Max Weber: Modernisation as Passive Revolution

Jan Rehmann, Dr. phil., habil., teaches critical theories and social analysis at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and philosophy and the Free University in Berlin. He is co-editor of the Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism (HKWM) and the journal Das Argument. His latest book is Theories of Ideology. The Powers of Alienation and Subjection. (Brill: Leiden, Boston 2013).

• Preface to the English EditionIntroduction to the First Edition (1998)PART ONE: THE MODEL OF AMERICANISM1.1 Weber’s 1904 Journey to America1.2 The Ambivalent Fascination of Capitalism1.3 Taylorism and Fordism in the Stockyards1.4 The Alliance of Religion and Business 1.5 The ‘Displacement’ of Religion from the State into Civil Society (Marx) 1.6 The Sect as Germ Cell of a Superior Model of SocietalisationPART TWO: OUTLINES OF A FORDIST PROJECT OF MODERNISATION FOR GERMANY2.1 The Programme of the 1895 Freiburg Inaugural Address 2.2 The Katheder Socialist Milieu2.3 The Imperialist Critique of the Agrarian Class2.4 A Homogenous Stock Market Elite with a Coherent Concept of Honour 2.5 The Critique of the ‘Passive Revolution’ in Germany2.5.1 The ‘Entailed Estate’2.5.2 The ‘Feudal Pretensions’ of the German Bourgeoisie2.5.3 Caesarism, Bonapartism and ‘Passive Revolution’2.6 Proposals for the Development of a ‘Caesarism without a Caesar’2.6.1 The Shortcomings of a ‘Value-Rational’ Critique of Weber2.6.2 ‘Universal Bureaucratisation’ as an Ineluctable Fate2.6.3 Parliamentarism as a Superior Mechanism for the Selection of Leaders2.6.4 The Construction of an Industrial Bloc of Capitalists and Workers2.6.5 A New Model for the ‘Assimilation’ of Hostile Groups into the State2.7 The Integration of the Modern Industrial Proletariat into Bourgeois Society2.7.1 Paul Göhre’s Study on the Heterogeneity of Social Democratic Common Sense2.7.2 ‘Class Struggle’ as a Mode of Integration into Bourgeois Society2.7.3 Linking ‘Worker Honour’ to the Force Field of Nationalism2.7.4 The Absorption of the Labour Aristocracy into the Bourgeoisie2.7.5 A Graduated System of Corporatist Cooptation2.8 The Return of the Charismatic ‘Caesar’ to Modern Politics2.8.1 The Verticalist Narrowing of the Concept of Charisma2.8.2 Plebiscitary Charisma as Correlate of the Party Machine2.8.3 From the Parliamentary Selection of Leaders to ‘Plebiscitary Leader Democracy’PART THREE: FROM THE NEO-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES TO THE WEBERIAN ‘THEORY OF SCIENCE’3.1 Formulating the Question in Terms of a Critical Theory of Ideology3.1.1 A New Scientific Beginning on a Neo-Kantian Foundation3.1.2 Controversies Surrounding the Relationship between Weber and Rickert3.1.3 Paradigm Shift from the History of Ideas to a Critical Theory of Ideology 3.2 Theory of Reflection and Transcendental Idealism – An Epistemological Rendezvous manqué3.2.1 The ‘hiatus irrationalis’ between Concept and Reality3.2.2 The Critique of the Subject/Object Dichotomy in the ‘Theses on Feuerbach’3.2.3 The Sublation of the Kantian A Priori within the Concept of the ‘Form of Thought’3.2.4 Gramsci’s Critique of Objectivism3.2.5 F.A. Lange as Secret ‘School Leader’?3.3 The Dualism of Law-Determined ‘Nature’ and Value-Determined ‘Culture’3.3.1 The Common ‘German-Italian’ Front against ‘Anglo-French’ Naturalism3.3.2 The Neo-Kantian Taboo on Social Laws 3.3.3 Competing with Dilthey3.3.4 The Displacement of History and Culture into the Sphere of Ideological Values 3.3.5 The Distance between Kant and Rickert3.4 The ‘Value Relation’ as Bearer of ‘Freedom from Value Judgements’3.4.1 A Commonality with Marx’s Standpoint of Science3.4.2 The Transposition of Ideological Values into the Theoretical ‘Value Relation’3.4.3 Ideological 'Value-Affectedness' as a Condition of Admission to Science3.5 Farewell to the Abstract Heaven of Ideas – Outlines of a Philosophical Paradigm Shift3.5.1 The System of Values as Neo-Kantianism’s Weakest Link3.5.2 Croce’s ‘Ethico-Political History’3.5.3 The Turn from the Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Values to Neo-Hegelianism and Hermeneutics3.5.4 The Lacuna in the Critique of Southwest German Neo-Kantianism3.6 From the System of Values to the ‘Clash of Values’ – Weber’s Reorganisation of the Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Values3.6.1 The Ambivalence of the Value-Decisionist Concept of the Subject3.6.2 The Limits of Weberian Historicisation 3.6.3 The Eternal Struggle over Values – Weber and Nietzsche3.7 Weber’s Concept of Spheres of Value as a Modernisation of Ideological Societalisation3.7.1 Ideology’s ‘Law of Complementarity’3.7.2 Weber’s Concept of Spheres of Value and the German ‘Power Pragma’ During the First World War3.7.3 The Dichotomy of the Ethics of Conviction and the Ethics of Responsibility as an Ideological Pitfall3.8 Ideal-Typical Conceptualisation’s Blind Spot3.8.1 The Ideal Type as a Deliberately One-Sided Conceptual Construct3.8.2 The Rendezvous Manqué with Marx3.8.3 The Capitalist Orientation of Sociological Ideal TypesPART FOUR: THE IDEAL-TYPICAL CONSTRUCTION OF AN ORIGINARY PROTESTANT-CAPITALIST SPIRIT4.1 The Ethico-Political Stakes of a ‘Purely Historical Account’4.2 The Basic Operation: Isolation of the 'Mental and Spiritual Particularities'4.2.1 The Critique of Offenbacher’s Comparison of Denominations4.2.2 On the Social Profile of the Catholic Bloc4.2.3 Weber's Departure from Offenbacher’s Model of Interaction4.2.4 Weber's Vacillation between a ‘Strong’ and a ‘Weak’ Thesis on Protestantism4.2.5 The Ethical Mobilisation of Economic Subjects4.3 From German ‘Cultural Protestantism’ to Anglo-American ‘Civil Religion’4.3.1 Cultural Protestantism as a Religious Ideology of Bourgeois Modernisation 4.3.2 ‘Kulturkampf’ and the ‘Debate on Inferiority’4.3.3 Protestant ‘Culture’ as an Integrational Cipher in the Crisis of Orientation4.3.4 Ritschl and Weber: A New Arrangement of Ethical Resources4.3.5 Jellinek and Weber: Linking up with Anglo-American Mythistory4.4 Weber and Simmel: The Psychological ‘Deepening’ of Marxian Value Form Analysis4.4.1 Benjamin Franklin's Ethos – Utilitarian or Puritan? 4.4.2 From the Capitalist Standpoint of Valorisation to the ‘Human’ Interest in Acquisition4.4.3 The Formal Resemblance of Money and God4.4.4 From the Ethos of Acquisition to the Work Ethos4.4.5 Capitalist or Entrepreneurial Spirit? 4.5 Werner Sombart’s ‘Overcoming’ of Marxism4.5.1 The Historical School as ‘Digestive Science’ (Rosa Luxemburg)4.5.2 The ‘Further Development’ of Marxism as a Glorification of Capitalism4.5.3 The Origin of Bourgeois Monetary Assets4.5.4 Two Components of the ‘Spirit of Capitalism’4.5.5 The ‘Incorporation of the Proletariat into the National Community’4.6 Weber’s Dislodgement of the ‘Spirit of Capitalism’ from Capitalism4.6.1 A Tautological Conceptual Arrangement 4.6.2 The Exclusion of Sombart’s ‘Adventure Capitalism’4.6.3 Purging the Capitalist Spirit of the Materiality of Capitalist Domination4.6.4 The Detachment of the Spirit from the Economic Form4.7 Weber's Perspective: Capitalist Spirit as a Popular Mass Movement4.7.1 Renaissance Man or Reformation Man?4.7.2 The Interminability of the Controversy on the Spiritual Origin of Capitalism4.7.3 The Hidden Theme: The Bourgeoisie’s Popular-National Achievement of Hegemony4.7.4 Outlook: The Social Components of Weber's Orientalist Sociology of Religion AppendixBibliographyIndex of NamesIndex of Subjects