Max Weber

Class, Status, and Party

The Concept of Power

• The chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a social action

– even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action.

The Purpose of Power

• “Man does not strive for power only in order to enrich himself economically.”

• “Power may be valued for its own sake.”

MARX WEBER

MARX:

ECONOMIC INTERESTWEBER:

POWER

• A concept that it seems to be part of human nature.

• Hobbes:

• The natural state of men, before they were joined in society, was …a war of all against all.

• Depends on the relations of production

• Is the basis of social action

Class situation:

• is ultimately 'market situation‘:

• People meet “competitively for the purpose of exchange” (exclusively of goods and services) in order to create specific “life chances” (exclusively income and living conditions)

•

Market is purely economically determined:

• 'knows no personal distinctions‘ 'functional' interests dominate it.

• For example:

• Slaves are not a class because their fate is not determined by the chance of using goods or services for themselves on the market.

Class:

• Any group of people who have similar economic interest.

• “have in common a specific causal component (ways of creating) of their life chances (living conditions).

2. Modern class situation:

Property Services

Have Have Not Kind of Servicestechnicians, civil servants

various levels of white-collar workers

Property Owners

People whose income is from the use of property

• divided into different categories

• only some of them use “other’s labor” by employing them.

People who do not own property:

They have skills:

credentials and certificates which they obtain through education and put up for

sale in the market.

Skilled workers life chances

• Will depend on whether and how the skills can be sold in the market.

Class action

• Weber did not believe that class interests necessarily led to uniformity in social action.

• however different life chances may be, this fact in itself by no means gives birth to 'class action’

The conditions of class action:

• How the individual workers are likely to pursue their interests through communal action?

• 1. This may vary widely, according to the degree of their qualifications (whether it is high, average, or low).

• The workers might have :

• different individual interests (motives and inclinations) based on their skill and qualifications.

• Weber • Marx

• did not think the differences in the kind of labor were important.

Weber: Class interest is not an objective category

• No class interests per se, only average interests of individuals in similar economic situations, not, as Marx contends, an objective attribute of an individual’s relation to the means of production (whether they own property or not) .

• It is wrong to conclude, as Marx did,

• “that the individual may be in error concerning his interests but that the 'class' is 'infallible' about its interests.”

• The class is relational i.e. classes exist in relation to one another and their interests are inevitably opposed.

MARX

The class structureWeber

The economic order

• The way in which economic goods and services are distributed and used.

• Is generated in productive activity.

• by the use of people’s resources after market exchanges are contracted.

• Marx:

• Economic Inequality• Weber:

• Economic Inequality

• Is generated by market transactions

• by inequalities in access to resources of various sorts.

Weber• In a competitive

market direct coercion is absent from the exchange process itself.

For example: • Apparently the TAs and

CDs get a competitive salary and no one forces them to work for York University!

Marx

• The conflicts are muted by the apparent voluntariness of the act of exchange.

For example: • The TAs and CDs have

no other option than to work for a University, and at York they do most of the work but get only 7% of the University’s Budget!

Other factors of class action

• 2. whether or not a communal action affected by the 'class situation‘

• For example the last strike (a communal action)

was affected by the similar economic situations of all members of the CUPE.

3. Workers Association

• 3. whether or not there is an association among them, e.g. a 'trade union,‘ from which the individual may or may not expect promising results.

For example: • In the last strike there was a strong trade union

(CUPE) and the individuals expected promising results from its action!

4. Transparency of the Conflict

• Weber argued that the extent of the contrasts between the property owners and the property-less workers must become transparent to the workers in order for collective action around the issue of class to occur.

• the workers must not only recognize the differences in wealth and opportunity, but these differences must be seen as the result of the distribution of property and economic power and not as the result of natural characteristic of society.

• the mass actions' of the members of a class is linked to general cultural conditions, especially to those of an intellectual sort.

• Intellectuals occupy a key position in this regard.

5. Mitigation of Class antagonism

• Conflicts between classes are resolved through legal means.

• The workers have the right to form associations.

• For example the last strike took place in orderly and peaceful fashion and ended through “legal” means, i.e. the back to work legislation.

6. Only social action and not a community

• Community:• a group of people who have: • strong ties and a sense of belonging

– shared values – similar purposes in life

• solidarity and social cohesion.

• Weber here is obviously critical of Marxists view according to which social classes, and working class in particular, constitute communities, and hence leads to Marx’s motto “working class of the world unite!’

Status Situation

• Any quality shared by a plurality of people can be turned into a mark of status (an imposed hierarchical ranking people as inferior and superior (stratification).

• Examples: Skin of color, sex, religion, language, etc..

Weber’s defintion

• Every “typical component of the life fate (…) that is determined by a specific, positive or negative social estimation of honor (i.e. social prestige).

The components of status

• 1. specific style of life, e.g., habits of taste, which can be expected from those who wish to belong to the group, such as strict submission to the fashion.

• Submission leads to recognition

• 2. Restriction of social intercourse, social exclusion and social distance.

• These restrictions may confine normal marriages to within the status circle and may lead to complete endogamous closure.

• 3. Beside distance and exclusiveness, we find all sorts of material monopolies.

• The privilege of wearing special costumes, of eating special dishes taboo to others, the right to pursue certain non-professional dilettante artistic practices, e.g. to play certain musical instruments.

Status disqualification

• For example: against the performance of common physical labor among privileged groups.

• all groups having interests in the status order react with special sharpness precisely against the pretensions of purely economic acquisition.

• 4. status -groups are normally communities.

The social order• The way in which social honor or prestige

is distributed in a community.

• A distribution of social prestige regulated through social conventions.

The development of social order

• 1. purely conventional stratification leading to social restrictions and exclusions

• 2. achieves stability

• 3. enforced by economic power

• 4. turned into a legal privilege

Status as a legal privilege

• Social prestige is not necessarily a legal right.

• Only in extreme case when some racial groups are legally segregated (called “apartheid”) and prevented by law from entering some public spaces or from holding some jobs.

The legal order and status

• Normally is not the primary source of power and status, it is rather an additional factor that enhances the chance to hold power or honor; but it cannot always secure them.

• Thus status order is based on other grounds, such as cultural grounds.

Class and Status

• Status need not necessarily be linked with a 'class situation.'

• it normally stands in sharp opposition to the pretensions of sheer property.

• may even be the basis of political or economic power, and very frequently has been.

America and democracies

• Are devoid of any expressly ordered status privileges for individuals.

• the naked money power has become the main source of power

• Example: the families coming under approximately the same tax class dance with one another

• But generally this is not the case in most of the societies.

Today the class situation is predominant

• in the way in which status groups are formed.

• For instance the possibility of life style …is conditioned economically.

• Money is “the most effective (…) for distance and exclusion, but by itself rarely sufficient.

• Status order hinders the free development of the market.

Party

• The aim: The acquisition of social power (influencing communal action):

• Examples:

• all organized interests groups such as the trade unions--tend to promote the interest of a group and are oriented towards the acquisition of social “power”.

Party: Interests represented

• Parties may represent interests of class or status, but more likely to represent mixed interests.

Party: Means used

• Their means of attaining power may be quite varied: naked violence, canvassing for vote, social influence, the force of speech. Etc..

Party: Essential Elements

• always involves

• An association, a rational plan, and a staff.

• An aim, i.e. a “cause”, either for ideal or material purposes, either for social or personal purposes (of the leaders and the followers) or both

Types of social

Stratification

(social ranking)

The basis of social stratification.

( how people are ranked)

Class Life chances

Status Social Prestige

Party (power) Social Influence

Types Examples of social rankings

Class Upper, Middle, and Lower Class

Owners of factories, Workers, skilled

workers, Unskilled workers

Status Ethnic and racial groups, Gender (mean vs. women)

Party (Power)

Members and leaders of political parties, trade unions, gangs vs. unorganized citizens

Types The Basis of social ranking

Class Property,

Skill (can offer services, e.g. teaching, office work, etc.)

Status Ascribed (given to) by social customs and

Conventions (arbitrarily) to any quality

shared by group of people, to which a

positive or negative, social estimation is

attributed (stigma, etc.)

Party (Power)

May be quite varied, ranging from naked

violence to canvassing for votes with

means of money, social influence, the force of speech, and so on to. --Through the use of a staff

Types Social Ties

Class No strong ties, no shared values, merely shared economic interest

Status Strong ties, shared values Communal action

Party (Power)

Types The locus of stratification

i.e., where it takes place

Class Market economy

(people compete with each other for their share of income)

Status Society (except the market) People are

included/excluded based on life style or

restrictions on social intercourse such as

marriage.

Party (Power)

Everywhere! In particular in

Political institutions