Marxism had no influence on early German sociology. At a minimum, the issues and problems first raised by Marx were re-examined by the early generation of classical sociologists, although in quite different ways. Weber and Sombart especially, introduced several non-Marxist explanations of social phenomena earlier dealt with by Marxists. For example, in Volume I, chapter 24, of Das Kapital, Marx argued that the enclosure movement in Great Britain was important in fostering the accumulation of capital necessary to bring about the concentration and large-scale production. Wemer Sombart dealt extensively with the same problem in his Der moderne Kapitalismus, in which he scrutinizes robberies, wars, the Jews, etc., as possible factors in the slow transformation of the Occident to modem capitalism. The most notable and influential example of non-Marxist explanation in this field of historical inquiry, Luk~ics suggested, was, of course, Weber's Protestant Ethic thesis. Weber's work established that phenomena in the superstructure could be as interesting and important as productive forces in explaining how social transformations emerged. The "monistic" mode of explanation proposed by Marxism was replaced by a procedure in which multiple factors might be scrutinized for their contribution to events. According to Luk~ics this concentration on surface phenomena hinders the search for basic, ultimate explanations. Also, he suggested, it is consistent with the methodology of German sociologists that analogies and surface-phenomena should replace explanations properJ 2 Luk~ics does not use the term "methodology" in an analytic sense, as it is usually understood. Rather he refers to the neo-Kantian interpretation of Kant, often referred to as the "methodological" interpretation, which emerged when the advance of scientific method during the 19th century gave rise also to a methodological interpretation of Kant's philosophy of science. Strong connections and even personal "overlaps" exist between the so-called Back-to-Kant movement and the founders of German academic sociology. Neo-Kantianism. The neo-Kantians are exponents of an "anti-realist" tendency, that is, an anti-historicist tendency that questions the sort of "real science" (Wirklichkeitswissenschaft) advocated by the orthodox proponents of the historicist school. The neo-Kantian perspective, writes Luk~cs, leads to "an imaginary concept of the essence of capitalism. 13 As an example of the superficial analogies that replace real explanations, Luk~ics mentions Weber's parallel between capitalist enterprise and the modem state. Such analogies, Luk~ics suggests, can only achieve a foundation for cultural criticism. Thus, he argues,

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Weber's work does not illuminate the essential features of capitalism, but only diverts the critique of capitalist culture. Neo-Kantianism thus contributes to the preservation of an old-fashioned mode of production and societal order. NeoKantian methodology, then, is not likely to support any change; rather, it fosters the emergence of characters such as Stefan George and his circle in Schwabing, the "Quartier Latin" of Munich. 14 However, neo-Kantianism embraces a very broad conceptualization. For our purposes, the so called Baden-school, with Heinrich Rickert as its spiritus rector, is especially important, particularly in its methodological denotations. Weber, a pupil of Rickert and initially a historicist himself, belongs to this school of thoughtJ 5 Weber's methodology. Neo-Kantianism embraces a nominalist view of concept formation, meaning that it distinguishes between concept and reality. Scientific objects are phenomena with unspecified ontology; they are not "pure" reality. By contrast, to Luk~ics - and to the entire Hegelian tradition-concepts are something one explores rather than invents. Historically, Hegelian essentialism claims Kant's authority as a fore-runner. In general, one has the feeling that the main task for post-Enlightenment philosophy has been to evaluate how to utilize Kant. Weber's methodology was heavily influenced by his neo-Kantianism. His mode of explanation is also consistent with early logical empiricism (Mach), which his obsession with "Chancen" exposes. Thus, Weber's sociology, in Luk~ics' view, is a mere subjective reflection of reality. In fact, the interpretative ideal-type means little more than probability relations. Weber's understanding of human acts in the form of ideal-types forms the basis of his entire political sociology, including the well-known types of legitimacy, or stable domination. For Luk~ics, even though Weber establishes such central concepts as "power," "status," etc., each ideal type of legitimacy depends upon psychological factors and preferences carried by the calculating individual agents of capitalismJ 6 Luk~ics is most aware of the implications of the marginalist influences on Weber, which also led him away from orthodox genuine causality. Primarily, however, the Austrian marginalism in Weber's intellectual luggage is manifest in his anti-Marxism, inasmuch as advocates of the theory of marginal utility regarded the theory of surplus value as scientifically obsolete. 17 Apologetics. According to Luk~ics the relationship between sociology and Wilhelmine Germany is similar to that between the historical school and Bismarck's Prussia. Just as the historicists had praised Bismarckian industrialization and nation-building, so the sociologists were apologists for Kaiser Wilhelm's imperialism. According to Luk~ics, the problem for the sociologists was how to integrate the masses into the new German society. Since the social preconditions of socialism were not at hand, they viewed capitalism as inevitable and socialism as either threatening or Utopian idealism.

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This aversion to socialism was also shared by Weber, Luk~ics thought, inasmuch as Weber believed socialism would lead to an unprecedented bureaucratization. Even so Weber's attitude toward socialism was not uniformly hostile. Late in his life, in fact, Weber developed a rather cool and friendly approach to socialism, growing more sympathetic to the social democrats and becoming less of a bourgeois national activist. When he lectured on "Sozialismus" in Vienna to an audience of Austrian officers shortly before his death, Weber adopted a rather rational attitude toward socialism, regarding it as unrealistic on the basis of practical reason. 18 Even so, Weber remained basically loyal to the established form of political economy in a broad sense, being himself a part - although a marginalized part - of its elite. If not exactly a defender of status quo, he made policy recommendations to the rulers, as he did in his articles in Frankfurter Zeitung during the war. One might say that Weber was a one man loyal opposition. To Luk~ics, Weber appears as the most important scholar among the second wave of the founders of sociology, but he exaggerates the political motives in Weber's scholarly profile. Weber was a typical representative of his day and age, constantly obsessed with its tensions. In many ways Weber, aside from his scientific undertakings, was a political animal. Two souls dwelt in his bosom, to speak in the language of Goethe. Lukhcs wrote that, as bourgeois ideologists, the German sociologists could be more consequential revisionists than the political leaders of the labor movement - the latter had to be tactical to guard their positions. In these remarks Luk~ics displays an almost cabbalistic hypothesis about the function of sociology. 19 After all, it is only natural that professional sociologists would dare to say openly things about which politicians would be more discreet, and that to some extent sociologists would deal with the acute and relevant problems of Germany at that time. The most important of these problems as Guenther Roth has emphasized, was how to integrate the working classes into modem society. 2~ Luk~ics attempts to attribute to Weber a special role in the development of political class consciousness. Weber differs from his colleagues in his great subtlety, especially in his view on politics, which is crucial to Luk~ics, who tends to reduce science to politics. In fact, Luk~cs's discussion of Weber has the character of "political reductionism" inasmuch as he consistently treats sociology as a bourgeois science and judges it in light of its political implications. This is the subjective aspect of Luk~ics's assessment of Weber. In my view, however, a methodological interpretation of his reaction is more historically enlightening. Weber as a significant and plagued character embodies the tensions of his days. His remaining irrationalist elements, in an increasingly rationalized society, do not really make him comparable to the irrationalism of, for instance,

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the romantic mysticism in the Stefan George circle, as Luk~ics states. Weber rejected the older and no longer credible types of irrationalism. Luk~cs's critique of Weber rests on firm ground. Weber's principal distinction between science and politics provides a prominent place for charisma in his political sociology. Charisma is clearly a romantic and even irrational element in Weber's thought, whatever its empirical validity. It suggests obvious parallels with Carlyle's philosophy of history, with its more pronounced romantic concept of the great Man's role in history. Luk~ics regards charisma as a purely irrational element in Weber's thought. Such an overstatement indicates how much Weber's scientific creed is merely a way to firmly establish irrationalism in his general philosophy of history, as Luk~cs understands him. za Thus, even science appears as a cover for irrationalist purposes. Luk~ics's effort to pigeonhole Weber as simultaneously an especially influential and treacherous exponent of irrationalism and as a vigorous critic of "vulgar irrationalism" is not convincing. Weber is evidently not so easy to fit into the deepening irrationalism in Germany from the early national romantics opposing the Enlightenment to Hitler. Weber remains an anomaly to Luk~ics, and for him requires an ad hoc explanation. Weber as a Spokesman of Parliamentarism- and Imperialism. Weber did not follow the example of many other German sociologists whose apologetics glorified the German system as compared with that of the French or British. He was not actually an adherent of the existing order of his time, even if he remained loyal to it. Rather, he was a sort of "inside" opposition, and, influenced by the British example, proposed the introduction of parliamentary democracy in Germany. Weber knew about Ostrogorsky and was well informed about British constitutional practice, although he conceived of parliamentarism in a way that made adjustments for the special German experience (deutscher Sonderweg). 22 It is Weber's active support of parliamentarism that has probably led many analysts to regard Weber as supportive of the left - especially in the sense of that term in his day, as a label applied to socialists and liberals working to broaden the political base, attain equal suffrage, etc., and adjust the forms of government to the exigencies of mass democracy. As Weber saw it, uncontrolled bureaucracy had too strong a voice in the German political process (Beamtenherrschaft). It incarnated the fatal trend of increased rationality toward which Weber had such an ambivalent attitude. Germany was backward, there was a vacuum to be filled, and neither the bourgeoisie nor the labor movement could fill the coat of the ruler, as Bismarck once had. Weber's political opinion did not reflect an interest in finding the "right" form of rule, i.e., a constitution that would embody some "higher" principles:

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he simply thought it practical that power and responsibility should correspond with one another. The role of parliamentarism would be primarily an instrument of selection and control. Weber's democratic creed might seem lacking in inner ardor and passion, due no doubt to his practical or "functional" motivations. However, after the debacle of 1848, no real constituency remained in Germany for programmatic liberal democracy inspired by natural law. There is an element of instrumentalism and Realpolitik---a term Weber himself would not endorse--in his plea for parliamentary rule. As Luk~ics puts it, in the last instance Weber regarded democracy as the "best," i.e., most instrumental, form of government for imperialist expansion of a great power state, z3 A central feature of Luk~ics's critique, in fact, is an image of Weber as a spokesman for "imperialism. ''24 Luk~ics also suggests that, for Weber, democracy should serve imperialist expansionY and that he attributed the weakness of German imperialism to a lack of democratic development. Luk~ics thus blurs Weber's own instrumentalist contention that imperialism and democracy should both serve the nation. In these remarks Luk~ics touches upon a theme that often emerged in the d e b a t e a b o u t deutscher Sonderweg--between East and West, between authoritarianism and "true" democracy. At issue was the idea that Germany's existing form of government was too outdated to match the rapid industrialization and modernization of society, as exemplified by Bismarckian progressive/social policy. Weber's contribution to this debate, Luk~ics explicitly states, was to support the democratization of Germany as a technical means for improving the efficiency of imperialism. 26 It is true that Weber's commitment to democracy was not grounded in inherent democratic values. But if, in his national perspective, parliamentary democracy was only a means to an end, logically, the same was true for imperialism. At the beginning of the century Weber recommended German overseas expansion in order to maintain the balance between the great European powers and to prevent future restructuring wars between them. Not accidentally, he also thought the rising standard of living that would result from imperialist ventures would help integrate the masses into modern society. During the war, however, he wanted Germany to abstain from annexations for very similar reasons, i.e., to preserve a future peace. 27 Weber was a realist when he analyzed relations between nations. He had no vision of an orderly regulated international society. Macht and Kampf were even more crucial analytic categories here than in the analysis of domestic politics. Within a state the means of violence are normally monopolized (with some exceptions, like Lebanon today or Iceland in 13th century), but there is not yet any effective world government. In the Hobbesian sense the relations between states remain anarchic.

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An ongoing controversy surrounds the German Wille zur Macht, i.e., its instinct to power as a great nation. One possible interpretation is that Germany wanted only to attain what it regarded as a normal position among great European powers (Weltmachtstellung). Even this modest ambition, however, must of course be understood by its neighbors as threatening. When die verspiitete Nation suddenly moves it is something frightening, especially to France. German hegemony on the European continent would be an inevitable consequence. One might say that German imperialism was only an external manifestation of nation building to which Weber contributed. 28 Weber's views on the relation between democratization, class harmony and imperialism, are an instance of obvious immanent importance to Luk~ics's analysis of Weber, with its suspiciousness of the "strange nuances" in Weber's plea for parliamentary democracy. 29 Weber as a Precursor to Nazism. Luk~cs's basic procedure is not so much to scrutinize ideas as such but to relate them to their social and historical context. He is inconsistent, therefore, when he keeps Weber's political ideas in the forefront of his discussion. Luk~ics would not accuse his friend and former teacher o f being a forerunner of Nazism. However, his analysis of Weber's thought appears to tacitly assert that he is partly responsible for the ascendancy of Nazism. The whole disposition of Luk~cs's book, which regards Weber as a key contributor to the ever increasing irrationalism of German spiritual life, culminates in the discussion of Weber's paradoxical position; Weber becomes a forerunner to both Nazism and parliamentarism. W e b e r ' s v i e w s on d e m o c r a c y do contain authoritarian elements. Together with Weber's dualism between science and non-science, or, more synthetically, in the field of politics, between rationalism and charisma, these elements accentuate the problem of his relationship to Nazism. To Luk~ics, these features of Weber's thought follow from his views that value-judgments lie outside the proper sphere of science, and that science can only provide the means which are at the disposal of arbitrary charismatic or other interests and values. Weber believed that the democratically elected leader, once inaugurated, should rule with all the powers in his hands, undisturbed by parliamentary interference. Weber's conversation with General Ludendorff, also quoted by Luk~ics, is quite illuminating here: 3~ Weber: In a democracy the people choose a leader whom they trust. Then the chosen man says, "Now shut your mouths and obey me." The people and the parties are no longer free to interfere in the leader's business! Ludendorff: I could like such a "democracy"! Weber: Later the people can sit in judgment. If the leader has made mistakes - to the gallows with him! . . .

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This conversation is rendered at the expense of Ludendorff. Weber met him in order to persuade him to give himself up to the enemy, in order to save the honor of the German army and facilitate the Versailles negotions. The evaluation of Weber's call for a charismatic--or plebiscitary--leader is not eased by the course of actual events, since Adolph Hitler fulfills at least some of Weber's requirements. "Weberian democracy is transformed into a Bonapartist Caesarism," as Luk~ics writes. 31 Weber's Functional View of Democracy. Weber was unresponsive to any notion of a "democratic spirit." Still, he advocated democracy at a time when many either opposed it or remained apolitical. Weber also did not regard constitutional problems as matters of principle. For example, in a letter to Ehrenburg he wrote: "Forms of constitution are for me technical means like any other machinery. I'd be just as happy to take the side of the monarch against Parliament, if he only were a politician or showed signs of becoming one. ''32 This "relativism" implicit in Weber's position is logical only if we understand that his concern was for the nation to attain a stable and efficient government, not to impose a specific form of rule. Constitutional forms were to him secondary to raison d'etat. Weber is both an imperialist and a Machiavellian, but not at all in the sense implied by his critics. It was the balance of power and not the white man's burden that motivated Weber to advocate imperialism under certain circumstances. Like Machiavelli, he was concerned with the self-interest of his Patria. His realistic (some might even say pessimistic) views borrowed more from Hobbes and Clausewitz than Grotius, an attitude that, in the light of subsequent events, proved empirically plausible. 33 Naturally, W e b e r ' s conception of politics--especially international politics--is offensive to many. "Anyone who regards democracy and international collaborations as correlated principles will be rather puzzled by this doctrine ''34 writes Werner Falk. This might be s o - - b u t since calculability (Zweckrationalitiit) is Weber's lodestar when he deals with matters involving democracy, he can be fairly criticized only on the normative, i.e., extrascientific, level. His practical views on democracy appears consistent even though they changed over time. Reflections on Lukdcs's Method of Interpretation. Although it is legitimate to characterize a body of thought in terms of its political preconditions and effects, as for instance in expressions of the philosophy of life (Lebensphilosophie) and "revisionism," such a cultural criticism is limited in scope. However accurate it might be, it adds nothing to our knowledge of the validity of a certain position. To note, for example, that the neo-Kantian style of explanation could be seen as superficial knowledge (Oberfldchenerscheinungen) tells us nothing about how to discriminate between different "functionally equiva-

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lent" intellectual positions. It is not by chance that Weber's differences of opinion with his colleagues strikes Luk~ics as puzzling anomalies, which he must explain ad hoc. When Weber's democratic inclinations are seen as expressions of the same determinants as his colleagues' less democratic and more uncritical apologies of imperial rule, it indicates that Luk~ics' tools of analysis are not discriminated sharply enough. The contextual approach by Luk~ics is marked more by its limitations that its flaws. If sociology has a rational core, it could hardly be accounted for in terms of "spirit of the time" (Zeitgeist), etc. The more timeless are the empirical and theoretical problems at stake, the less fruitful the contextual approach seems. Luk~ics's approach is a blunt instrument in methodological matters; it risks confusing validity with origin of a given idea. Concluding Remarks.Lukfms's discontent with Weber's political role led him to an inaccurate assessment of Weber's scholarly work. Nonetheless, his understanding of Weber remains important in at least two respects. First, it provides a paradigmatic framework for one variant of Marxist interpretation of Weber, the historicist brand of Marxism exemplified, for example, by Wolfgang Lefrvre's work in the late 60s. 35 Second, Luk~ics identified the crucial issue on which much modern debate on Weber has centered: his relationship to Nazism and deutscher Sonderweg. Since Wolfgang Mommsen published his huge dissertation on Weber and German politics in 1959, this has been a recurring topic of heated debate, much of it influenced by Mommsen's work. Accordingly, it is to a consideration of Mommsen's work and the issues it raised that we now turn.

Wolfgang Mommsen on Weber and Politics Luk(lcs vs. Mommsen. By seeming to suddenly deprive the Federal Republic of one of its chief founders Mommsen's dissertation sowed considerable disarray a m o n g traditional " o r t h o d o x " Weberians. W e b e r ' s views on authoritarian "plebiscitary" democracy did not fit the image of historically innocent liberalism. The charismatic irrational element in Weber's vehement national liberalism was well documented and the historical link to Nazism was laid open in a--according to Mommsen's many critics--defaming way. 36 A certain thematic correspondence exists between Luk~ics and Mommsen, which indicates the broad significance and influence of Luk~ics's assessment of Weber. In fact, Mommsen underscores some of Luk~ics's "accusations" against Weber, presenting us with the most thorough monograph on Weber ever produced. In particular, both interpreters challenge the hagiographic image

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of Weber that was cultivated by the circle of admirers surrounding his widow Marianne in Heidelberg. 37 At the same time, however, some obvious differences exist between Luk~cs and M o m m s e n ' s normative critiques of Weber. They begin their analyses with different sources of normative evaluation. While Luk~ics is fond of the party-line and regards the proletarian movement as an embodiment of truth in praxis, Mommsen appears basically to be a naturaFlaw-inspired representative of the bourgeois left. Despite these differences, however, the normative approach they share flaws both efforts: Weber's true scientific qualities are to be found on the cognitive rather than normative level. Mommsen cannot fairly be accused of the "political reductionism" that suffuses Luk~cs's evaluation, although his arguments do presuppose a sort of extrascientific key, which he applies to Weber's political as well as scientific works. "Above all," he writes, "it would be a horrible misunderstanding to assume that Weber's sociology could be purified and isolated from his political and social views. On the contrary, every ambitious analysis shows us, that his sociological ouvre rests upon a specific world-view, with an inherent political aspect. ''38 In a sense this somewhat categorical statement echoes Luk~cs. Both react against Weber's "Machiavellism" and "imperialism" and clearly allow the normative implications of Weber's work to overshadow its instrumental character. Luk~cs's political passions are more fundamental to his reaction - which nevertheless is best understood as a p r e - n e o - K a n t i a n reaction on the methodological level - while Mommsen searches for the firm Archimedian point that would render Weber's whole work accessible to an all encompassing Gesamtdeutung. Yet, W e b e r ' s political views, including his seemingly paradoxical embrace of both democratic and authoritarian positions, cannot be understood apart from a consideration of his instrumentalism. As Georg Iggers has seen, there is in fact no paradox. "Max Weber," he writes, "came to be hailed both as a founding father of the Weimar Republic and as a Machiavellian figure, more extreme than Treitschke and Droysen in reducing all politics to the power interests of the state. Both labels, democrat and Machiavelli, contain an element of truth. ''39 Both Weber and Machiavelli are important contributions to a long trend of instrumental reason, of means-end-rationality, with calculability and anti-natural law as core elements. In addition to the authoritarianism with which he is commonly associated, Machiavelli was also an early pioneer in mass democracy stressing the role of the mass in the political process in ways that were appropriate to his Florence. In this sense, even Weber's plebiscitary leadership democracy may be considered Machiavellian. Machiavelli combines a preference for both sovereign absolutism and "democracy" (in the sense that popular consent was something worth achieving). One might--contrary to both Luk~ics and Mommsen further

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extend Iggers's characterization and propose that there is no difference between the labels: Weber was a democratic Machiavellian. The plebiscitary and democratic elements in Weber are not mutually exclusive. Weber's sudden shift after the war to preferring presidential rule over parliamentary monarchy was, more than anything else, an adjustment to changes in political reality. The logic of events made the transition a natural one, especially since Weber did not regard either parliamentarism or liberal constitutionalism as goals in themselves. As Beetham accurately describes Weber's view on democracy, its characteristic "is that it makes no reference to democratic values, much less regards them as worth striving for. ''40 Strong parliamentarism could be a good thing only for practical reasons, such as providing an instrumental training ground for leadership. The British Example----Cognitive or Normative? Weber's political views were inspired, in part, by his observations of concrete developments in England. The influence of the British example in no way contradicts the idea that Weber also embraced the German tradition of power politics (Realpolitik). Mommsen, however, insists that Weber's dependence upon "the spiritual tradition of late German historicism" makes the British influence somehow less significant. This expresses a normative interpretation of the British example. Many German scholars were impressed by the obvious success of the British in areas where the Germans were late starters, and they were consequently eager to learn about the secrets of parliamentary statecraft. However, the political values inherent in British parliamentarism generally held little appeal for German analysts. The German tradition, which they had absorbed, was not liberal but more state interventionist, to use a modem term, with a much greater role for the rule of bureaucracy. Even Hitler said that he admired the British because of their rule in India and that "had we Germans colonized India we would have needed three millions of state officials instead of three hundred thousand." It may be that M o m m s e n ' s view was influenced by Gustav Schmidt's selective emphasis of the British influence on Weber, giving them too much normative significance. Commenting on Schmidt, Mommsen writes that "the importance of the English model for Weber's political thought is in this sense overestimated" (noting Schmidt's stress on the influence of liberal values). 41 Mommsen himself certainly does not overestimate the issue since this is one of the infrequent passages where it is evident that Mommsen is aware of the British influences he chooses to neglect. At the same time, Mommsen's critics overstress the significance of British influence. As a result, all sides in the debate endow the British example with a normative rather than cognitive or analytic meaning. 42 The heated debate between Mommsen and his critics finds a continuation in the outburst at the 1964 sociological congress in Heidelberg, Weber's hometown, with participants invited from France and America. The normative aspect

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still intrudes, delaying Weber's proper scientific reception, i.e,, the understanding of the significance of his transcendence of "empiricist" historicism through his neo-Kantian, i.e., anti-essentialist, approach to concept formation and theoretical abstraction.

Weber and His Critics As Weberians Marcuse's Criticism of Weber. As Raymond Aron observed in his introductory paper to the discussion on Weber and power politics at the 1964 sociological congress in Heidelberg, the debates inspired by Mommsen's book were not purely scientific. As if to illustrate his point the sharpest controversy at the conference arose after Herbert Marcuse denounced Weber's views on technical rationality as "ideology," a popular strategy within the critical school to which Marcuse belongs. Whereas Mommsen echoes the Luk~csian tradition of presenting Weber in very general terms as a forerunner to Nazism, Marcuse made an explicit connection. He even implied a relationship between "formal rationality" in Weberian thinking and the death industry at Auschwitz. 43 Marcuse, who was well known as a spokesman for the "revival of Utopianism," was of course, most critical of Weber's fatalism concerning the iron cage of increasing rationality. In arguing that Weber tends to regard specific features as generally valid Marcuse might be correct. To mention only one example, Weber's famous rational ideal-type of bureaucracy is of a general and not individualizing variety, even if the Prussian officialdom provides many characteristics to the prototype. Thus features depicted from a capitalist formation contribute to establishing a generally applicable concept. However, Weber's concept evidently has a broad significance, since bureaucracy is found in many historical contexts. Socialism also provides many good examples, as Weber himself liked to point out, thus provoking reactions from, among others, Marcuse. 44 Even if Weber was narrowly deterministic, Mareuse failed to provide any concrete alternative. There is no way, in his hypothetical dialogue, for Marcuse to alter Weber's unwillingness to accept a radical Utopian break (Aufhebung) from the capitalist order. Mm~cuse operates from a postulated "Archimed~an point," not designed to satisfy criteria of evidence. Formal rationality, said Marcuse, echoing Luk~cs, engenders substantive irrationality. Marcuse was also critical of the relationship between Weber's views on bureaucracy and on the charismatic leader. According to Weber the rational bureaucratic machine should be controlled by a charismatic--and irrational---leader.

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Thus, Weber's rationality was in fact an expression of irrationalism. "The plebiscitary democracy," says Marcuse, "is the political manifestation of reason transformed to irrationality. "45 Marcuse's claim was not that Weber was unaware of the distinction between formal and substantial rationality, but that Weber was uninterested in the problem of substantive rationality--or irrationality--under capitalist domination. Marcuse thus treated Weber with crude and, in this case, inappropriate concepts. Marcuse was himself immune to all forms of political revisionism, due to his experiences with the unsuccessful German revolution after the First World War, with the Social Democrats (e.g., Noske) betraying the ultimate cause of altering the capitalist order, instead upholding the old one in new guise. Weber was fundamentally bourgeois even if, toward the end of his life, he realized the need for some "socialist" reforms and adopted a more reformist attitude. Such plain political categories are of obvious relevance in the attempt to comprehend Marcuse's reaction to Weber. In his book, The Age of Bureaucracy, Mommsen states that Marcuse attacked Weber for having identified the "formal rationality" of capitalism with its substantive rationality, which is clearly to overstate the matter. What Marcuse actually argued was that: "Time and again Weber defines formal rationality in contrast to substantial rationality." Weber's alleged error was to concentrate on the former. 46 Marcuse does claim that Weber's "formal rational" conception of industrialized society presupposes substantive historical conditions and, thus, that the distinction between formal and substantive (or "material") rationality in the end obscures our view of reality. Marcuse claimed that Weber's formal definition included some material elements. But his references to the "real conditions" (Realbedingungen) or substantive base for Weber's conceptualizations are typical of the Hegelian, anti-neo-Kantian, and in this context monistic tradition from which he stems. I suggest that Marcuse's politically inspired reaction to Weber like Luk~ics' was essentially an epistemological reaction against Weber's neoKantian nominalism. The programmatic distinction between concept and reality is offensive to the Hegelian, and, in fact, to the whole historicist tradition. Older metaphysical views regarded the conceptual world as something real, waiting to be discovered by the curious rational mind. Hegelian superrationalism tends to make our common mundane reality superfluous; even reality as such endowed with a disturbing irrational character. By contrast, to the neo-Kantian, concepts are merely constructs of the human mind, to be utilized as heuristic devices for gaining knowledge about a problematic reality. The neo-Kantians have a negative concept-ontology which is alien to pre-neo-Kantian thought. The German intellectual milieu still ineludes many pre-neo-Kantians, whereas the Anglo-Saxon sphere, following

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Hume, witnessed a more thorough break with the essentialist tradition. The paradigmatic gulf between these two schools of concept-formation, the essentialist and the nominalist, provides an indispensable key to the understanding of Luk~ics' and Marcuse's reactions to Weber. Marcuse's purpose in attacking Weber was to demonstrate that Weber's sociology was neither as value-free (wertfrei) nor as rational as Weber claimed. However, his argumentation is unconvincing since his interpretation of Weber is poorly documented. It is, frankly, somewhat impressionistic in character. Weber never advocated "value-freedom" in the crude sense that Marcuse suggests. In his so-called twin-lectures--his Munich "Swan-song"--Weber indeed stressed the fact-value distinction. However, his whole methodological procedure really qualifies value-freedom to become value-orientation, i.e., utilizing values as the very criteria for intersubjective selection from the vast reality in the formation of scientific concepts. Weber also clearly distinguished between science and metaphysics, thus manifested in the process of theoretical abstraction. Lucid concepts allowing intersubjective testability (rationale Evidenz)--promoting the growth of cumulative objective knowledge--is a Weberian feature to which the anti-rico-Kantians are resistant. Furthermore, Weber's rational types should not be associated with material consequences in the manner Marcuse proposes. Again, their conceptual validity has nothing to do with their functions. Some passages in Marcuse's text imply that he just does not accept the neo-Kantian distinction between concept and reality. Of all Weber's critics Marcuse can most accurately and justly be charged with "political reductionism." Yet, even so, Marcuse's interpretation of Weber's political values and positions is inaccurate, unreliable, and rhetorical. For example, Marcuse uncritically accepts Frieburger Antrittsrede as representative of Weber's political analysis. But even if a certain empirical continuity does exist between Weber's interpretation of political affairs in 1894 and 1917, he came to regard his inaugural speech as immature and explicitly modified its excesses of vigilant bourgeois activism. And while science and politics might be intermixed during Weber's early militancy, his philosophy of value, with its distinction between fact and value, was explicitly developed only a decade later, and even in 1894 it remains to be demonstrated that his analysis was somehow tainted by his values, Marcuse seems to regard Weber's plea for "value-freedom" as a cover for ideological intentions: "Ever since the Freiburg inauguration speech, which with unscrupulous openness subjugates value-free economics to the demands of imperialist power politics, is this function of Weberian philosophy of science evident. ''47 Marcuse's political reductionism could hardly be more evident.

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In Marcuse's view Weber was a representative of counterrevolutionary militancy who, together with the extreme right, applauded the firing squads of the bourgeois vigilantes. In fact, Weber had very few contacts with romantic ("value-rational") conservatism. He actually saved the life of Ernst Toller (the victor of the Dachau-battle during the Bavarian uprising) after the debacle of the short-lived Bavarian soviet republic. Moreover, according to Paul Honigsheim, W e b e r ' s "Boswell," he was repelled by any "Treitschke-attitude" (referred to by Weber as "zoological nationalism"). Although a liberal, the mature Weber pleaded for cooperation with the Social Democratic party in order to restore Germany as a nation. 48 The failure of the German revolution in 1919 appears to have been such a tragic event for Marcuse that he remained stuck in a nostalgic non-instrumental, revolutionary value-rationalism. His own ideological lens blinded him to the essential core of Weber's ideas. By contrast, any reasonable conception of Weber's political attitudes must stress the instrumentalism of his nationalism and of his "Machiavellism" and "imperialism." As compared with the value-rational nationalists of Treitschke's brand, Weber was means-end-rational (Zweckrational), with nationalism as his undisputed central value--as it was to many other scholars of his generation.

Habermas as a Weberian

Some of the themes in Marcuse's criticism of Weber in 1964 are echoed in the scholarship of Jiirgen Habermas, especially in his lecture on "Science and Technology as Ideology. ''49 The young Habermas also participated in the attacks on Weber in Heidelberg. Weber was, according to Habermas, "in agreement with the neo-Kantians, pogitivistic enough not to allow himself to reflect upon the connection between his methodological perspective and rules, and the results of his social analysis. ''5~ This quotation is only one of several expressions of that paradigmatic clash between secular science, in the vein of Arnold Brecht and Karl Popper, and an older tradition of cultural philosophy and social science, of "reflection" as an all encompassing undertaking, in line with the Hegelian-Luk~icsian (in my opinion, Icarian) ambition of "total reason." Habermas blurs the analytical separation between the scientific and the political by resorting to both political reductionism and to the "genetic fallacy," i.e., the tendency to consider the origins of statements to the neglect of their truth value. Habermas himself says that: "It seems to me that we cannot separate Max Weber's methodology from his general interpretation of the tendencies in development which are relevant for the present time. In this respect we can learn from older searchers into Weber's work, from Weber, Landhut, and Freyer. ''51 Habermas goes on to try to show that Weber's policy analysis sup-

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ported efforts to legitimate the Nazis as carried out by Carl Schmitt, Weber's pupil. 52 However, as a modem critical theorist, in some respects carrying on the legacy of Horkheimer, Habermas is also surprisingly Weberian. He later reformulated the Marxian concepts of "productive forces" and "relations of production" to "labor" and "interaction"--or "communication"--thus formulating another synthesis between Marx and Weber. Even among the inheritors of old essentialist historicism, Weberian concepts--despite Weber's more pessimistic views on the proper scope of scientific reason--appear to have a wider, more general, application than Marx's, whose systematic conceptual apparatus is best suited for the study of competitive capitalism. 53 Habermas characterizes Luk~ics's synthesis as both dependent on Weber's analysis "and yet directed against its implications. ''54 The same might well be said of Habermas's own efforts. His empirical concepts draw heavily upon Weber--as well as Marx. But Habermas has evidently not yet written off the U t o p i a n p r o j e c t as a s o l u t i o n for the t r a u m a t i c e x i s t e n t i a l i s t - - i . e . , "Nietzschean"---anxiety of modernity. Whereas Weber straightforwardly recognized the existence of disorientation and struggle, his followers in spe within "critical theory" tend to project a humanistic alternative. Habermas's alternative is a vision of a society that would be able to solve its tensions with rational communication. The learned republic of scholars has long been accustomed to rational discourse. Haberrnas would extend the pattern to society as a whole. Unfortunately, Habermas's vision is crippled by its Socratic element. It would be difficult to force anyone to engage in normative discourse. After all, the intention of science as such is a cognitive interest in explanation and prediction, rather than in emancipation and participation. Habermas's Utopian project lacks the disillusioned realism so characteristic of Weber. The idea of a rational consensus achieved more by the strategies of Socrates than of yon Clausewitz is of course quite appealing in an era in which the means of struggle are increasingly dangerous. But the burden of proof and persuasion remains with the vision rather than with the reluctant audience. Habermas's solution is simply a variation of an old Indian rope trick, ignoring the conventions of skeptical antimetaphysical science. When Habermas leaves the firm ground of intersubjective method, he enters the temple of secular religiosity. The increasing calculability and reification of human relations, along with the decline of transcendent norms in a post-Enlightenment age, encourages a search for substitutes in the sphere of meaning. Habermas appears basically to be an idealist who is unwilling to accept that we, having eaten from the tree of knowledge, have forever lost our innocence and must now live with the polytheism of values.

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FURTHER CONCLUDING REMARKS Remarkably, perhaps, even Weber's most vehement critics appear to be somewhat indebted to his theoretical insights. However, if the quality of scholarship is sufficient to influence even the adherents of antagonistic paradigms, it cannot bridge the paradigmatic gulf between Weber and his critics, who are indisposed to accept Weber's relativism and nominalist strategy of concept formation. The Weber-Rickert methodological application of the famous fact-value distinction was not accepted by the "pre-neo-Kantians" we have examined. They tend to produce more heat than light in resisting the secularization to which Weber is an important link in the German intellectual milieu. Weber's contribution to the demystification of social thought promotes, through growing methodological self-awareness, social science as a rational cumulative process, meeting demands of scientific criteria of evidence, utilizing lucid concepts in the efforts to establish explanatory propositions. Normativism and essentialism impede the scientific evaluation of Weber's contribution to the development of the social sciences.

NOTES 1. Mommsen, Wolfgang, Max Weber und die deutsche Politik, (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1959, 2nd ed. 1974, Engl. transl. 1984). Lrwith, Karl, "Max Weber und seine Nachfolger" (Max Weber and his followers), in Mass und Weft, Vol. 3, 1939/40. Lnk~ics, Georg, Die Zerstrrung der Vernunft (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1953). The transactions of the Heidelberg centenary are collected in Stammer, Otto (Ed.), Max Weber und die Soziologie heute. Verhandlungen des 15. deutschen Soziologentages (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1965). It is also available in a somewhat abridged English translation, by Kathleen Morris, Max Weber and Sociology Today (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971). 2. Weber, Marianne, Max Weber, Ein Lebensbild (Heidelberg: Schneider, 1950 first ed. 1926, Engl. transl, by Harry Zohn (New York etc: Wiley, 1975). Especially chap. 19, "The postrevolutionary politician," is of interest in our context. Even if Weber had a responsibility for 8248 it ought to be mentioned that extraordinary rule had been enforced for extended periods in recent German history, thus not being so extraordinary. 3. Antoni, Carlo, From History to Sociology. The Transition in German Historical Thinking (London: Merlin Press, 1962, first English ed. 1959, orig. publ. in Italian 1940). Colletti, Lucio, From Rousseau to Lenin (New York & London: Monthly Review Press, 1974, first English ed. 1972, orig. in Italian 1969). 4. Marcuse, Herbert, Referat zum Thema "Industrialisierung und Kapitalismus," in Stammer (Ed.), Opt. eit., pp. 161-80. 5. There is a vast recent discussion, both inside and outside Germany, on the meaning of "deutscher Sonderweg," the peculiar route of German historical development, with contributions from Kocka, Wehler, Eley, Blackbourn, Sheehan, Barkin, Stem. I abstain from detailed references. 6. Weber, Max, "Die 'Objektivit~t' sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkermtnis", I, II, in Archivfiir Sozialwissnschaft und Sozialpolitik, 19 Bd, 1904, pp. 22-87. It is one of those essays available in English, already 1949, through the Shils & Finch translation, The Methodol-

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7. 8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15.

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ogy of the Social Sciences (New York: The Free Press, 1949). Shils is not satisfied with his own translation, with many typological errors remaining through the reprints, according to conversations with him in Cambridge spring -85. Weber's article has a programmatic character, upon the occasion of Weber taking over the editorship of the Archiv, together with Wemer Sombart and Edgar Jaff& According to Joseph Schumpeter in his Epochen der Dogmen- und Methodengeschichte (first English transl. 1955) very few German scholars were not "historicists." Luk~ics is evidently a constant target for those who, like Hans Albert, want to reveal the weaknesses of "Der Mythos der totalen Vemunft" (the myth of total reason). There has been a typical delay of the proper scientific reception of Weber in Germany, for many reasons. After the beginning of the enormous Max-Weber-Gesamtausgabe-project, which will in due time give us a complete edition of Weber's whole production, including his letters, German weberology is rapidly catching up. However, it is in my opinion still impeded by a strong inclination to find the only unifying principle that would all of a sudden make Weber comprehensible as a whole, laying bare his research program, tempting reputable scholars to leave firm ground for adventurous extrapolations. W. Mommsen, W. Hennis, F. Tenbruek, W. Schluehter have all contributed to this Gesamtdeutungs-debate. In the MWG-project, however, otherwise quarreling German professors cooperate in a joint venture. An idea about also young German Weberology is attainable in Max Weber and his Contemporaries, ed. by Mommsen & Osterhammel (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987). Lebensphilosophie is the genetic root of everyday-sociology, with its atheoretical tendency. It provides a pragmatic, empirical, solution to the problem of intersubjectivity, rather than a formalistic one. The "tragedy of culture" in this context refers to several related, in the end all rather eschatological, dark visions of the predicament of modem man and society, for instance Walter Rathenaus's. There is a huge literature on the Methodenstreit and its impact on Weber and his contemporaries, suffice to mention H. H. Braun, Science, Values and Politics in Max Weber's Methodology (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1972), and Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, 2. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson). The Marginalist influences have been stressed by many scholars, for instance Parsons, Antoni, Aron, Pfister, Therbom. It is, at present, subject to ongoing research by, among others, Michael Bittman. The birth of modem capitalism is naturally an "ever-green" in history, since its universal Break-through is the most significant--and still unexplained---occurrence in modem history. It is, moreover, long since a playground for competing modes of explanation. Overviews of the debate triggered off by Weber's essay on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-5) are offered in for instance Joh. Winckelmann's edition of the German debate, Max Weber, Die protestantische Ethik H. Kritiken und Antikritiken (Hamburg; Siebenstem, 1968), and also - supplementary - in S. N. Eisenstadt (Ed.), The Protestant Ethic and Modernization (London & New York: Basic Books, 1968). Luk~tcs, Op. cit., p. 479. Both Rathenau and the George-circle could be seen as a kind of following-up of the Lebensphilosophie. Rathenau preferably deals with the "revolt of the soul against the mechanistic machinery of capitalism" and is very influential at the time of the First World War. Weber sometimes speaks in a similar vein of the lifeless machinery of capitalist industrialism. They also have in common a Romantic "Carlylean" view on charismatic leadership. A good handbook-text on neo-Kantianism and its methodological role is offered in Georg Iggers' The German Conception of History (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan, 1968). See also Willey, Thomas E., Back to Kant (Detroit: Wayne State, 1978), and Segady, Thomas W., Values, Neo-Kantianism and the Development of Weberian Methodology (New York, Bern etc.: Peter Lang, 1987). There is a recent German growing debate with contributions by Krhnke, Ollig, Wagner & Zipprian, etc.

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16. Luk~ics, Op. cit., p. 484: "mit 'Chance' definiert Weber die verscbiedensten sozialen Gebilde, wie Macht, Recht, Staat usw - nichts anderes ergeben als die abstrakt formulierte Psychnlogie des kalkulierenden individuellen Agenten des Kapitalismus." 17. Op. cir., p. 478: "Als Anh~inger der 'Grenznutzentheorie' betrachtet die Mehrheit der deutschen Soziologen die Lehre vom Mehrwert alses wissenschaftlich erledigt." 18. This lecture is not too easily available in English but is included in some readers, for instance those edited by Dennis Wrong and L E. 17. Eldridge. 19. Op. cit., p. 480: "Sie ziehen bloss, als biirgerlichen ldeologen der imperialistisehen Periode, konsequenter alle Folgerungen aus dem Revisionismus, als dessen Wortf'dhrer - aus taktischen Rfieksiehten auf ihre Positionen in der Arbeiterbewegung - zu tun instande waren." 20. Roth, Guenther, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany (Totowa, N. J. Bedminster, 1963). 21. Luk~ics, Op. cir., p. 489. In the original Luk~ics notes "wie sehr sein strenge Wissenschaftlichkeit nut ein Weg zur endgiiltigen Etabliernng des lrrationalismus in der Weltanschauung gewesen ist." 22. How to understand Weber's inspiration from the British sources is, as we will return to, admittedly a matter of interpretation. See for instance Turner, Stephen & Factor, Regis, "Weber, the Germans and 'Anglo-Saxon Convention': Liberalism as a technique and form of life," in Glassman, R. & Murvar, V. (Eds.), Max Webers Political Sociology (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1984). 23. Luk~ics, Op. eit., p. 481, where Luk~cs writes "er betrachtet, bei aller Kritik, Die Demokratie als die geeigneste Form f-fir die imperialistische Expansion einer modernen Grossmacht." 24. In much the same way, Weber's "neo-Machiavellism" looms large in J. P. Mayer's discussion, Mayer, J. P., Max Weber and German Politics (London: Faber, 1944), for instance p. 16. Mayer is criticized by Wolfgang Mommsen, Op. cit., esp. p. 45. See also pp. 444 and 48 (in 2nd German ed.), However, their interpretations of Weber's "Machiavellism" actually have a moralistic basis in common and the differences seem to be of basically terminological character. 25. Luk~ics, Ibid.: "Die Schw~iche des deutschen Imperialismus sieht er gerade in dessen Mangel an innerpolitischen demoEratischer Entwiekhmg." 26. Op. cit., p. 488, where Luk~lcs writes that "die Demokratisierung Deutschlands ist ja in seinen Augen nur eine technische Massnahme zum Zweck eines besser funktionierenden/mperialismus,"

27. Now, however, at closer scrutiny Weber seems to have had quite an appetite, nevertheless, on behalf of German security needs, like a tariff union with Poland and the Baltic states, several fortresses outside Germany's western border, hegemony in the East, etc. Still, principally Weber is rather abstentious, in the sense that he realizes that any Lebensraum-ambitions could easily backfire, rather than promote peace and stability. 28. For an overview of the Fischer-thesis-debate - about Germany's "Wille zur Weltmachtstellung" - see Iggers, Georg G., New Directions in European Historiography (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan, 1975), esp. Chap. 3. The concept of "die versp~itete Nation" stems from Plessner. 29. Lukfics, Op. cir., pp. 481-2. 30. Weber, Marianne, Op. cit., p. 703 et passim (p. 653 in Zohn's translation from -75). 31. Luk~cs, Op. cit., p. 482: "Die webersche Demokratie schlagt also in einen bonapartistischen Caesarismus urn." 32. This quotation can be found in, among other sources, the first edition of Weber's GPS (Gesammelte politische Schriften = Collected PolitieaI Works) from I921, p. 470. 33. For a nuanced judgement on Weber's relation to Machiavelli, see lggers' The German Conception of History, p. 171. 34. Falk. Werner, "Democracy and Capitalism in Max Weber's Sociology," in The Sociological Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 4 (Oct. 1935), pp. 373-93. The quotation is found on p. 386. 35. Lefevre, Wolfgang, Zurn historischen Character und zur historischen Funktion der Methode biirgerlicher Soziologie (To the historical character and the historical function of bourgeois sociological method, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1971). "Lefevre does not understand sociological value-neutral theory, but as an expression and point of crystallization of social and historical tendencies, of which it is itself a part," as we can read in a presentation on the cover (my translation).

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36. Carl Schmitt is supposed to embody the link, as reflected in a huge discussion over his dependence upon Weber - and congeniality with his intentions. There are a number of contributions to the secondary literature with a certain taste of "guilt by association," for instance Habermas in Heidelberg in 1964. There is also a more serious discussion, following recent research by Ellen Kennedy, who already in 1980 presented a paper on "Carl Schmitt on Liberalism and the Total State: Weimar as Example and Prologue" to The American Political Science Convention in Washington, D.C. Several of the contributions to the debate triggered off by Kennedy have been published in Geschichte und Gesellschaft', the journal of the Bielefeld school (Kocka and Wehler), of theoretical social history. 37. Prominent among these admirers were Karl Jaspers and the Heuss brothers. Jaspers never really criticized Weber, his hero. Moreover, reading Theodor Heuss's (the first president of the FRG) foreword to the second edition of GPS provides an indication of how shocking young Mommsen's revelations in 1959 must have been, all of a sudden transforming Weber from a tame liberal into a vehement nationalist. 38. Mommsen, Max Weber and die deutsche Politik, p. 419 in the English translation from 1984. 39. Iggers, The German Conception of History, p. 171. 40. Beetham, David, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974), p. 112. 41. Schmidt, Gustav, Deutscher Historismus und der Ubergang zur parlamentarischen Demokratie: Untersuchungen zu den politischen Gedanken yon Meinecke, Troeltsch, Max Weber (Liibeck & Hamburg: 1964, Heft 389 in Historische Studien). Mommsen, Op. cir., p. 446 (in the German second ed.). 42. Most of the central contributions to this "post-Mommsen"-debate are to be found in KOlner Zeitschrift fiir Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (KZfSS), in the early 60s, for instance Loewenstein's attack and one of Mommsen's main rejoinders. The second ed. of Mommsen's book also offers an overview of all main reactions to the first edition. 43. Aron, Raymond, "Referat zum Thema 'Max Weber und die Machtpolitik'," in Stammer (Ed.): Op. cit., pp. 103-20. Marcuse, Op. cit. 44. As for instance in Weber's famous lecture on Socialism, held for Austrian officers after the War (see note 18 above). Marcuse himself has a parenthetic reference to this, in negative form: "We could ask us what Weber would have said if he had seen how the East instead of the West has embraced the most extreme form of Occidental rationality, in the name of socialism." Marcuse, Op. cit., p. 161. 45. Op. cit., p. 175. 46. Op. cit., p. 169. Mommsen: The Age of Bureaucracy (Oxford: Basil BlackwelI, 1974), p. 67. 47. Marcuse, Op. tit., p. 161. 48. Honigsheim, Paul, On Max Weber (New York & London: Free Press & Macmillan, 1968). 49. Habermas, Jiirgen, Technik und Wissenschafi als "Ideologie'" (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1968). 50. Habermas, Jiirgen, in Stammer, Op. tit., p. 65 in the English edition, from Habermas's contribution to the discussion following Horkheimer's Referat to the theme "Value-freedom and Objectivity." 51. Habermas in Stammer, Op. cit., p. 63. 52. Op. cit., p. 66. 53. See for instance Hungar, Kristian, Empiric und Praxis. Ertrag und Grenzen der Forschungen Max Webers im Licht neuerer Konzeptionen (Meisenheim am Glan: Haln, 1971, Bd 6 in Marmheimer sozialwissenschaftliche Studien). 54. Habermas, Jtirgen, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, I, II (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981, English translation by Thomas McCarthy available through Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), p. 356 in the English edition.