Liberalism and Capitalism Today. Paul-Jacques Lehmann
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bourgeoisie, with whom they had been so afraid of being confused, becomes richer on the contrary and becomes enlightened beside them, without them and against them: they had not wanted to have the bourgeoisie as partners nor as fellow citizens; they will find in them rivals, soon enemies, and finally masters.
However, this seizure of political power by the bourgeoisie would lead to economic disadvantages with the passing of laws that questioned the form of this nascent capitalism: encouragement of the formation of monopolies, sources of price increases and protectionism, an increase in public spending and therefore in taxes, and privileges granted to new beneficiaries. Moreover, quite rapidly, cities would lose their influence, both because the increase in the size of companies would force them to settle outside the cities, as the lords saw their incomes increase when they, in turn, became entrepreneurs, and because the cities of southern Europe were facing devastating competition.
We will have the opportunity to explain that, for Weber, this profound transformation went hand in hand with the appearance of Protestantism and the precepts that this religion inculcated in its followers.
1.4. The nascent authority of state bureaucracy
Weber was very interested in the concept of domination, which is one of the characteristics of any society. Ever since they were formed into groups, whatever their nature, people have been constantly tearing each other apart. In any human community, domination reflects the existence of the roles of the dominant and of the dominated. Weber explained that the dominated accept the orders of the dominant because of the consideration of the legitimacy of the latter. “The most decisive factor that determines obedience is the belief in the legitimacy of dominance”.
The Austrian author presented three forms of legitimate domination, which each stem from three causes. The first is charismatic: one follows the personality of a leader whose exceptional qualities are admired and who is obeyed according to the prestige they exercise over other people who show devotion to them, sometimes even to the point of sacrifice. The second is traditional: one obeys injunctions that one is accustomed to accept. The third is traditional-legal, regulatory and rational: one follows impersonal hierarchical orders.
Weber’s great contribution to this question was to analyze the transition of societies from an organization based on traditional legitimacy to societies where authority is imposed either by the influence of the charisma of individuals who exercise power, or through the exercise of reason which becomes the driving force of individual and collective action, by the process of rationalization of social activities, with people and societies being within the framework of this rationality, guided either by objectives or by values.
For a long time, domination was patrimonial. In modern capitalism, it was legal-rational domination with perfectly defined codes and rules that would impose itself in the hands of the state, allowing it to hold the monopoly of legitimate constraint under the influence of the bureaucracy whose meaning is difficult to define. Indeed, for many liberals, bureaucracy corresponds to the socialist ideal of socialism, whereas in reality, this notion seems to mean an attack on individual initiative. In any case, the people in charge of state bureaucracy saw the nature of their activities change. It must be determined whether the advantages of these new activities outweigh their disadvantages.
1.4.1. Legitimate coercion by the state
Political actions and activities are related to the constraints that arise between individuals in addressing issues of authority, power and rulemaking. Political authority is part of a process of legitimate domination, that is, one that is accepted by social actors because it conforms with the beliefs and representations shared by the majority.
Weber (2019) explained that violence is constantly present in the great moments of political rationalization. “It appears, at the beginning, as the foundation of the relationship of domination and power, and then becomes the stake in the definition of the political sphere ordered by institutions that compete with each other to confiscate the use of legitimate violence […] Power is any chance of triumph, within a social relationship, its own will, even against resistance, no matter what this chance is based on”.
Domination is intimately related to power and is its manifestation. All political domination is based on a relationship between command and obedience. This relationship ensures that domination is exercised by a small number of people who make decisions and impose their views on the majority. Domination also presupposes that certain intentions, actions or decisions remain secret.
The concept of political domination leads Weber to define the state as: “a structure, grouping or political enterprise of an institutional nature that successfully claims, in the application of regulations, the monopoly of legitimate physical constraint, within a determinable geographical territory”. Like all the political groupings that preceded it, the state consists of a relationship of domination of man by man based on the means of legitimate violence. The state is an institution that has the power to coerce people (to have them participate in public spending by making them pay taxes, have them defend the country by sending them to war, have them punished by putting them in prison, etc.).
In this sense, political power is characterized by “a relationship of domination and monopoly of legitimate violence”. The power exercised by a group (e.g. a political party) often implies a sense of pride and haughtiness that can go so far as to pass as that of a conqueror, seemingly or in reality, and become a matter of prestige in elections. It is therefore not surprising that political leaders compete for this prestige. Weber further specified that a society without coercion and without differentiation between those who govern and those who are governed cannot be analyzed as political.
As for the modern state, it is the result of the evolution of the institutions of collective life towards an increasing subjection of human life to objectified orders: its priority is legal-rational domination, that is, “the authority that imposes itself by virtue of ‘legality’, of the conviction of citizens that it is right to obey it, and of the belief in the validity of a legal status and a positive ‘competence’ based on rationally established rules”. Obedience to a political order presupposes a belief in the legitimacy of that order. It is not a matter of being under a constraint, but of adhering to a command which one assumes should be obeyed because whoever gives it is justified in giving it in the eyes of the one who obeys. People, in modern civilization, are increasingly subjugated because they believe in the legitimacy of the political order that dominates them: “the more an individual believes in the legitimacy of another individual, resulting from his influence, the more likely it is that he will allow himself to be ‘dominated’”.
The domination of the modern state is exercised by state bureaucracy, which allows the rationalization of power. Weber believes that this form of organization is more efficient than the one that previously prevailed, based on the personal and unequal relations that prevailed between servant and master. If capitalism corresponds to economic rationalization, bureaucracy corresponds to the rationalization of power.
Yet, legality does not necessarily imply legitimacy. A large part of the political game is dominated by this question of legitimacy, which can, depending on the times, be a matter of traditional, charismatic or rational domination. In modern times, law acquires legitimacy only if individuals are certain that it is profitable for them to obey legal authority. Weber considers this attitude to be rather healthy because people “choose” to obey, but are not obliged to do so, whereas what drives them is to satisfy their interests. “In a perspective of regulation other than market regulation, this seems, however, to present the limit that people, who first form themselves into a community of economic interests, and then into a community of rights, protected by a coercive apparatus that they enact or have enacted, cannot obey interests other than economic ones. With the disappearance of the other bearers of rights (political or religious, for example) through the expansion of the economy, we would be tempted to believe that there is no other reason for legitimizing the right”.
In addition to the fundamental criterion of domination, the state has other characteristics: a rationalization of legislative and judicial power, a police force