MAX WEBER AND THE APPLICATION OF HIS METHODOLOGY TO THE INVESTIGATION OF THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL

AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY

John W. Wolf

Department of Anthropological Sciences Stanford University

March 20, 2000

John W. Wolf, March 20, 2000

The greatest riddles of History lie at its beginning and its end. --Heinrich von Treitschke (Kohn 1963:5)

Anthropology is ill equipped to solve the riddles at the end of history, but I believe it

can contribute much to solving those at the beginning. There are many such riddles, but

the one that compels my interest concerns the emergence of social authority and social

complexity. I believe there are three distinct questions that must be asked. The first is

what happened? The answer is deceptively simple and straightforward. Egalitarian,

kin-centered, relatively mobile, hunter-gatherers (foragers) became non-egalitarian,

hierarchically organized, sedentary agriculturists. Eventually every region (if not every

human population) of the planet would see the formation of state systems. That is the

easy question and answer. At the time of anthropologys birth as a discipline, this

understanding took the form of unilineal, progressive stage theories of sociocultural

evolution. Except for the postmodernist particularists, who care not for such

evolutionary questions and are rooted in what Leslie White termed planless hodge-

podge-ism (White 1943:355) questions concerning the emergence of social complexity

are still of interest.

The second important question is why did social authority and complexity emerge?

There are a variety of explanatory causes put forth by various researchers, such as

population growth, plant and animal domestication, large scale-irrigation of agricultural

lands, territorial circumscription, warfare, and/or interregional trade networks. Some

explanations are of a higher order than others are, but all seem to conflate the why?

with what I think is an entirely different question, how? My own particular answer to

the former question actually sees the other explanations subsumed within my explanation.

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Briefly, I contend that increased energy (capacity to do work) flows within human

populations necessitated (in fact, triggered) changes in energy forms (matter and

information), including changes in the scheduling of human activities (labor) in time and

space. Rather than being reductionist and determinist, I believe that this is a higher order

explanation that sees all activities of the universe, including human activities, as

belonging to a single universe of processes. It is an explanation that rejects the dichotomy

of mental vs. material and is consistent with the holism of the anthropological

project.

How the triggering of new energy forms and scheduling changes were incorporated

into human societies is another matter. Thus, the third question is how did social

complexity emerge? This paper offers a means to answer that question and that means

comes from an unlikely source, Max Weber. I will argue that Webers methodology and

his analysis of authority, status and class offers an approach to answering the third

question.

WEBERS METHODOLOGY

For Weber, sociology was a comprehensive science of social action. His focus was

somewhat different from the others who are designated, with Weber, as the founders of

the discipline of sociology. Herbert Spencer had been interested in the evolution of the

social body as analogous to that of a biological body (organism). Emile Durkheim

focused on the institutions that maintained the cohesion of social structures. Karl Marx

was concerned with conflicts between social classes.

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Weber, on the other hand, turned his eye to the subjective meanings that human

beings (actors) attach to their actions in their interactions with other actors within specific

social and historical contexts. He is often described as a critic of Marx. He is criticized as

being only concerned with the powerful actors and ignoring women and the

marginalized elements of society (Brennan 1997). Because much of his writing dealt with

the modern state, its politics and its bureaucracy, he is not often viewed as having much

to contribute to the understanding of prehistoric (non-state level) societies. Except for the

accusation that he shared the sexist prejudices of his time, I believe Weber has been

misjudged by some of his critics and mistakenly ignored by those seeking an

understanding of pre-state societies.

Weber defined four types of social action. Goal-oriented rational action

(zwekrational) is purposeful action in which both the ends and the means are chosen

rationally, such as in the case of an engineer building a bridge. The bridge has a rational

end as a structure to span space for moving people and/or material from one point to

another. The means (design and construction) conform to accepted engineering practices

regarding strength, safety and durability (Weber 1978d).

Value-oriented action involves the pursuit of a goal that might not be rational (e.g.,

religious salvation), but its means of achievement are rational (e.g., following the

teachings of a prophet or performing charitable acts). Affective action is solely focused

on the emotional state of the actor. Rationality is not an issue. It is irrelevant, as in the

case of religious fundamentalism, creationism, or flat-Earthers. Finally, Traditional

action is behavior that is guided by customary habits of thought. The actor relies on the

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eternal yesterday for guidance, thus ancestral behaviors are carried into the present

(Weber 1978d).

These types of social action were tools for Webers analysis. He did not believe

that they were mutually exclusive and fully understood that there could be multiple

causes for human behavior. Weber argues, It is very seldom that an action, especially

a social action, takes only one or the other of these several forms. Equally, the listis of

course not intended in any way as an exhaustive classification of the different forms

which action may take (emphasis in the original) (Weber 1978d:30). For his purposes,

the typology allowed him to make systematic comparisons in his efforts to explore the

historical development of Western society. When Weber did examine non-Western

societies, it was only to illuminate issues in Western development. It was Webers view

that the efficient application of means to ends was the predominant form of social action

in modern society and the reason for its success, having replaced the other forms.

Similarly, Webers concept of ideal type is an analytical construct to be used as a

measuring rod or standard of comparison among concrete social cases. However, an

ideal type itself never corresponds to actual concrete reality. It refers to neither moral

ideals nor statistical averages (Weber 1978d). What ideal types permit is the formulation

of hypotheses. Weber further classified ideal types into three fundamental kinds. First

were the ideal types of historical particularities, such as the Western City, the

Protestant Ethic, or modern capitalism (Weber 1978f). These types would appear

only in particular historical periods and in particular culture areas (Weber 1978d).

Abstract elements of social reality comprise a second kind of ideal type that may be

found in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. Bureaucracy and feudalism are

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examples of such types. Finally, there are the rationalizing reconstructions of particular

kinds of behavior. Weber believed that all propositions in economic theory belonged in

this category, because all referred to ways in which men would behave were they

actuated by purely economic motives (Weber 1978d).

Before turning to Webers specific views on authority, status and class, it is necessary

to address Webers view on causality. He expresses causality in terms of probability

but not in a statistical sense. Probability simply meant that in all likelihood people

involved in a certain context would orient their actions in terms of normative behavior.

Weber argued that such orientation is always probable (likely) but never certain. To

develop Weberian formulations of causation requires the application of mental

experiments (Weber 1978c). For example, Weber postulated that the emergence of

capitalism required a certain personality type largely shaped by Calvinist doctrines. A

mental experiment could be performed to determine whether capitalism could develop

without such personalities. If not, then, Calvinism must be considered a cause of the

rise of capitalism, but not the cause.

I will argue that proximate explanations that describe relationships between particular

proximate antecedent conditions and consequent conditions are incomplete

explanations (Adams 1988, Wolf 2000). Implicit in Webers concept of causality is the

necessity to go beyond proximate explanations as evidenced by his contextualization of

causality as probability. Although Weber does not explicitly discuss evolution and

natural selection, I contend that higher order selection explanations are necessitated by

his view of causality (Adams 1988, Wolf 2000).

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WEBER ON AUTHORITY

Building on his concept of ideal types, Weber formulated three main modes for

claiming leadership or political legitimacy. The first was through rational-legal

authority rooted in impersonal rules that have been enacted or contractually established.

Modern hierarchical relations may be considered a manifestation of this mode of

claiming legitimacy. Corresponding to his fourth type of social action (traditional

action), the second mode is traditional authority and is based in the belief in the

sanctity of the eternal yesterday. Its codification is not found in statutes and contracts,

but through inheritance and other forms of ascription (Weber 1976).

The third mode of legitimacy is termed charismatic authority and is based on the

appeal of aspiring leaders because of their particular and extraordinary virtuosity, which

may be ethical, heroic, or religious (Weber 1976). Another way of articulating this is the

recognition that such charismatic leaders achieve their positions by virtue of

knowledge, competence and/or example. I believe that such authority is potentially less

stable than either traditional or rational-legal authority, depending on the nature and

frequency of technological innovation and socioeconomic change.

As always is the case when discussing Webers models or types it is extremely

important to note that he recognized that empirical reality would present admixtures of

these types that would also serve to legitimize authority. Equally important was Webers

view of authority in all its manifestations as characteristic of the relation between leaders

and followers. Leadership is a two-way street. A leader necessarily derives his role

from the beliefs that followers have about his mission (Weber 1976, Weber 1978e).

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Weber clearly distinguishes between class and status. His view of class is very

similar to that of Karl Marx (Bottomore 1991). Thus, class is a category of men who

have in common a specific causal factor influencing their chances in life, insofar as this

factor has to do only with the possession of economic goods and the interests involved in

earning a living (Weber 1978b:43-44). This factor or component is conditioned by the

market of commodities or labour (Weber 1978b:44). In order for a class to operate or

act as a class requires a particular understanding on the part of the members of the

class. Communal class action can only occur when the connections between the causes

and the consequences of the class situation become transparent to the members of the

class. When the class situation becomes transparent, class consciousness in sensu Marx

has emerged (Bottomore 1991).

Status is an entirely different structural category. Whereas a class is categorized by

virtue of its place in the market or the extent of its control of the means of production, a

status group is based on its consumption patterns. They are communities (social

estates) that are held together by notions of proper life-style and the social esteem and

honor accorded them. Whereas a class is tied directly to its relative position within the

market or productive process, a status group exists only as long as others in the society at

large accord its members prestige. Weber recognized that class and status tended to be

highly correlated, but also saw the potential for divisions between them (Runciman 1978,

Weber 1978b). This twofold classification of class vs. status illuminates the

pluralistic forms of social conflict that may arise in modern society (old money vs. new

money; the eastern establishment vs. the western entrepreneurs; Yankees vs. Cowboys).

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The final element that needs definition is power. For Marx, power was always

rooted in economic relations. Weber, however, added another dimension in which power

was not so directly rooted. Weber was strongly affected by the growing bureaucratization

of Germany during the Bismarck era, as well as World War I and its immediate

aftermath. Thus, men were able to command large-scale bureaucratic organizations and

wield a great deal of both economic and political power even though they were only

salaried employees. This condition compelled Weber to develop a broader definition of

power. A person or group of persons had power when he/she/they could exercise

his/her/their will against the resistance of others (Weber 1978a, Weber 1978e). To Weber

the question as to the actual location of power was an empirical one that could not be

answered through dogmatic prescriptions such as offered by Marx.

WEBER AND THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL AUTHORITY

Webers definitions and distinctions of class, status, and power permits the

creation of a typology of social and power situations (Scott 1996:42).

SOCIAL SPHERES POWER SITUATIONS SOCIAL STRATA

Economic Class Situations Social Classes

Communal Status Situations Social Estates

Authoritarian Command situations Social Blocs

The economic and social spheres and their attendant power situations and social strata are

derived directly from Webers work, but the third social sphere, authoritarian has been

developed by John Scott, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, as the missing

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third dimension of Webers analysis (Scott 1996). Scotts intent is to refine further the

analysis of modern authoritarian organizations, such as business enterprises or churches. I

present it here because I believe it offers a vehicle by which one can explore the nature of

the emergence of social authority in transitional hunter-gatherer (forager) populations.

Scott argues that command situations are rooted in authority (Scott 1996:41). I believe

that is true in modern society, but I contend that the emergence of social authority is

actually rooted in pre-existing command structures related to day-to-day, planning,

scheduling and organization of productive activities.

Even the simplest activities require some planning and organization, yet both are

constrained by basic conditions that affect all human life, such as the inability to be two

places at once or to perform more than one task at a time. Therefore, any activity, no

matter how simple or complex, consumes time. Activities also occur within particular

spatial boundaries and there are limits to the volume of activities that can be packed

into a particular space, just as there is a limit to the number of activities that can be

packed into particular quanta of time (Carlstein 1978, Carlstein 1982, Wolf 2000).

Therefore, there are two fundamental limits on activities space and time and both

are occupied simultaneously. Because of this time and space are also resources that must

be budgeted, no matter how simple or complex the society. Mobile foragers must

move through space, consuming time, to reach a resource at a particular place (space) and

time. Tasks (jobs), the people who perform them, and tools are all energy forms (Adams

1988, Wolf 2000) and are the means by which humans address the constraints of time and

space. As energy is dissipated through its expenditure (energy flow), energy must be

replenished or new energy forms created through efficiencies, innovations and/or

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inventions. These might take the form of material objects (e.g., projectile point design,

shaped grinding stones, etc.) or changes in human relationships (e.g., trade networks,

organization of work parties). There are several proximate explanations that could

account for increased energy demands. Population growth, territorial circumscription

requiring extraction efficiencies, and plant domestication all quickly come to mind.

However, these, by themselves, are inadequate to explain all cases of increasing

social complexity. What is needed are selection explanations that address conditions

that militate for or against survival of a group and can be applied generally to all cases.

Therefore, irrespective of the proximate antecedent condition(s), selection favors a

strategy that mitigates energy dissipation by developing new efficiencies or energy forms.

Selection also favors a strategy that mitigates time and space constraints through the

scheduled and organized application of energy.

This scheduling and organization can take place through the application of modern

hierarchical relationships, described by Weber as rational-legal authority. It might also

be manifested through inheritance and ascription Webers traditional authority.

Finally, and significantly in terms of the emergence of authority, scheduling and

organization may be directed (commanded) by charismatic leaders who are held in high

esteem because of their particular abilities. The dialectic between the leader and the

led flows in both directions. Leaders must produce results. I aver that in human

populations at the threshold of the emergence of complexity the costs for failure to the

group are significantly higher than in complex societies that may have buffering

mechanisms that minimize or distribute the costs of leadership failure. As long as the

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leaders performance produces some net benefit to a significant portion of the

community-at-large, it is advantageous for the followers to follow.

Eventually, status and class situations will develop, producing other forms of social

interaction, command and authority, as well as consequent structures of leadership. In

Marxian terms these certainly may be viewed as modes of production and may be

subjected to detailed analysis of the forces and relations of production. I believe Webers

methodology has the potential for enriching a Marxian analysis. His concepts of ideal

types, social actions, and models of authority, class and status can add texture and a

method of measurable comparative analysis. I think it is an error to view Weber as the

antithesis or ideological opponent of Marx. I actually see Webers approach as

complimentary. Together they offer an explanation of how social authority emerged

and developed. Finally, both Marxian and Weberian interpretations can be enriched by

incorporating an understanding of universal energy processes that necessarily operate in

human societies. These processes and the intrinsic intertwining of time, space and energy

explain why human societies have moved along a trajectory of increasing social

complexity.

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REFERENCES

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of Texas Press, Austin.

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geography, edited by T. Carlstein, D. Parkes and N. Thrift. John Wiley & Sons, New York.

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White, L. A. 1943 Energy and the evolution of culture. American Anthropologist 45:335-356.

Wolf, J. W. 2000 Time, space, and energy: a strategy for investigating social complexity.

Unpublished paper, Stanford University.