The forum for inter-american research was established by the American Studies Section of the English Department at Bielefeld University in order to foster, promote and publicize current topics in the studies of the Americas. fiar is the official journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies (IAS) General Editor:

Wilfried Raussert

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Yolanda Campos Stephen Joyce Marius Littschwager Mahshid Mayar Luisa Raquel Lagos Ellermeier Paula Prescod Wilfried Raussert Susana Rocha Teixeira Brian Rozema

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Anne Lappert

Editorial Board:

Prof. Mita Banerjee, Mainz University, Germany Prof. William Boelhower, Louisiana State University, USA Prof. Nuala Finnegan, University College Cork, Ireland Prof. Emerita Lise Gauvin, Université de Montréal, Canada Prof. Maryemma Graham, University of Kansas, USA Dr. Jean-Louis Joachim, Université des Antilles, Martinique Prof. Djelal Kadir, Prof. Emeritus, Penn State University, USA Dr. Luz Angélica Kirschner, South Dakota State University, USA Prof. John Ochoa, Pennsylvania State University, USA Prof. John Carlos Rowe, University of Southern California, USA Prof. David Ryan, University College Cork, Ireland Prof. Sebastian Thies, University of Tübingen, Germany Dr. Cécile Vigouroux, Simon Fraser University, Canada

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Contact: [email protected] [49] 521-106-3641 www.interamerica.de (European Standard Time) Postfach 100131 The association seeks to promote the interdisciplinary study of the Americas, focusing in particular on inter-connections between North, Central, and South American culture, literatu- re, media, language, history, society, politics, and economics.

www.interamericanstudies.net

Guest Editors of Vol. 13.3:

Jessé Souza (Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), São Paulo)

______www.interamerica.de

The forum for inter-american research ISSN: 1867-1519 Vol. 13 No. 3 (Dec. 2020): 100th anniversary of the death of Max Weber: Commemoration from the Americas

100th anniversary of the death of Max Weber: Commemoration from the Americas (Introduction) ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������5 Jessé Souza (Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), São Paulo)

“How Ideas Become Effective in History” Max Weber on Confucianism and Beyond ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������7 Wolfgang Schluchter (Heidelberg University, Germany)

Rethinking the State: How Necessary is a Farewell to Max Weber? �����������������������������������������21 Hans-Jürgen Burchardt (University of Kassel, Germany)

Max Weber, Understanding and the Charge of Subjectivism �����������������������������������������������������35 Boike Rehbein (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany)

Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico” do Senhor e do Escravo ���������������������������������������������46 Jessé Souza (Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), São Paulo)

A recepção de Max Weber no pensamento de Fernando Henrique Cardoso e a legitimação intelectual do projeto de reforma do Estado no Brasil ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������58 Marcos Abraao Ribeiro (Instituto Federal Fluminense)

Patrimonial Liberalism: A Weberian Approach to Early Latin American State-Making �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������75 Francisco Colom González (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC))

The Persian Whitman: Beyond a Literary Reception, by Behnam M. Fomeshi,Leiden University Press, 2019.(Book Review) �������������������������������������������������������������88 Mostafa Abedinifard (Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia) forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 5-6 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

100th anniversary of the death of Max Weber: Commemoration from the Americas (Introduction)

Jessé Souza (Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), São Paulo)

Since the end of the 1990s, the so-called “left many intellectuals who, not so long ago, strongly turn” has been gaining ground in Latin America, supported progressive governments. For this breaking with the “Washington Consensus” for reason, CALAS launched a dialogue platform in two decades. On the basis of rising commodity Guadalajara in early October 2019 entitled “The prices and strong economic growth, social and Latin American Left in the 21st Century: Looking labour policies were expanded and reshaped. Back to the Future.” There it became clear that While the West held on to its neo-liberal model the relationship between state and society plays and faced growing social and political distortions a central role in the failure and must be discussed due to the financial crisis of 2008, poverty in Latin anew, but also that new projects committed to America was reduced by almost half. These the political and social participation of all must achievements were accompanied by broad social be a part of this process . mobilisation and in some cases complemented One of the most influential state theorists to by new models of political participation. The date is Max Weber. It is necessary to take into region became more independent and gained account that Max Weber, albeit from a “culturalist” international influence. reading that distorts his work, is the most Since the middle of the last decade, this important author for hegemonic social science political trend has reversed. With the fall in in the Americas as a whole. On the occasion of commodity prices, the region has fallen into an the 100th anniversary of Max Weber’s death, the economic crisis, which has quickly worsened following volume presents various contributions the social situation and fuelled political conflicts. that explore the significance his ideas continue to Progressive forces have lost legitimacy and have for the analysis of the state, where it could influence. Social dismantling and discrimination be expanded or replaced and what significance against the weak and minorities have become Max Weber still has for Latin America today. a part of the political programme, and in The set of texts presented here discuss some countries, such as Brazil, politicians Max Weber‘s work at two different levels of on the extreme right have been elected into abstraction. The texts by Wolfgang Schluchter, government. Hans-Jürgen Burchardt and Boike Rehbein Over the last two decades, Latin America has are dedicated to discussing methodological had a century’s opportunity to embark on a new and philosophical aspects that are considered path of development in politics and the economy. essential for the understanding of Weber. In This option has been weakened, but has not the case of Rehbein the relationship between yet failed. It is now necessary to learn from objectivity and subjectivity, in the case of the mistakes of the last decade of progressive Schluchter the relationship between ideal and governance, for those who do not know their material causality, and in Burchardt‘s case the history are doomed to repeat it. need to criticize the Weberian concept of the To do so, it is necessary to analyse the internal modern state. factors for the recent failure of progressive The set of texts by Jessé Souza, Marcos governments that contributed to this social and Abrãao and Francisco Colom refer, on the political crisis. The left’s loss of confidence and contrary, to Max Weber‘s application to the legitimacy has hardly been analysed so far. concrete Latin American context. Souza What is particularly striking is the silence of questions the „culturalist“ use of Max Weber in 6 J. Souza: 100th anniversary (Introduction)

American social sciences in general, both in the Author’s biography USA and in Latin America. Abrãao shows how this skewed reading was used politically in Brazil, Jessé de Souza is a Brazilian sociologist, while Colom focuses on the traditional use of the professor at the Federal University of ABC, concept of patrimonialism for Latin America. The with research in the areas of inequality, two levels of abstraction must be interconnected social stratification and critical theory. He is in order to produce a productive critique of the a fundamental reference of contemporary use of Max Weber in American sciences. Brazilian social thought, having published on This volume shows that Weber is still the political sociology, peripheral modernization most important thinker both for the construction theory and inequalities in contemporary Brazil. of “American exceptionalism,” and then for the Among his recent works, stand out A Construção construction of the idea of USA as the „promised Social da Subcidadania (2006); A ralé brasileira: land“ of the ascetic Protestant and his supposed quem é e como vive (2009); Os batalhadores moral superiority; and, on the other hand, for the brasileiros: Nova classe média ou nova classe construction of the idea of the Latin Americans as trabalhadora? (2010, 2012). More recently he an inferior and corrupt people. The “culturalistic” published A elite do atraso: Da escravidão à approach in US and in Latin America social Lava Jato (2017). sciences is still today dominated by the figure and the ideas of Max Weber. Patrimonialism, ascetic Protestantism, modernity, tradition are all terms from Weber’s work which were interpreted by the Americans and Latin Americans in very peculiar ways. It is precisely this context that profoundly affects the Americas as a whole that the present collection of texts aims to help to clarify. To understand how Weber was used and misused by American and Latin American thinkers and readers is to understand the very scheme of continental domination and the role of ideas in it. Weber is significant both for the legitimation of the USA as a homeland of ascetic Protestantism and freedom, and also for condemning Latin American countries to the backwardness of patrimonialism and tradition. Reviewing these paradigms, decentring methodology and theory is a central objective of CALAS. forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 7-20 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

“How Ideas Become Effective in History” Max Weber on Confucianism and Beyond [1] Wolfgang Schluchter (Heidelberg University, Germany)

Abstract Max Weber’s interest in East Asia starts as early as 1898, but it comes to fruition only after 1910. Instead of continuing his essays on ascetic Protestantism, as promised to the public, he embarked on a comparison of world religions, in which he included Confucianism, although he did not regard it as a religion in the strict sense of the term. As a matter of expediency, he used Confucianism, however, as the most pronounced counterexample to ascetic Protestantism, seemingly similar from the outside, but totally different from the inside. So, Confucianism is included in his attempt to provide a sociology and typology of religious rationalism. Confucianism is also used as a backdrop to understand the singularity of the Western development. The sketch, as he calls it, is not meant as a full-fledged analysis of this intellectual and social movement nor of Imperial China atlarge. Therefore, it is very dangerous to apply Weber’s analysis to the current situation in China (after the “Cultural Revolution” and the one-child policy). I call this the fallacy of misplaced application. This does not rule out, however, using Weber’s methodology and conceptual tools to a certain extent for such an analysis. How this could be done, is shown in the last section of this presentation.

Keywords: Max Weber, Confucianism, world affirmation, religious rationalism, Chinese capitalism, emerging middle class

Introduction stressed the importance of a new approach to the social sciences beyond mere historical The title of my presentation contains a studies. Therefore, his justification seems to be quotation from Max Weber’s first essay of his in order. In the second essay on “The Protestant study on “The Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism,” which was of Capitalism.” This essay appeared in 1904. published in 1905 almost one year later, Weber [2] With the promise to the reader that he would fulfilled his promise. In this essay he emphasized demonstrate in the following essay how ideas the impact of religious ideas on human conduct, operate in history, he justified the publication putting institutional arrangements and class- of this study in the newly founded Archiv für constellations into brackets. Therefore, his Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Weber essay, although a historical study, could be belonged to the editorial board of this scientific regarded, besides its historical merits, also as journal, which for Germany’s social sciences an important contribution to social theory. [4] became as important as Durkheim’s Année In this second essay Weber provided a sociologique for the social sciences in France. spiritualist account of the emergence of the new According to the statement of mission of this economic ethos defined as spirit of (modern) scientific journal, signed by Edgar Jaffé, Werner capitalism. He regarded it as a one-sided analysis Sombart and Max Weber, it was designed to on heuristic grounds. In the second essay of provide fresh impulses for the development of 1905, we find many indications that he intended the social sciences at large. [3] It was not meant to supply, in a third essay, the ‘other side of the to cater primarily to strictly historical work. In causal chain’, as he put it later. [5] Although he his essay on “Objectivity”, with which Weber was encouraged by his publisher Paul Siebeck partly complemented this statement, he also to write this third essay right away and to put 8 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

all three essays together as a book, he shied had two important insights: 1. Economic history away from this suggestion. Instead, he became has to be supplemented by religious history, and entangled in a sterile controversy over his first this included an analysis of cultural or religious and second essay that lasted almost four years. ideas and their effectiveness 2. Under specific In 1910, when Weber ended this controversy with circumstances cultural or religious ideas could what he called his “last word”, he had given up on become rationalizing forces. The first insight is this book project for the time being. [6] Instead, tied to the Protestant Ethic, the second to the he embarked on a huge comparative project on comparative studies on the economic ethic of the relation between religion and the economy. the world religion. Both insights together are The first published result of this endeavor was central to Max Weber’s later work. the study on Confucianism, written down in 1913. It appeared unchanged in the Archiv An Economic and a ‘Spiritual’ Interpretation under the title “Confucianism” in October and of History Combined December 1915 in two installments, together with the “Introduction” into the “Economic Ethics In June 22, 1915, Max Weber wrote to Paul of the World Religions” and the “Conclusions: Siebeck, his publisher, with whom he had a Confucianism and Puritanism,” in which Weber friendly relationship: “I am willing to provide the compared the impact of Confucian and Puritan Archiv with a series of essays on the ‘Economic Ethic on the conduct of life, clarifying at the same ethic of the world-religions,’ which have been time, as he declares, the relationship between sitting here since the beginning of the war … and Confucian rationalism and Puritan rationalism. in which I apply the method used in the essay [7] ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ Interestingly enough, the essay on in a general way.” [9] It was an attempt on his Confucianism (not on “The Religion of China”, part to compensate the publisher for his lack of as the title is mistranslated) [8] was not Weber’s cooperation in the case of the essays on ascetic first encounter with East Asia. As we know from Protestantism. Siebeck had asked him to grant his lecture notes, he dealt with East Asia already permission for a separate edition of these in his lecture courses before the turn of the essays. But Weber declined, as he had done century. In the lecture on “Practical Economics”, several times before. delivered for the last time in winter 1897/98 in What does it mean: to “apply the method Heidelberg, he alluded to the “entry of East Asia used in the essay ‘The Protestant Ethic and into the orbit of the occidental cultural sphere” the Spirit of Capitalism’ in a general way”? As (Kulturkreis), referring to Japan and China. Here we have stated already, Weber pursued in this he regarded Japan as a feudal system, based study a one-sided analysis, focusing on the on rice-contributions in exchange for military spiritual side, putting institutional arrangements service, China as a state-like system ruled by and class-constellations into brackets. In other officials and without any feudal remainders since words, he analyzed the emergence of a peculiar the Manchu conquest. [9] There is no mention ‘spirit’, not the emergence of a peculiar ‘form.’ of cultural or religious factors in either case, To apply this method in a general way would however. Now, in 1913/1915, we encounter a mean that he did the same in his early studies very different approach to East Asia. Whereas on the economic ethics of the world religion. Japan is pushed to the sideline, China is However, this seems to be not in line with the considered thoroughly in its early transition from texts published in 1915. For Weber starts feudalism to patrimonial bureaucracy, with the his early essay on Confucianism with a short result that it became dominated by an educated analysis of structural and institutional patterns Confucian elite, the literati. This elite, according of Imperial China, before he turns to the ‘spirit’ to Weber, transformed Confucianism into a kind of its carrier stratum, the literati. Nevertheless of civil religion or state ideology. the focus in this early version is still on the Between the lecture course of 1897/98 and ‘spirit’, not on the ’form’. It is not by accident the essay on Confucianism of 1913/15 Weber that Weber considerably extended the so-called forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 7-20 9

“sociological foundations” in his revised version chain, the economic conditioning of religious of the essay in 1919/20. [10] He felt obviously patterns as well as the religious conditioning of obliged to provide a much more detailed analysis economic patterns. 3. Crucial is the distinction of this part of his essay than he had achieved between form and spirit. 4. There is an elective in 1913. We may surmise from this fact that all affinity between these two sides, no law-like or the essays written down in 1913 emphasized functional relationship. the spiritual side of the matter. As we know from According to some statements in the secondary Weber’s schedule in 1916, he worked again on literature, Weber started as a materialist, turned his studies on Hinduism and Buddhism from into an idealist, and returned later on, luckily, 1913, especially on “The Hindu social system.” into a moderate type of materialist. Nothing Therefore, prior to publication of these essays in can be more mistaken. Consider for instance 1916/1917, he was able to amend the structural his early lecture on theoretical economics, and institutional side and put it on equal footing delivered before the turn of the century. Here with the spiritual side. The same holds for his Weber argues already that the economic study on ancient Judaism, which was rewritten perspective on human life is always one-sided from 1917 onward. Here, the required balance and that the development of human needs between the two sides is also achieved before cannot be reduced to economic conditions. the first publication of this work. Man’s attitude toward the world is informed also It would be a mistake, however, to conclude by noneconomic cultural powers, especially by that Weber had discovered the importance of religion. And a religion, furthermore, cannot be the ‘other side of the causal chain’ only after the regarded as a reflex of economic conditions publication of the study on ascetic Protestantism. (Weber, Allgemeine Nationalökonomie 364-6). The double-sided analysis between ‘spirit’ and Consider also his late lecture course on universal ‘form’ was already in place. This can be inferred social and economic history. After having dealt not only from Weber’s insistence that his extensively with the structural and institutional study on ascetic Protestantism was not meant preconditions of modern capitalism, he ends up “to substitute for a one-sided ‘materialistic’ stressing the importance of the spiritual side of an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal modern capitalism. The entire last paragraph interpretation of culture and history,” adding, is dedicated to it. [13] In addition, consider the that “both are equally possible,” but in each case short time span from 1904 to 1908, when Weber only a beginning. They have to be elaborated wrote the study on ascetic Protestantism and and combined (Weber, The Protestant Ethic on the “Agrarian Condition of Antiquity,” [14] the 179, translation slightly changed). This is former emphasizing the spiritual, the latter the corroborated by many hints in the second essay structural and institutional side. As we can see, on ascetic Protestantism and his statements in Weber pursued from the very beginning and till the “Anti-Critiques”. Here he remarked that as the very end a program beyond materialism and soon as he would be finished with his analysis idealism, and he did not waver on this issue over as intended, his critics would accuse him to the course of time. surrender to materialism, as they do now with Weber’s approach is also comparative regard to idealism or ideology. Of course, Weber from the very beginning. Comparison and wanted to overcome historical materialism, but explanation are two sides of the same coin. without siding with idealism. Rather, he strove The reconstruction of a cultural phenomenon for a multidimensional analysis, which he had requires three steps: 1. Identification –what justified in his essay on “Objectivity,” analyzing are the defining characteristics of a cultural the religious conditioning of the economy and manifestation? 2. Causal attribution –how did the economic conditioning of religion as well. this manifestation arise? 3. Weighing –which [11] of the causal factors can be regarded as an What can we learn from these considerations? adequate cause? The first question can be 1. A one-sided analysis can only be a beginning. answered only by comparison, the second and 2. One has to consider both sides of the causal third only by counterfactual arguments using the 10 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

categories of objective possibility and adequate in the first version of Economy and Society of causation. These three steps inform Weber’ s 1914 (“The Economy and the Societal Orders project of the Collected Essays on the Sociology and Powers”) [16] and published in a more of Religion, which he anticipated already in 1915 sophisticated version together with the study and of which the revised essay on Confucianism an Confucianism in 1915 in the Archiv, Weber from 1913/15, now entitled “Confucianism and underscored that his comparative studies, Taoism,” becomes an integral part. comprising Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, The Collected Essays on the Sociology of Jainism, Judaism, Early Christianity, Eastern Religion, prepared in 1919/20, alongside with Christianity and Western Christianity as well Economy and Society, his Sociology, both as Islam should also be read as a contribution unfinished at Weber’s untimely death, was to to a sociology and typology of religious comprise four volumes. Weber was able to rationalism. Already in 1915, he defined the prepare only volume one for publication. He yardsticks according to which he wanted to included the revised version of the “Protestant measure the degree of rationalism incorporated Ethic” and the revised version of the study on in a religious creed. There are two “primary Confucianism. But contrary to the study on yardsticks”, independent of each other, but Confucianism, he still did not supply in case of nevertheless interdependent: 1. “the degree to the study on ascetic Protestantism ‘the other which the religion has divested itself of magic” side of the causal chain.’ The analysis of the (disenchantment); 2. “the degree to which it structural and institutional preconditions of has systematically unified the relation between modern capitalism is still lagging. It is an open God and the world and therewith its own ethical question whether he wanted to provide this relationship to the world” (theodicy or cosmodicy) analysis in volume 4 of the Collected Essays, (Weber, The Religion of China 226). [17] The devoted to Western Christianity. More important first yardstick belongs to the realm of praxis, the in our context is however: More than three out second to the realm of doxis. Both are integral of the four volumes would have been dedicated parts of the world view that a religion proposes. to the developmental history of the West. This At this juncture Confucianism enters the can be easily inferred from Weber’s plan, which picture. Confucianism and Puritanism are he turned in to Siebeck in 1919, and from its depicted as polar types. From the outside, execution till his death (see appendix below). they look similar; from the inside they are very [15] different. Both are rational, but of a different As one can see from this plan and its kind. Confucianism, as embodied in the carrier execution, Weber is quite explicit on the aim of stratum of Imperial China, lacks the potential to his comparative and developmental religious radically change the existing world, because it is studies. In his summarizing statement we can not a salvation religion, not even a religion. It is in also detect the three questions mentioned its practical consequences, in its effectiveness, a above. To rephrase it: What are the distinctive social ethic supportive of an education that aims economic and social characteristics of the at the creation of a “gentleman.” In contrast to West (identification), how did they arise (causal these practical consequences of Confucianism, attribution), and in particular, how do they stand Puritanism calls for an interpretation of man in relation to the development of religious ethic as a tool of a powerful creator god, whose (weighing)? commands have to be fulfilled by his subjects in total submission. It aims at the creation of a A Sociology and Typology of Religious “vocational man” dedicated to God’s cause. The Rationalism Confucian bureaucrat is affirming the existing world; the Puritan entrepreneur is rejecting Comparison, however, serves an it, while acting out these different mentalities additional purpose: The creation of in this mundane world. In this connection typologies. In the “Intermediate Reflection” Weber distinguishes between two pure types (“Zwischenbetrachtung”), dealt with already of culturally or religiously bound rationalisms: forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 7-20 11

the rationalism of world adjustment (major different trajectory compared with the salvation example: Confucianism) and the rationalism religions in Asia is due to its religious sources. of world domination (major example: ascetic They originated primarily in ancient Judaism Protestantism). [18] with its notion of a personal creator God who We have already alluded to the notion rules the world. of disenchantment (first yardstick). As is well known, in his “Intermediate Disenchantment becomes a crucial concept Reflections” Weber distinguishes four types of in Weber’s comparative studies on religion religiously motivated world rejection. He labels since 1913. It is used to establish a double them innerwordly asceticism, otherworldly link. The first is historical, connecting ancient asceticism, innerworldy mysticism and Judaism with ascetic Protestantism, the second otherworldly mysticism. The distinction between is typological, contrasting Confucianism and “innerworldly” and “otherworldly” is applied to ascetic Protestantism as two types of rationality. distinguish an attitude turning toward the world Ascetic Protestantism, according to Weber, and changing it from one turning away from the has driven disenchantment in the relationship world and leaving it. These different avenues between a powerful creator God and man to the on the road to salvation can be pursued either extreme, whereas Confucianism does not know with ascetic or with mystical, contemplative anything about a creator God and has left magic means. Each of the four religiously motivated outside its own sphere virtually untouched. This stances toward the world carries its own rational is due to the fact that it is not a religion, based on potential. It is important to realize that this is the notion of salvation and troubled by prophetic a differentiation within religiously motivated eruptions, as it is true for Christianity and attitudes of world rejection. To provide the full other salvation religions. To keep the harmony picture, however, one has to add to these world- between this world and the world beyond, not view rejecting attitudes those affirming the world. to dramatize the rupture between them, is the [20] Confucian way. According to Weber, Confucianism belongs As we can see now more clearly, Weber starts to such a typology and sociology and typology his comparative endeavor with Confucianism, of religious rationalism, because it represents because it is not a religion, not to mention a the most elaborated case of world affirmation. salvation religion. The transition to salvation It is within his project a borderline case. Weber religions is provided in the “Intermediate regards it as a matter of expediency to include Reflection,” which is placed after the study it and to start the entire series with such an on Confucianism and before his entry into example of rational world affirmation. It is the developmental history of the West. It is important to keep this in mind when it comes to a transition that occurred in his view already the usage of his essay today. in Asia, especially in Buddhism. Although We can summarize Weber’s sociology and Buddhism had a tremendous influence also typology of religious rationalism as follows in China, it originated in India, and therefore (Schluchter, Rationalism, Religion and Weber deals with it in the following essay, Domination 144): entitled “Hinduism and Buddhism” (and not “The Religion of India”), which is also not a book, as the English publication suggests. [19] For Weber, the decisive dividing line runs not between Asia and the West, as for instance in Hegel’s philosophy of religion, but within Asia. It is a dividing line that separates Confucianism from Buddhism, a social ethic from a salvation religion, a rationalism of adjustment to the world from a rationalism rejecting and at the same time fleeing the world. That the West embarked on a 12 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

Classification of Cultural Religions

The fallacy of misplaced application as he confessed, only a very limited knowledge of Chinese history, because he could not read The essay may be still useful for our research the sources in the original and depended on the if we eschew what I call the fallacy of misplaced European scholarship of the time. As we know application. There are two likely ways to commit from the secondary literature on Weber’s study, this fallacy. One pertains to Weber’s work, the he neglected Neoconfucianism altogether. And other to the current situation in China. Both have although he dealt with early Buddhism in his to do with the insufficient contextualization of study on “Hinduism and Buddhism,” he did not Weber’s study. Let me give a short illustration in pay much attention to Chinese Buddhism as both regards. an additional cultural force in Chinese history. An insufficient contextualization within As in the study on “Hinduism and Buddhism,” Weber’s work occurs when we disregard the role he rested satisfied with identifying Chinese of the study on Confucianism in his comparative indigenous cultural resources and the way project. I have already alluded to this. Weber in which they became institutionalized. From does not consider Confucianism a religion in the here he jumped to the time of the emergence strict sense of the term and he does not provide of modern capitalism in Europe. All this can be us with a comprehensive analysis of all important regarded in retrospect as major deficiencies. cultural movements in Imperial China. He does not [21] even provide us with a comprehensive analysis However, we should also acknowledge of the “sociological foundations,” although he Weber’s self-imposed limitations when we considerably extended this side of the causal criticize his study one hundred years after its chain, the impact of structures and institutions inception. As we can infer from the table of on the life conduct of the carrier stratum, in the contents of the Collected Essays, his emphasis revised version of the text after 1913/15. More was not on Asia, but on the West. He made important, Weber does not even pretend to offer this quite clear in the “Preliminary remark,” a full-fledged coverage of the history of Imperial with which he prefaced this collection in 1919. China, following the sequence of dynasties and [22] Here he pointed not only to the difference the major turning points in its history. He had, between the study on ascetic Protestantism and forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 7-20 13

the remainder –he treated in case of ascetic institutionalized Confucianism, one might Protestantism “only one side of the causal chain,” conclude that Confucianism must be a hindrance whereas in the studies on the economic ethic of to the development of capitalism in general. the world religions he dealt with both sides– but But the economic development in East Asia he also made clear to the reader that his interest tells us a different story. Where Confucianism in Asia went only “so far as it is necessary to has maintained its cultural influence, economic find points of comparison with the Occidental modernization seems to fare much better then development.” Hence, he regarded his studies in cases where it has lost its power. Therefore, on Asia not to be “complete analyses of cultures” something must be wrong with the so-called (Weber, The Protestant Ethic 27). [23] To put it Weber thesis on China. Confucianism cannot differently: The studies on Asia serve him as a be a hindrance to and a promoter of modern backdrop to his study of the Western trajectory. capitalism at the same time. [24] At this point the allegation of a Eurocentric This would be a very superficial conclusion, perspective in Weber’s comparative studies however. It would be based on a double becomes relevant, and justly so. The question disregard. On the one hand, Weber distinguished is only: what type of Eurocentric perspective clearly between invention and diffusion. Modern is at stake, a heuristic or a normative one? A capitalism was invented in the West, but then it normative Eurocentric perspective would put the penetrated the world. He argued that in the course West above all other civilizations, regarding them of diffusion, countries with a Confucian heritage as deficient and the achievements of the West would be more receptive to this process than as the summit in the development of mankind. countries with a different cultural heritage. [25] In contrast, a heuristic Eurocentric perspective On the other hand, mainland China underwent would look upon world history from a consciously a process of detraditionalization throughout the one-sided Western viewpoint in order to get last 100 years. Especially since the Communists insights into the distinctiveness of its trajectory. In have deliberately cut the threads to traditional my view, there is no doubt that Weber regarded China, we are faced with a situation not his comparative studies as a contribution to the anticipated by Weber. I mention only the long- latter. This becomes quite obvious in the famous lasting consequences of Mao’s “Great Leap first paragraph of the “Preliminary remark,” if read Forward,” the destruction of traditional Chinese with care. Here Weber states: “A son of modern culture during the “Cultural Revolution,” the European civilization, studying any problem of one-child-policy, which destroyed the traditional universal history, is bound to ask himself to what family structure and will cause a demographic combination of circumstances the fact should disaster in the future. [26] And although Deng’s be attributed that in Western civilization and in reforms have profoundly changed China, [27] Western civilization only, cultural phenomena it is still ruled by a Leninist-type party, in total appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a line control of the military, public communication of development having universal significance (propaganda) and the economy. [28] If we want and validity” (Weber, The Protestant Ethic 13, to analyze the Chinese type of capitalism in its translation slightly changed). “As we like to politically authoritarian context, we should not think,” this is an important qualification. It can use Weber’s study on traditional China, but his also be read as an invitation to members of other methodological und theoretical approach. civilizations to ask similar questions from their one-sided point of view. Capitalism in modern China from a Weberian An insufficient contextualization occurs perspective also when we use Weber’s study as a kind of manual for the analysis of the current situation Let me begin this final section of my article with in East Asia. Then we end up with the so-called a thesis: Since Deng’s reform Communist China Weber paradox. Since Weber had attributed has taken over some capitalist institutions and the absence of an indigenous development has stimulated an outstanding economic growth, of rational capitalism in Imperial China to industrializing an agrarian country. But it is still 14 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

dominated politically as well as economically One consequence of this lack of institutional by a Leninist party and it lacks a carrier stratum differentiation seems to be a tremendous independent of the party and dedicated to the amount of corruption, running from top to bottom rational tempering of the irrational drive for of the political system. It is also a system that acquisition and the values connected with it. has produced extreme inequality. Of course, the If we want to interpret the current economic communist party and its affiliated organizations constellation in China from a Weberian have become more responsive over time to perspective, we have to define first of all the needs of the population, comparatively the explanandum, rational capitalism, more speaking. [31] And as a result of this ‘opening’ precisely. According to the second version of a new middle class has emerged. But this new Economy and Society, Weber’s Sociology, the middle class is still not really politicized, asking conditions necessary “for obtaining a maximum for participation in the political process. We are of formal rationality of capital accounting in facing a type of consultative authoritarianism, production enterprises” are as follows: not a Western type of democracy. To be sure, a Western type of democracy is not a) Complete appropriation of the means of a necessary condition to make modern capitalism production by private owners; possible and flourish. This is a Weberian insight, b) formally free labor; as we can infer from his studies on the Russian Revolution of 1905. [32] It is also true that Weber’s c) freedom of contract; catalogue of requirements forms an ideal type of d) open markets; rational capitalism. It is to be used as a heuristic e) complete autonomy in the selection of yardstick to measure deviation and to encourage managers by owners; thereby the search for causal attributions. The f) separation of household and enterprise. ideal type should not be reified. Therefore, we cannot expect that an empirical case would meet Furthermore, with regard to concomitant all these requirements. Nevertheless, we may institutions outside the economy: distinguish between types of modern capitalism. g) rational technology; Authoritarian capitalism deviates from the ideal h) formal-rational administration and formal- type much more than liberal capitalism (for rational law; example in the US) or welfare capitalism (for i) institutional differentiation between the example in Europe). economy and the polity. [29] As we have seen, Weber alerts us always to the distinction between ‘form’ (structures and Does China’s capitalism today meet these institutions) and ‘spirit’ (culture and mentalities). institutional requirements? This holds true only One side cannot be regarded as the function of to a very limited degree. With regard to a) there the other. This was the message of the study on exists still a lot of insecurity, despite the Property ascetic Protestantism, and this is the message Law of 2007, with regard to e) the influence of his entire approach. On the level of the ‘spirit’ of the party still looms large. With regard to h) we may distinguish three modes of capitalist there can be serious doubts whether China orientations, embedded in different cultures: meets the regular standards of an impartial the political, the speculative and the economic bureaucracy acting sine ira et studio vis-à-vis mode. The first is associated with political the public at large and whether it lives up to the capitalism, where the actor exploits political minimal standards of a legal state. With regards instead of market opportunities; the second is to i) the differentiation between the state (party) associated with adventurer capitalism, where the and the economy remains underdeveloped. actor exploits very risky short-term opportunities The economy lacks, in Weber’s terms, relative either in the political arena or in the marketplace; autonomy and autocephaly vis-à-vis the state only the third one is associated with economic (party). [30] capitalism proper. This is the orientation of the capitalist entrepreneur, capable of deferred 15 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

gratification and dedicated to sustainability in reanimated Confucianism. It would also require his action. He represents what Weber called the the modernization of Confucianism itself. But “vocational man.” we are convinced: The Chinese party-bound I know of no empirical study that would capitalism, this authoritarian capitalism, remains distinguish between these three types of a form without spirit for the time being and capitalist orientation and measure their empirical without a carrier stratum that is able to promote manifestation quantitatively. However, I think a new civil spirit based on freedom, calculated it is safe to say that in today’s China political risk-taking, responsibility and sustainability. [35] and adventurer capitalist orientations are at With these remarks we deviate from Weber least as widespread as the strictly economic at the end of our presentation. As is well known, ones. In view of this situation, we should turn he finished his study on ascetic Protestantism Weber’s question in his study on Imperial China on a very pessimistic note. He regarded around, so to speak, and ask ourselves: Could victorious capitalism as emancipating itself from a revitalization of Confucianism be helpful in the old spirit of modern capitalism. Based on promoting an economic capitalist orientation mechanical foundations, he argued, victorious among the Chinese middle class in general capitalism does not need this spiritual support and among Chinese businessmen in particular? any more. This form will function without actors For in a Weberian perspective the rational dedicated to the idea of a ‘calling.’ Victorious tempering of the irrational drive for acquisition capitalism will produce the required mentalities and the values connected with it do not come quasi automatically. It will determine the lives automatically with the adaptation to capitalist of those born into this mechanism, and this institution. This holds especially true when these will go on, “until the last ton of fossil fuel has institutions are still partially not properly in place. been consumed” (Weber, The Protestant Ethic I regard the reappropriation of Confucianism, 181, translation slightly changed). With these which was crushed especially during the “Cultural statements, however, Weber does not only pass Revolution,” to be helpful in this situation. I can a value judgment, as he himself admits, he also think of four elements, deeply embedded in deviates from his own analytical strategy, denying Confucian ethics that could serve the purpose any law-like or functional relationship between at hand: ‘spirit’ and ‘form.’ Furthermore, we know today •The Confucian emphasis on learning and that the last ton of fossil fuel will indeed soon academic qualification. It is well know that in be consumed, but new energy resources will be Western countries, especially in the US, the unearthed and the limits of capitalism thereby rate of illiteracy is much higher than in countries extended. True enough, capitalism cannot under the influence of Confucianism. function without energy, but it cannot function •The Confucian emphasis on social relations, without cultural resources either. especially family relations, and on filial piety (xiao) that is very different from the Western emphasis on patria potestas and on individualism. [33] •The embeddedness of economic relations in social relations (guanxi) and the personal trust that goes with it. Disembeddedness of economic relations is a serious problem in Western societies. [34] •The Confucian ideal of order and harmony (Lin 54-8).

It is an open question, however, whether the Communist ideology, after all a Western product, would be compatible with such a kind of 16 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

Appendix

Weber: Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion

Plan dated 1919 and its execution

Volume 1 was submitted for printing and was proofread by Max Weber. It ends with the “Intermediate Reflections”. Marianne Weber decided after Weber’s death to present the study on Hinduism and Buddhism as volume 2 and the study an ancient Judaism as volume 3. This was not in line with Weber’s plan. However, with the exception of the fragment on the Pharisees, she did not find any text that would fit Weber’s plan of 1919. Many texts had still to be written. The titles in italic indicate these texts.

Volume 1

Preliminary Remark 1920 I. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 1904/05, I. The Problem revised II. The Work Ethic of Ascetic Protestantism 1920 II. The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism 1906 (two versions), revised 1920 III. The Economic Ethics of World Religions 1915, Introduction revised 1920 I. Confucianism and Taoism I. Sociological Foundations: 1915, A. City, Prince and God revised 1920 II. Sociological Foundations: B. Feudal and Prebendal States III. Sociological Foundations: C. Administration and Agrarian Conditions IV. Sociological Foundations: D. Self Government, Law and Capitalism V. The Literati VI. The Confucian Orientation to Life VII. Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy – (Taoism) VIII. Result: Confucianism and Puritanism 17 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

Intermediate Reflection: Theory of Stages and Directions in 1915, Religious Abnegation of the World revised 1920

II. Hinduism and Buddhism 1916-1917 I.The Hindu Social System 1920 republished II.The Orthodox and Heterodox (intended revision not carried out) Redemption Teachings of the Indian Intellectuals III. The Religiosity of Asiatic Sects and Salvation

Volume 2

News bulletin of The General Foundations of Occidental Development (and/ the publishers or: the Development of European Citizenship in Antiquity and 25th Oct. 1919, the Middle Ages) p. 11

Archives, Egyptian, Babylonian and Persian Relations (or: Egyptian, vol. 44, booklet Mesopotamian and Zarathustran Religious Ethics 1, Oct. 1917, p. 52 and News

Ancient Judaism 1917-1920, I. The Israelite Confederacy and Yahweh 1920 republished II. The Origin of the Jewish Pariah People (intended revision not carried out)

Supplement: Psalms and the Book of Job Preface RS III

Appendix: The Pharisees (intellectual estate) Preface RS III and News

Volume 3

Talmudic Judaism News Early Christianity Oriental Christianity Islam News 18 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

Volume 4

The Christianity of the West News

“The subject throughout is the treatment of the question: on what News the social and economic uniqueness of the West is founded, how it arose and especially in what relation it stands to the development of religious ethics.”

Endnotes volume was the first of the new series which Edgar Jaffé established together with Werner Sombart and Max Weber [1] Reprint with permission of the author. in 1904, Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe vol. I/9.

[2] On the following, see my introduction to Max Weber, [12] See Weber 2011b, pp. 380-396. (Max Weber Asketischer Protestantismus und Kapitalismus. Schriften Gesamtausgabe vol. III/6). und Reden 1904-1911, 2014,. Wherever possible, [13] See the book-length article in Weber 2006, pp.300- Weber’s works are quoted according to the Max Weber- 747, esp. I. Einleitung (Max Weber Gesamtausgabe vol. Gesamtausgabe (MWG). MWG I includes his works and I/6). The article appeared in 1908. speeches, II his letters, III his lectures. The statement I am referring to cannot be found in the second edition of [14] See, in addition to the appendix, my article “On the this essay of 1920. English translations are also used Place of the Study on Confucianism in Max Weber’s Work.” throughout this essay, but sometimes altered. [15] We distinguish in the meantime a prewar version [3] The founding of the Archiv is described in Ghosh 2010. from a postwar version of Economy and Society. The prewar version carries the subtitle The Economy and [4] See Max Weber 2001a (Max Weber Gesamtausgabe the Societal Orders and Powers (Die Wirtschaft und die vol. I/9), pages 12-22 and pages 65-66. gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen und Mächte), the postwar [5] A list of these indications can be found in Max Weber version the subtitle Sociology (Soziologie). The prewar 2001a, pages 90-93. version is available in 5 volumes. One of these volumes is on religious communities (Religiöse Gemeinschaften), [6] All critiques written by H. Karl Fischer and Felix Rachfahl where the first version of the “Zwischenbetrachtung” can as well as Max Weber’s replies, his anti-critiques, can be found. This text was then turned into an article, linking be found in Max Weber 2001a. For an English edition of the study on Confucianism with the study on Hinduism Weber’s texts see Chalcraft and Harrington (eds.) 2001. and Buddhism and published in two versions, 1915 and 1920 respectively. See Max Weber 2001b (Max Weber [7] See Max Weber, „Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Gesamtausgabe vol. I/22-2). Religionssoziologische Skizzen. Einleitung. Der Konfuzianismus I, II,“ and Max Weber, „Die Wirtschaftsethik [16] Brackets are added. Disenchantment means in this der Weltreligionen (Zweiter Artikel). Der Konfuzianismus III, context demagicalization of the means of salvation. There IV. (Schluß). Zwischenbetrachtung. Stufen und Richtungen is a second meaning of disenchantment in Weber’s work. der religiösen Weltablehnung.“ The dates of the volumes See chapter 1 in my book Die Entzauberung der Welt. and the dates of the issue do not coincide. The articles Sechs Studien zu Max Weber, 2009. appeared in issue 1 and issue 2 respectively already in 1915. [17] This juxtaposition between Confucian and Puritan rationalism remained unchanged between the first and the [8] See Weber 1951. The translation is unfortunately very second version of the study. It can be found in the summary poor. statement, entitled “Conclusions: Confucianism and Puritanism” (“Resultat: Konfuzianismus und Puritanismus”). [9] The lecture course on “Practical Economics“ has still to be edited. It will appear as Max Weber, Praktische [18] See Max Weber, The Religion of India. The Sociology Nationalökonomie. Vorlesungen 1895-1899 (Max Weber of Hinduism and Buddhism, translated and edited by Hans Gesamtausgabe vol. III/2). H. Gerth and Don Martindale (1958). This translation is even worse. [10] A comparison between the two versions can be found in Weber 1989 (Max Weber Gesamtausgabe vol. I/19). See [19] An English translation of the “Intermediate Reflection” especially the synopsis of the tables of contents, pp 77-79. („Zwischenbetrachtung“) can be found in Weber 1946, here “XIII. Religious Rejections of the World and Their [11] See Weber 1904, pp. 22-87, esp. pp. 37-39. This Directions.” 19 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

[20] For the importance of Neoconfucianism to the cultural [32] See Weber 1989, esp. pages 267-274 (Max Weber history of traditional China and beyond, see de Bary 1981. Gesamtwerk vol. I/10). On page 270 we can read: “It is For a critique of Weber’s approach from the point of view of ridiculous to attribute to the current developed capitalism, as the specialist, see Metzger 1977. A wide range of issues it exists in den United States and as it is imported to Russia connected with Weber’s study and its shortcomings is right now, an inevitable ‘elective affinity’ to ‘democracy’ or discussed in Wei-Ming (ed.) 1991. See also Schluchter even to ‘freedom’” (my translation). Weber is convinced that (ed.) 1983. A recent, very insightful contribution to Weber’s capitalism when taken over from the outside could flourish ‘history’ of Imperial China is Faure 2013, and in general even under “enlightened despotism.” Faure 2006. [33] Gary Hamilton has alerted us to the fact that Weber [21] The text entitled “Vorbemerkung” was written in fall equated the Occidental legal concept of patria potestas with 1919. Parsons translated it as “Author’s Introduction;” the Chinese moral concept of xiao. This was not without Kalberg, as ”Prefatory Remarks to Collected Essays in the consequences for his ideal type of patriarchalism, which Sociology of Religion (1920).” Neither translation is correct. became therefore strictly westernized. The application of this concept to traditional Chinese relationships, the [22] I am using Parsons’ translation here. five lines, distorted the traditional Chinese role-model. Here, for instance, the son does not submit to the father’s [23] This was a hotly debated issue especially during the command, but he acts like a son as it is prescribed by a time when the so-called four tigers (Singapore, Hong role. See Hamilton, “Legitimation Domination in China: Kong, Taiwan and South Korea) developed very successful A Reconceptualization,” paper presented at Max Weber capitalist economies. It caused the so-called “Weber fever” and Chinese Culture: The Religion of China Centennial in Taiwan. International Conference 2013 (forthcoming), and Hamilton [24] This was a hotly debated issue especially during the 1990. time when the so-called four tigers (Singapore, Hong [34] See Lin 2008, esp. pages 43-45. The question of Kong, Taiwan and South Korea) developed very successful embeddedness and disembeddedness poses an intriguing capitalist economies. It caused the so-called “Weber fever” problem in case of China, however. On the macro level, the in Taiwan. embeddedness of the economy into the polity seems to be [25] See Weber, Religion of China, page 248: “The Chinese counterproductive, whereas on the micro level economic in all probability would be quite capable, probably more relations proper may profit from emdeddedness. capable than the Japanese, of assimilating capitalism [35] See also the insightful article from a Weberian which has technically and economically fully developed in perspective by Ku 2007. He mentions the spiritual vacuum the modern culture area.” Similar statements can be found caused by the “Cultural Revolution,” but is skeptical whether with regard to India. a revitalized Confucianism would do the job. See page 85. [26] The cover story of a recent TIME International issue stated: “because of the one child policy, China’s population is out of whack: Too few youths, too few women, too many Works cited elderly.” (“Why China Needs More Children” 17). The gender disparity is remarkable: boy-girl ratio is 118:100. de Bary, Theodore. Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart. Columbia UP, 1981. [27] Within 20 years, China has managed to raise per capita Chalcraft, David J., and Austin Harrington, editors. The income almost three times and to fight poverty (famine) to Protestant Ethic Debate. Max Weber’s Replies to a remarkable degree. To put it figuratively: Where bicycles his Critics, 1907-10. Liverpool UP, 2001. have been before, there are cars now. It holds at least for Faure, David. ”Commercial Institutions and Practices in Beijing and Shanghai. It is predicted that in 2030 China will Imperial China as Seen by Weber and in Terms of have the biggest economy in the world. More Recent Research.” Taiwan Journal of East [28] See McGregor 2010 (in German: Der rote Apparat. Asian Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2013, pp. 71-98. Chinas Kommunisten, 2012), esp. chapter 1. ---. China and Capitalism: A History of Business Enterprise in Modern China. Hong Kong UP, 2006. [29] See Max Weber Gesamtwerk vol. I/23, pages 375-381 (§§ 30 and 31). English translation in Weber 2013, pages Ghosh, Peter. “Max Weber, Werner Sombart and the 161-166; with a new preface by Guenther Roth. Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft: the authorship of the ‘Geleitwort’ (1904).” History of European Ideas, vol. [30] See McGregor 2010, chapter 2. 30, no. 1, 2010, pp. 71-100.

[31] In Weber’s terms, the opening of social relations Hamilton, Gary. “Legitimation Domination in China: A from the point of view of the party occurred to a certain Reconceptualization.” Max Weber and Chinese extent during the last years. On the one hand, even an Culture: The Religion of China Centennial entrepreneur can now become a party member, on the International Conference, 25 and 26 May 2013, other hand, consultation with bodies outside the party has National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. increased. But this has not shattered the monopoly of the Conference paper. party with its affiliated organizations. Gary Hamilton, “Patriachy, Patrimonialism and Filial Piety: A 20 W. Schluchter: “How Ideas Become Effective in History”

Comparison of China and Western Europe.” British ---. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Die Wirtschaft und Journal of Sociology, no. 41, 1990, pp. 77-104. die gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen und Mächte. Nachlaß. Teilband 2: Religiöse Gemeinschaften, Ku, Chung-Hwa. “The ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism in China: edited by Hans G. Kippenberg in collaboration with Contemporary Meaning of Weber’s Thought.” Social Petra Schilm, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2001b. Transformation in Chinese Societies, Special Issue: Chinese Capitalism, vol. 3, Brill, 2007. pp. 63-94. ---. Zur Russischen Revolution von 1905. Schriften und Reden 1905-1912, hg. von Wolfgang J. Mommsen in Lin, Nan. “Emerging Chinese Capitalism and its Theoretical Zusammenarbeit mit Dittmar Dahlmann, Tübingen: and Global Significance.” Social Transformation J.C B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1989. in Chinese Societies, Special Issue: Chinese Capitalism, vol. 3, Brill, 2007. pp. 13-62. ---. The Religion of China. Confucianism and Taoism. Translated and edited by Hans H. Gerth and Don McGregor, Richard. Der rote Apparat. Chinas Kommunisten. Martindale, The Free Press, 1958. Matthes & Seitz, 2012. ---. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Translated, ---. The Party. The Secret World of China’s Communist edited, and introduced by Hans H. Gerth and Rulers. Allen Lane, 2010. Charles Wright Mills, Oxford UP, 1946. Metzger, Thomas A. Escape from Predicament. ---. “Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Neoconfucianism and Chinas Evolving Political Religionssoziologische Skizzen. Der Culture. Columbia UP, 1977. Konfuzianismus I, II (Einleitung).” Archiv für Schluchter, Wolfgang, editor. “Introduction.” Max Weber Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 41, 1916, Gesamtwerk vol. I/9: Asketischer Protestantismus pp. 1-87. und Kapitalismus. Schriften und Reden 1904-1911, ---. “Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. edited by Wolfgang Schluchter with the collaboration Der Konfuzianismus III, IV. (Schluß). of Ursula Bube, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2014, Zwischenbetrachtung. Stufen und Richtungen pp. 1-89. der religiösen Weltablehnung.” Archiv für ---. “On the Place of the Study on Confucianism in Max Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 41, 1916, Weber’s Work.” Taiwan Journal of East Asian pp. 335-421. Studies, vol. 10, no 2.1, 2013, pp. 1-32. ---. “Die ‚Objektivität‘ sozialwissenschaftlicher und ---. “Chapter 1.” Die Entzauberung der Welt. Sechs Studien sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis.” Archiv für zu Max Weber. Mohr Siebeck, 2009, pp. 1-17. Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 15, 1904, pp. 22-87. ---. Die Entzauberung der Welt. Sechs Studien zu Max Weber. Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Wei-Ming, Tu, editor. The Triadic Chord. Confucian Ethics, Industrial East Asia and Max Weber. The Institute of ---. Rationalism, Religion and Domination. A Weberian East Asian Philosophy, 1991. Perspective. U of California P, 1989. “Why China Needs More Children.” Cover story. TIME ---. Max Webers Studien über Konfuzianismus und International, vol. 182, no. 23, 2 Dec. 2013, pp. 17- Taoismus. Interpretation und Kritik. Suhrkamp, 18. 1983. Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Author’s biography Claus Wittich, U of California P, 2013. ---. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The Wolfgang Schluchter is one of the most Revised 1920 Edition. Translated and introduced by important commentators and scholars of Max Stephen Kalberg, Oxford UP, 2011a. Weber’s work in the last fifty years. His “neo- ---. Abriß der universalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. evolutionary” approach to Weber’s work has Mit- und Nachschriften 1919/20, edited by Wolfgang Schluchter in collaboration with Joachim Schröder, influenced numerous authors such as Jürgen J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2011b. Habermas. In dozens of books dedicated to ---. Allgemeine (‚theoretische‘) Nationalökonomie. Max Weber, Schluchter reconstructed both Vorlesungen 1894-1898, edited by Wolfgang J. the historical and systematic content of the Mommsen in collaboration with Cristof Judenau et Weberian work. In addition to his analysis of al., J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2009. Weberian studies on the great world religions, ---. Zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Altertums. Schriften und Reden 1893-1908, edited by Jürgen his reconstruction of Weber’s moral theory Deininger, J.C.B Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2006. stands out. ---. Max Weber Gesamtwerk vol. I/9: The Protestant Ethic Debate. Max Weber’s Replies to his Critics, 1907-10, edited by David J. Chalcraft and Austin Harrington, Liverpool UP, 2001a. forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 21-34 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

Rethinking the State: How Necessary is a Farewell to Max Weber?

Hans-Jürgen Burchardt (University of Kassel, Germany)

Abstract Our understanding of the modern State is being called into question by the global rise in nationalism, exclusion, authoritarianism, and protectionism, which are already shaping the agendas of influential states. Social scientists and political elites have struggled to respond adequately to these challenges, rejecting these rising political patterns more by negation (as anti- liberal or pre-modern) rather than using them as a cause for reflection on the predominant political understanding. This article proposes a more productive engagement with these trends through examining the usefulness of the ideas of one of the most important state theoreticians, Max Weber.

Keywords: State Theory, Max Weber, Norbert Elias, Postcolonialism, North-South Relations, Post-Development

Rethinking the State: How Necessary is a sensitive method of analysis. Subsequently, the Farewell to Max Weber? usefulness of the ideas of Max Weber, one of most important state theoreticians to date, will The year 2020 saw the 100th anniversary of the be examined. Through this analysis, the article death of Max Weber. The following contribution builds a case for resuscitating the Norbert Elias aims to stimulate an analytic proposal to think figuration model for understanding recent societal with Weber beyond Weber and to open up new trends. Some brief examples will illustrate the options for state analysis. deployment of this methodical framework. Our liberal understanding of the state is currently being called into question in a number of ways: nationalism, exclusion, authoritarianism 1. Limits of Western Political Understanding and protectionism are rising globally and are already shaping the agendas of influential Up to the present day, engagement with the states. Modern Western conceptions of the state has been characterised by one constant: state, which for a long time have been the most in virtually all methodical and theoretical important points of reference for contemporary approaches, the Western state is taken as the analyses, are coming under pressure –more central point of reference. This Eurocentrism than ever with the COVID-19 pandemic. To is comprised of two dimensions: the first level date, however, social scientists and the political is an understanding of development as an elites have struggled to respond adequately to evolutionary process aligned to the achievement these challenges. Instead, these rising political of an abstract telos projected onto the future patterns are vilified and rejected by negation (as, and judged by European experiences and for instance, anti-liberal or pre-modern) rather standards. Here, development is always than using them as a cause for (self-) reflection imagined in strictly sequential terms rather than on the predominant political understanding. as simultaneous coexistence. This interpretation This article develops a more productive conceives of the emergence of the European engagement with these recent developments. state as a continuous process of modernisation, First, it outlines the two central dimensions that which through secularisation and rationalisation underlie Western understandings of the state obey a kind of natural impetus. European state while identifying the need for a new, context- formation is thus stylised as universal, a totality 22 H-J. Burchardt: Rethinking the State

that excludes alternatives. Critics, however, historically, socially, gender-specifically, have long pointed out that the consolidation of culturally and locally de-contextualised. [6] What European states did not follow identical patterns is omitted from this method, however, is that but differing and contradictory dynamics in individuals also always constitute themselves which neither the rational legal authority and through collective forms of identity. This should bureaucratic administration nor the capitalist not be considered a fundamental criticism of logic of exploitation spread continuously as a individualism but should primarily be understood linear outcome of development. [1] Moreover, as an effort to integrate subjective collective state monopoly on the use of force and relations and affections more strongly into taxation, the most important pillars of modern analysis. This is not to say that the subjects of statehood, were established in European state distinct social or ethnic groups or nations are in formation processes intrinsically through arms principle more strongly shaped by the group or races and armed conflicts between competing by affect, but rather that different roads of state rulers, which led to a convergence between formation have led to different balances between resource extraction and a coercive apparatus. ratio and affect as well as between the individual [2] Recognising that it was only through war and the collective. Omitting precisely this that modern statehood became established insight is the reason why many social scientists, underscores the uniqueness of European alongside political elites, have failed to recognise development and the impossibility of transferring in a timely manner recent articulations against it to other countries or regions. [3] Nonetheless, the establishment’s liberal politics and how most state research continues to use Western to cope with them. This lack of understanding experiences as the ground for typification while often results in helpless moral repudiations interpreting other forms of statehood as an and frequently becomes counterproductive. An expression of imperfect Western states. [4] up-to-date understanding of society and state, The second dimension of this Western however, has to overcome the Eurocentric understanding of the state is an androcentric, tunnel vision and adopt a context-sensitive and individualistically theorised subject concept decentred perspective towards the state both informed by liberal theory and conceiving of the methodically and theoretically. individual as a rationally acting maximiser of self- interest or freedom who shapes both the state and societal development accordingly. This is a 2. Max Weber and the State Today cultural concept of the secularised West, which, as first outlined by René Descartes, stylises One who analyses the state talks about Max rational control as a virtue to be internalised Weber. With his understanding of the state as a and that was subsequently, via Adam Smith, compulsory political organisation with continuous made describable and measurable through the operations (politischer Anstaltsbetrieb), which category of (economic) interest (Hirschman). successfully enforces the monopoly of legitimate [5] This understanding of the rational utilitarian physical force within territorially bounded orders individual promised reliable calculability of the (Weber, Economy and Society), Weber created irrational: human beings, with unrestrained a definition that influences and orientates state passions transmuted into cherished interests theory down to the present day. This broad that increasingly made acting strategic and thus recognition of the Weberian concept of the state calculable. Since measurability and calculability is rooted in its multidimensionality: it addresses are central to today’s science, liberal conceptions the relationship between force and legitimacy, of the subject as an individual, rational maximiser which the political institutions of the state have of self-interest remain powerful today, shaping to arrange and organise, thus emphasising our understanding of institutions as incentive the double function of the state as an instance structures and aggregations of rational actions. of authority and as a form of community. The Through this idea of freedom and self- popularity of Weber’s ideas was enhanced by the responsibility, the human being became fact that, as a legal scholar with formal juridical forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 21-34 23

formula and a focus on administration and law, the larger effort of exploring whether his work Weber could rely on the support of the influential could provide stimuli for new and more context- legalist and institutionalist state research, while sensitive research. his analytical idea of the state as an organisation Examining this neglected question shall be the or relation of authority (Herrschaftsverhältnis) first task. In order to approach this systematically, also guaranteed him the interest of political state Weber’s work will be evaluated on the basis philosophy. of the following questions extrapolated from The de facto failure of state formation criticisms of Eurocentrism: (1) whether and how processes in, for instance, Afghanistan and individual and collective action, i.e. the relation Somalia, however, reminds us that the Weberian between structure and agency in the field of understanding of the state has always only the state, are addressed and made empirically corresponded to a fraction of the state forms measurable; (2) how context-sensitive Weber’s worldwide. While in Weber’s sense the modern understanding of the subject is and, in particular, state is predominantly understood as an the relevance attributed to affect; (3) the autonomous apparatus separated from society extent to which Weber’s methodical approach and economy, i.e. where the separation of state directly integrates context factors; (4) whether authority from the economic and social spheres the androcentrism that frequently underlies is warranted in the form of an ‘impersonal power,’ the Western understanding of the state is [7] many states in the Global South –and not addressed; and (5) the extent to which a local only there– are characterised by an overlapping contextualisation of the object of study takes coexistence and reciprocal interpenetration of place and/or an evolutionary universalism is heterogeneous, formal, and informal systems advocated for. of power and regulation which undermine the homogeneity and integrity of the state Structure and Agency and may even constitute regulatory systems inconsistent with and/or antagonistic to it. The For Weber, the state is grounded in the limited effectiveness of the state monopoly, the individual actions of individual persons. weak institutionalised control mechanisms of Thus, the state can be depicted as a complex state power, the superimposition, penetration or of socially interdependent interactions substitution of formal institutions and procedures (Zusammenhandeln). Central to this is the by other arrangements, and the absence of civil importance of predominant moral concepts, instances that socially mediate and control state especially religious ethics, to which human beings policies generate political patterns and structures partially submit on the grounds of their yearning in which personal power rather than impersonal for salvation. Thus, for Weber, the Western power prevails. [8] individual’s desire for the intensified religious The explanatory power of Weber’s theory of provision of meaning or purpose (Sinnstiftung) the state monopoly of legitimate force has been has through a rational conduct of life led to further eroded by recent developments that depersonalised routines and mechanisms have caused the concept of the enlightened for the collective administration of imperative citizen as the primary subject of political action authority or domination (Herrschaftsverwaltung). to lose influence in the West, while under This in turn promoted new social action, which globalisation and regionalisation of economic conditioned and accustomed the individual to activities, juridical space and state territory rational control and generated consent, and have increasingly diverged. Yet criticisms of the could institutionalise itself as a ‘shell as hard as Weber-influenced Western understanding of steel’ (original in Weber, Soziologie 131, 147; the state have failed to confront Weber’s ideas translation in Baehr 153). Simultaneously with his themselves with the two stated dimensions contemporary Werner Sombart and his concept of the critiques of Eurocentrism. Remarkably, of ‘economic behaviour’ (Wirtschaftsgesinnung), to this day neither the exponents of Weber’s Weber thus developed a multi-layered model theoretical tradition nor its critics have made of analysis that, through the dimension of 24 H-J. Burchardt: Rethinking the State

values, convincingly couples the dimensions of Eurocentrism. of agency and structure. This systematised alternation between the micro- and macro- Consideration of Context Factors in Method level allowed Weber to develop a consistent model of analysis that avoids economistic Weber understands the Western process of reductionism. This is certainly one of his most rationalisation in the context of the development significant achievements, and it opened up new of normative interpretive patterns, which become perspectives for state and authority analyses. an objective frame of reference for social action and thus constitute the ideational legitimation A Context-Sensitive Subject Conception basis of interest-guided individual action. Here, for Weber, the administrations of state and For Weber, action alone does not make the state, authority are key expressions of individually however: only the individual’s meaningful order- internalised value and norms systems and focal oriented social action (Gemeinschaftshandeln) points of social action. He then believed one constitutes authority and the state. This is why could identify the underlying types of authority Weber’s methodical focus exclusively rests on in an axiologically neutral fashion via an forms of human behaviour that are subjectively analysis of reasonable patterns of action. Thus, meaningful to him, which for Weber is the actual Weber’s method consists of a clear formulation foundation of sociological analysis. He hereby of a problem, an approach of explanatory typologises meaningful behaviour and attributes understanding and an ideal-typical technique to purposive-rational action (zweckrationales strictly based on value freedom (Weber, Handeln) the greatest evidence of empirical Society 263; Weber, Economy and Society). research; that is, action in which the individual The methodical prioritisation of instrumentally actor’s behaviour relates to his/her own rational behaviour and the attempt to statically expectations towards the behaviour of others describe state and authority through typification or an object in an effort to pursue his/her own not only starkly reduces context sensitivity, but interests as successfully as possible through also negates it entirely through the postulate the use of a certain amount of (un)conscious of value freedom. After all, typification required self-reflection (Weber, Soziologie 99; Weber, Weber to develop often functionally or rationally Economy and Society). In other words, and to guided and allegedly universally valid attributions avoid a common misunderstanding, Weber by or categories with a claim to comparative no means assumed that human social behaviour systematisation that correspondingly required was principally instrumental and rationally de-contextualisation. [10] determined. Rather, he had a clear view on ‘instrumentally irrational’ affects and emotional Androcentrism states. In fact, Weber constructed instrumental rationality as a ‘borderline case’ for his methodical There are only scattered comments on approach; affects and fallacies could thus be gender issues in Weber’s work, such as in the classified as ‘deviations’, and a type could be context of cultural anthropological examinations described according to the degree of deviation. of the gendered division of labour and the Thus, for Weber, each subject fundamentally transition from matriarchy to patriarchy. Neither has a disposition for rationality, the specific his sociologies of religion and authority nor his manifestation of which he categorises as a modernisation theoretical analyses capture or type rather than comprehending it as a mutual theoretically conceptualise gender issues in processual contingency between structure and a methodically systematic way. At best, then, agency. [9] This understanding establishes Weber can be assigned a lack of sensitivity him as one of the founders of methodological towards the constricted androcentric Western individualism, which still today enforces the view of subjects. [11] claim to the universalisation of Western theory and thus for good reason is central to criticisms forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 21-34 25

Local Contextualisation versus Evolutionist are shaped by them, he innovatively connects Universalism structure and agency in the analysis. Moreover, he by no means embodies the universalist idea of While Weber’s scholarship was driven by an development as an evolutionary process guided effort to establish a universal theory of the state by Western modernity but actually displays and authority, he did not assume that Western sensitivity to local contextualisation. However, rationalism itself was universal and therefore, in his subject construct, which principally makes principle, transferable. In this sense, Weber was recourse to reasonableness and instrumental quite conscious of the fact that the use of force and rationality, undoubtedly makes Weber one war coupled with the containment and expansion of the originators of the second dimension of of the market played a central role in the genesis Eurocentrism. This core idea of his entire work, of the modern Western state. Furthermore, which culminates in coupling the notion of the to him the development from the Protestant state as a compulsory political institution (Anstalt) ethic to capitalism is neither the causal nor the with that of a rational authority itself based on linear process it is occasionally represented as the rational behaviours of individuals, renders being. Rather, the intentional behaviour of many Weber only partially suitable for decentred individuals (religious salvation) has led to a non- research. [12] intentional overall change (rational modernity). Indeed, this ‘paradox of rationalisation’ (Schluchter), in which religious meaning- and Transcending Max Weber: A Plea for Greater identity-giving norms and practices as a form of Passion in Analysis demystification mutated in the West into rational and efficient but meaningless domination, is for Context-sensitive state analysis would have to Weber quite unique. Therefore, Weber’s theory integrate Weber’s suggestion of understanding of the development of worldviews (Weltbilder) institutions as sedimented forms of subject action aspires to be universal historical, but it is not, with a subject concept that also considers affects. in contrast to the positions of many of his later Therefore, what is essentially advocated here is apologists, universalist. to focus, within a changed subject perspective, Thus, for example, it is easy to explain through on the rationally and affect-guided interrelations Weber why Western efforts at state building between humans, their social environments frequently fail: these policies understand the and the state; that is, a complementary view development of administrative capacities as of the ongoing and visible reciprocal forms of a lever of Western modernisation seeking to articulations and a systematic analysis of this increase individual rationality by increasing state interwovenness among individual action and rationality. This, however, constitutes an inversion (state) collective as a process. of cause and effect; in the West, rational authority This effort to transcend the Weberian rational was only established after the internalisation of subject towards one that considers its relations individual rationality. Furthermore, when, as in to society and institutions has been a concern of the West, the transferred instrumentally rational numerous social theorists, including Bourdieu, principles have a destructive effect on existing Fraser, Foucault, Giddens and Habermas, yet structures of meaning, this actually drives counter a complete separation from the concept of the reactions, such as extreme traditionalism and rational subject has in most cases only been fundamentalism. partially achieved, or these approaches have On the whole, it can be stated that Weber remained too firmly rooted in the experiences of provides some methodical and analytical Western societies. In the following, I will refer to a responses to the critiques of Eurocentrism. classic that appears to offer particularly inspiring With his proposal for viewing actors’ interpretive responses to the previously stated criticisms patterns and moral concepts as important of Eurocentrism, thus providing interesting determinants of action orientations, which shape suggestions for context-sensitive state research: (the objectives of) institutions as much as they Norbert Elias’ figuration model. 26 H-J. Burchardt: Rethinking the State

This choice may come as a surprise. The as the starting point of his examinations. Elias civilisation theory, in particular, has not only Rather, he consistently assumes a dialectical been criticised for its historical representations relation between the collective context and the and interpretations, but also for its theoretical individual sphere of life, which also includes the premises. [13] After all, the title of his The affect dimension. In order to explicitly balance Civilising Process (1994 [1939]) already evokes the two dimensions of structure and agency, associations of a normative and teleological he disaggregates the understanding of state understanding of development, which in and society formation into figurations in which addition explicitly refers to European social a multitude of persons, who to him are not trajectories. Indeed, the view Elias expresses individuals, are bound together in different ways in the book, that the development process of through a range of interrelated, unstable power Western states is best described as a process balances. Thus, the figuration approach is based of increasing affect control, can and has to be on a theory of power relations that, while viewing questioned, especially in consideration of some power as control over resources, does not recent dynamics of Western societies. [14] understand the exercise of power as a unipolar Such criticisms and the persistent ignorance mechanism but as fluctuating transformations. towards making the Eliasan approach fruitful for The social force field of power does not rest in decentred state research are probably derived individual human beings (and not only in the from the tragic fact that Elias is not only one of political) but in what happens between people the most cited scholars in the social sciences, and in what is changing. Power is the dynamic but also one of the most misinterpreted. [15] essence of interpersonal relationships, which The multifarious and indeed justified criticisms, means that its recognition, legitimation, counter however, have largely obfuscated the fact that power and the possibility of empowerment for the model of figuration presents a template that those over whom power is exercised are also excellently accomplishes the complementary always integral. For Elias, power is the central integration of affect in social and state analyses, relationship attribute between people and while its relational understanding of the individual authority, the examination of which permits the and the collective simultaneously facilitates new empirical investigation of structure and agency methodical approaches. This, in fact, would be in (Elias, What is Sociology?). the spirit of Elias: as he once stated, the notion of figuration seeks to provide a conceptual tool A Context-Sensitive Subject Conception through which the flawed society–individual duality can be overcome (Elias, What is Elias is convinced that the ‘homo clausus’, i.e. Sociology? 123ff). [16] The following section will the essentialist individual isolated from society, outline the kind of inspirations that Elias provides does not exist. [18] Rather, humans can only be for decentred research. To facilitate a methodical conceived of in the plural, as they are integrated comparison with Max Weber, the work of Elias in inter-generational interdependences that will be examined in accordance with the same they shape as much as they are shaped by dimensions already deployed with respect to them in their affections, thoughts, and actions. Weber. In addition, specific positions of Weber Here, rather than understanding rationality will be referred to in a contrasting fashion. [17] and affect as antipodes, in which one side neutralises the other, Elias conceives of these Structure and Agency as a complementary relation, and consideration of both sides is necessary to understand social Just like Weber, Norbert Elias attempts to action and state formation. For Elias, affects methodically and theoretically decode the are also constitutive, that is, humans are relations between subject and (state) collective always rational and passionate at the same action. In this regard, however, his approach is time. He thus assumes that individual action significantly more complex than Weber’s, as he is not primarily grounded in a rationally guided does not take individual subjective behaviour individualism, as was ideal-typically assumed forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 21-34 27

by Weber for the West and to some extent dynamic power balances that unfold among empirically demonstrable, but that the individual the sexes at the macro-level of the states and simultaneously tends to identify via collectives in the gendered division of labour, as well as in (often the family, tribe, sex, class, ethnicity and subjective and affective relations at the micro- nation), organises in these, orients its action level. [20] In his studies, he also showed that in accordance with them, and in this is also power balances between men and women always guided by affects. This is so because, within operate simultaneously in the public sphere, in actions, emotions cannot be fully separated from the economy and politics, in the family, and in cognitive understanding, nor are ritual acts, such marriage and sexuality. Conversely, changes in as state ceremonies, performed completely the political framework, such as through reforms, unreflectingly or unconsciously. An examination also shapes gender relations (Brinkgreve). of the particular relations and intertwinings of affective action and (state) collective then facilitates a context-specific analysis without Local Contextualisation versus Evolutionist predefining all subjects through the specific Universalism Western rationality–affect balance. Elias’s integration of the affect dimension Consideration of Context Factors in Method enabled him to create a strong contextual connection between social and state analysis, Elias rigorously opposes static analyses and and history, culture and the local beyond the typologisations as introduced by Weber and micro-perspective. Accordingly, Elias imagines principally criticises the method of generating development processes as models in space and de-contextualised isolated factors or variables. time while emphasising that not only intra- but Instead, he proposes approaching the object also inter-state influences have to be integrated of study via its relationship dynamics. In this, in the analysis by understanding the latter as social practice becomes the focal point of his an extension of chains of interdependence. analysis, as to him it is within social processes Subsequently, Elias extends his elaborations to in particular that the individual and the (state) countries in the Global South, convinced that his collective become identifiable and describable methodical framework of figuration is open and in their totality. [19] For Elias, the human being therefore, in principle, applicable to different forms is not simply embedded in processes, it is the of social development (Elias, What is Sociology? process; the only immutable thing about humans 162). In accordance with Elias’s conception of is their mutability emanating from evolutionary power, social and state structures are then change (Elias, What is Sociology? 108ff). Thus, produced through the volitional acts, plans and Elias encourages future research to rely less passions (as articulations of power) of many. on typologisations and associated quantitative However, due to existing interdependences analyses and adopt a stronger relational and fluctuations, these social processes in their perspective rather than a strictly static and/or totality are uncontrolled, that is, social and state (field) isolated one. development is always contingent. In this regard, Elias clearly transcends Weber; for Elias, the Androcentrism contingency of social change is constitutive. Thereby he clearly rejects universalism. Throughout his work, Elias problematises On the whole, the Eliasan focus on social androcentrism at great length, to which the interdependences permits the development of important thesis of ‘situated knowledge’ proposals on how the characteristics between is immanent (Haraway). By applying his the individual and the collective may be figuration approach, he formulated key ideas systematically explored, categorised, and thus that are intensely discussed within today’s made accessible for empirical measurement. gender research, particularly in intersectional On the one hand, Elias develops the category approaches. For him, gender relations are also of affective valences, i.e. an also affectively 28 H-J. Burchardt: Rethinking the State

shaped web of relationships between people, combines psychogenetic and sociogenetic in which for Elias human satisfaction is always studies, Elias develops definable and empirically primarily related to other humans (Elias, What deployable categories that permit the analysis of is Sociology? 133). With regard to larger units, social and personal structures within a specific such as the state, such affective attachments state process. are not restricted to humans but also involve Thus, Elias’s figuration model first focuses on unifying symbols, such as coats of arms and affects and explicitly also examines these with flags, emotive concepts, such as the homeland, regard to their collective expressions through or emotionalised mass events, such as football. state symbols and forms of political articulation [21] Here, affect articulation is already becoming (e.g., populism). Second, it is non-essentialist directly related to (state) collective articulation. both with respect to its understanding of the This example in particular illustrates how Elias, subject and of structures, as it seeks to relate with his focus on affect, avoids cultural relativism. social and political with economic and other While culture and the state usually have ‘the determinants, the interdependences of which nation’, ‘ethnic identities’ or some other historical have to be empirically determined and can myth as their central reference points, affects for lead to varying social (socialisation) modes Elias always also refer to social positionings; and patterns of the state. This means that the traditions, for example, are not only locally or figuration model is neither state nor market ethnically rooted but directly tied to changes centric and that it operates largely free from in state and society (Hobsbawm and Ranger). normative presuppositions. This comes very Change itself moves into the focus of analysis close to approaching states in an unreserved rather than solely viewing the respective state as manner. Third, the model’s category of integration the origin and place of shaping power. further allows for the scrutiny of perpetuated Furthermore, Elias’s categories of integration and naturalised social and political exclusion as and differentiation facilitate the measurement simultaneities of inside and outside, which is a of the quality and quantity of social globally increasingly relevant component virtually interdependences (Elias, What is Sociology? unexplored by Weber. [22] Fourth, by contrast, 133). Integration, above all, is a physical via the notion of fluctuating power balances, violence-reducing group survival function which Elias takes into account the dynamics of spaces produces social structures, societal organisation of social order and their forms of legitimation, and, finally, state monopolies. Differentiation placing power and social positioning at the and the division of labour in particular (which centre of his explorations. [23] Therefore, by not in capitalism reached a new intensity) deepen neglecting affect and context, Elias provides a and broaden the interdependences. Both form of analysis that avoids slipping into cultural processes are inextricably intertwined. This relativism and ethnologisation. [24] Fifth, with means, for example, that the state formation its notion of space–time, the concept offers not of bourgeois society cannot be separated from only the possibility of a strong contextualisation the emergence of capitalism. Therefore, Elias of the state, but also a methodical-analytical does not place economic structural constraints perspective on how social processes in societies or political regime configurations at the centre can be traced and explained as interdependent of analysis, but rather the power differentials (including transnational) multi-level trajectories. and power balances that integrate these chains With his figuration approach, Elias thus radically of interdependence. Elias systematises these breaks with the two narratives of Eurocentrism. three categories into a basic regulatory triad In this, just like Weber, he connects structure in which differentiation represents the control and agency. However, Elias offers not only a dimension of extra-human contexts of events, consistent but also an open, context-sensitive integration represents the control of inter- methodical framework that is particularly apt for human relationships, and his assumed affect research into the particularities of states. This reduction represents self-control (Elias, What methodical understanding is best illustrated by is Sociology? 147). With this approach, which a concrete example. For this purpose, we select forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 21-34 29

a major country in the Global South, which at of political institutions and the consolidation of the beginning of the 20th century had the same their conflict resolution mechanisms. Therefore, per capita income as Germany and that in 1940 due to the massive resource influx and the was still predicted by agricultural economist European migratory background of broad Colin Clark to become one of the four nations sectors of society, no profound integration and with the highest per capita income worldwide differentiation occurred in Argentina. The elites within the next thirty years: Argentina. Soon never had to struggle for a central monopoly after this prognosis, however, Argentina was hit as the cash inflows initially ensured sufficient by severe social and political dislocation and resources (and power) for all relevant groups. It economic decline; instability, poverty and deep did not appear necessary to build up a strong inequalities have since become key features central state; the majority of institutions, such as of society. Most commonly this is attributed to monetary currency, laws, state bureaucracies, structural (e.g., deferral of agricultural reform) and even the establishment of a capital city and institutional (e.g., hyper-presidentialism were only created after state formation, and and weak rule of law) distortions. However, the the pronounced non-compliance of (not only) Eliasan figuration approach could expand such the elites in paying taxes to the present day stinted explanations by introducing the following (Cetrángolo et al) demonstrates the state’s considerations: on the one hand, the emergence limited legitimation and powers of self-assertion. of the Argentine nation was based on massive Self-interests were best realized through the external resource influx. Referred to as Belle development of social conflict potentials (and Époque, which lasted until the First World War, violence) rather than through active participation this nourished an almost forty-year economic in the state; progressive affect control was boom during which the nation experienced a neither necessary nor conducive to this. The cultural heyday. The leading agricultural elites economic concentration on exports, which due quickly learned to optimise the use of their fertile to a redistribution of export revenues was never soils while banking on a poorly diversified export abandoned in its final logic even during periods basket of everyday necessities (wool, grain of inward orientation, further reduced the need and meat), which ensured a relatively steady for social differentiation. Therefore, growing demand, even during international sales crises. interdependence, with which Elias by reference to On the other hand, liberal migration laws that Europe associates first consolidation followed by demanded few concessions be made towards gradual horizontalisation and de-personification the new homeland led to a remarkably high of state power, never occurred. This explains immigration rate; at the turn of the century, one- why populism and violence are still important third of the population was made up of migrants. political means in Argentina today. The latter, The economic boom facilitated high collective in particular, is remembered in the form of the upward mobility, leading to the formation of a most recent military dictatorship, which even by broad middle class relatively early within the regional comparison was extremely brutal and region while easing integration in a general sense. perfidious. For Elias, social interdependence is At the same time, however, this complicated the inextricably intertwined with affect control: if the emergence of identity-establishing collectives first is coarse-meshed, the probability of the use and intensified the strong self-referential acting of political violence increases. [25] of the subjects motivated by gains in freedom. However, the figuration approach also offers Ideal (family) relations shaped by the European concrete explanations with respect to the countries of origin remained important reference current political developments in the USA and points for the elites and later migrants. Argentina in Europe. It allows us to link Thomas Picketty’s viewed itself more as a European outpost than as research findings on the dramatic increase in a nation of its own. Such collective experiences social inequality in industrialised nations with in state formation generally favoured outward- Zygmunt Baumann’s insight that nationalism and oriented solution options, which impeded efforts reference to ethnic affinity constitute a substitute in national identity politics, the development for integration factors in a disintegrating society 30 H-J. Burchardt: Rethinking the State

(Strangers at Our Door). Accordingly, due to For example, Elias stylises competition as the growing inequality, social integration in Western principal source of social dynamics while, just like societies is decreasing, and the importance of Weber, insufficiently engaging with cooperation. affects is again increasing. Initial manifestations Elias assumes an archaic fear of the individual of this are the successful mobilisation of and towards the Other (nature, humans) as the support for political discourses and behaviour driving force of such competitive constellations, that strongly appeal to the emotions and which can be transformed into security principally passions of people, and through this they seek through domination; this is an interpretation that to revitalise forms of identity formation that may essentially follows Hobbesian natural law and often have been suppressed or hitherto regarded Sigmund Freud’s conception of the human being as functionally counterproductive. These more (Wickham and Evers 2-11). Context-sensitive recent processes are, in accordance with Elias, research, however, would have to acknowledge indeed alarming. After all, when banking on a broader range of motives for action in order to exclusion and mobilised against minorities or capture the relevant aspects of social change. more vulnerable people, they may subsequently After all, the cohesiveness of a state requires lead to direct violence. Elias’s approach, not only the internal renunciation of violence however, also leaves no doubt about how to deal but also empathy and solidarity. In this respect, with this threat: the dimensions of integration a synthesis with Spinoza’s affect cataloguing and differentiation have to be strengthened appears useful, starting with the basic affects politically. This is only possible through broader of pleasure and displeasure, which enter participation, which would have to be functionally awareness as greed and then lead to secondary legitimate and rest on positive attributions in affects (of which hate and love are fundamental). terms of identity rather than on exclusion. This would permit a broader research focus (Lord 83) as, in Spinoza’s ontology, affections Towards New State Research with Max and not only have an effect on the individual but also Norbert on other relational categories, such as identity, power and politics, while in turn being influenced To be sure, an updated deployment of Norbert by them. (26] Elias’s theory also requires its revision in various As regards the issue of integration, the respects. In order to make the figuration model assumption that the diffusion of affects primarily applicable for contemporary research, the three occurs as a statist top-down tendency has to categories of the Eliasan triad should be rethought. be corrected; this is an assumption that has With respect to the category of affective valences largely been made relative by more recent it should first be positively noted that this implies historical analyses. Moreover, although Elias historical retrospective (i.e. the historical social explicitly delimits his category of differentiation research approach), which in principle promises from structural functionalist assumptions, he a decentred analysis, as here Elias works with a nonetheless implicitly draws from these in his three-generation view. Nonetheless, for the sake own analysis. In this respect, it would have to be of the practicability of data collection, it has to be examined, inter alia, whether a less passionate asked whether this method could be optimised engagement with those theoretical approaches in research economic terms. A further advantage opposed by Elias could facilitate new syntheses is that both a historical perspective and the that would permit the development of indicators integration of affects provide key criteria that and operationalisations without having to permit a systematic contextualisation of social neglect the research focus on state processes. and state processes without being restricted to [27] In addition, the degree of integration local particularities. and the thickness of differentiation that state However, it would be necessary to clarify to interdependence chains have to dispose of in what extent Elias’s interest in progressive affect order for them to maintain their efficacy and not control and, therefore, self-control would have to to rupture would have to be further specified. be extended towards other motives for action. This is above all of significance if the analytically forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 21-34 31

relevant transnational dimensions of state and values. In today’s rapidly changing world, interweavings, as also considered by Elias, are such a method framed by an extended figuration to be analysed with respect to their degrees of analysis appears to be a productive approach efficacy (Mann). towards better understanding contemporary Two other tasks are of cardinal importance. states and societies. On the one hand, further development of the figuration model would require continued serious Endnotes consideration of the criticisms of androcentrism in all respects (Walby). On the other hand, [1] See Ertmann 1997. the Eliasan model’s understanding of state [2] See Centeno and Enriquez 2016; and Tilly 1985, 1990. change and the subject–structure relationship would have to be vigorously calibrated with [3] See Centeno 1997; and Schlichte 2005. the positions and knowledge of non-European [4] For example, after 9/11 by reference to the new deficit doctrines and world views, as well as with the concept of failing states, state research unabashedly relied state of knowledge of postcolonialism in order on Western models, while political consulting called for their reproduction through state building (see Fukuyama 2004). to clarify whether and what analogies exist and where syntheses are possible for an even more [5] Certainly, by reference to Smith’s earlier writing The refined application of the figuration model to Theory of Moral Sentiments, it has been pointed out that this ascription would do the Scottish moral philosopher states in the Global South. wrong (see Máiz 2010). However, what can be stated These are undoubtedly only some initial with certainty is that The Wealth of Nations became a key explorations of the directions in which the foundation of social study and research focused on rational interests. figuration model may be further developed as a methodological toolbox for a decentred analysis [6] For critical accounts, see Chakrabarty 2000; Coronil of state and society. The fundamental objective 1997; and Samir 1989. would be to sharpen its categories, update it [7] See Gerstenberger 2007. to the latest state of knowledge, and adapt it [8] See Schlichte 2005. to the corresponding conditions of the current dynamics of state processes in order to develop [9] In a synchronic approach, this presupposition of an new indicators for empirical inquiries. always existent subject disposition for rationality then permitted Weber in his sociology of religion to categorise In sum, the preceding systematisation sought different cultures in which no rational authority had to illustrate that with respect to empirically developed. The approaches of ‘multiple modernities’ (see grounded and decentred state research, Eliasan Eisenstadt 2006) picked up this thread. Even though it was not the intention of the inventor, such a methodical figuration analysis is more advantageous than design once more promotes the analysis and evaluation the Weberian approach. Max Weber’s analyses of state configurations against a Western backdrop. After of the state and authority rest on arguments for all, Western rational behaviour is not only of conceptual centrality to the analysis, but it also is empirically all- a universalism that is becoming increasingly encompassing as all aspects of behaviour (and with it counterproductive, both politically and social and political institutions) are rationally systematised scientifically. Weber himself provided the basis and geared towards a particular objective or stipulated in for this through his one-dimensional, reductionist accordance with an ideal value. subject concept. [27] Nonetheless, Max Weber [10] It should be noted, though, that Weber’s method is not equally offers assistance in the effort to refine entirely de-contextualised. His dimension of values and ethics, or the complex of meaning (Sinnzusammenhang) the Eliasan figuration model. After all, one crucial of action, certainly always also reflects local contexts. Yet, element is absent from Elias’s significantly Weber largely leaves such value setting to religion as an more complex social analysis: the orientation of almost anthropological constant, which, despite variations, action. Today, as affects in the politics of Western to him always constituted a soteriological expectancy (Heilserwartung). societies once again gain in apparent relevance, an application of Elias’s extended subject [11] See Ciaffa 1998. concept appears expedient. However, Weber [12] This also applies to the continued efforts to recycle continues to provide assistance to Elias as he Weber’s categories for analyses of contemporary global rightly admonishes us not to lose sight of ethics changes in state and society. For example, the concepts of 32 H-J. Burchardt: Rethinking the State

cosmopolitanism (see Beck 2006) and neo-institutionalist approach (also often by reference to Weber) is coupled with studies (e.g., Acemoglu & Robinson 2012; North et al. a corresponding formalist and institutionalist angle, this can 2009) are noteworthy in this respect. hardly be expected to produce valid knowledge about the current state dynamics. However, Elias’s understanding [13] For an overview, see Dunning and Hughes 2013. of power far transcends Weber’s, who was first and foremost interested in the distribution of power among [14] Baumann 2000. different instances of power but not in the relation between [15] Gabriel and Mennell also explain this ignorance by the individual and power. Rather, Elias’s perspective, quoting an email from Alan Sica: “The reason Americans according to which the dominant power figurations are also don’t take to Elias is that he writes about European articulated outside the political and inscribed or reflected historical and cultural change and American sociologists in the individual, has also influenced Bourdieu’s and don’t feel comfortable with that sort of thing, except for Foucault’s definitions of power. In fact, his discussion on the [Jack] Goldstone and that small lot; and because he is issue of the genesis of power may even have been more theoretically very adventurous and synthetic, and they profound than theirs. Furthermore, the figuration approach don’t go for that; and because he trashed Parsons, who may provide inspiring contributions to more recent debates many of them liked back in the day; and because he could on power, which in pursuit of an integral concept of power be mistaken for a closet Freudian, which they don’t like; address both the repressive and productive character of and because he brings up really obnoxious qualities of power through the concepts of ‘power over’ and ‘power humankind, which they particularly don’t like; and because to’ (for an overview, see Clegg and Haugaard 2009). It is he wrote a helluva lot of stuff, which takes a long time to therefore all the more striking that Elias’s positions continue read, they don’t have time; and because ‘figuration’ is a to receive little attention in contemporary sociological and word that has a distinctly effete connotations in this country, political science debates on power. and sounds like art history” (18). [24] This is exactly how Gayatri Spivak would argue later by [16] For an overview, see Dépelteau and Landini 2013. pointing out that all struggles of cultural discrimination are equally struggles of social progress (Spivak 2003). [17] Surprisingly, to date hardly any scholarly work appears to be available that systematically compares the theories of [25] This cursory illustration alone gives us some idea of Weber and Elias. Despite differing starting points (meaning the kinds of questions that may be posed and engaged with giving norms on the one hand and changes in moral through a figuration method. For example, the figuration behavioural patterns on the other), the key interests are model permits us to understand the state fiscal monopoly, identical, which are namely to understand and explain the which in contrast to democracy and the monopoly on genesis of Western capitalism and the state. the legitimate use of force has barely been enforced in Latin America, not as a pre-modern system deficiency or [18] Elias, who according to him was highly appreciative technocratic implementation failure but as an expression of Weber’s work in many respects, was aware of Weber’s of a specific, historically grown and to date (in essence, reductionist subject concept, which probably inspired his political regime neutral) legitimating power asymmetry own reflections (see Goudsblom 2003). between groups that can be empirically delimited. Therefore, this could permit us to concretely identify the [19] Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault and Anthony extent to which functional considerations (power and Giddens, amongst others, whose influential social theories resource maintenance) and/or affective guiding patterns are also based on studies of social practice, were strongly (such as the traditional external orientation of elites) play influenced by this approach. See also Gabriel and Mennell a central role in order to explain why, for example, more (2011) for Elias’s international impact on social science recent reforms to increase tax revenue in the region have research. often remained ineffective.

[20] In gender research, the latter has long been referred to [26] See Kisner and Youpa 2014; Nadler 2015; and as ‘doing gender’ (see West & Zimmermann 1987). Soyarslan 2016.

[21] For the latter, see also Elias and Dunning 2003. [27] Essentially, the two Eliasan categories of integration and differentiation are not completely alien to modernisation [22] See also Elias and Scotson 2008; Rehbein and Souza theoretical ideas. However, Elias has a much more 2015. sophisticated understanding of progress in rationalisation than Weber: Elias assumes a differentially strong [23] This relational understanding of power bears a double ‘awareness’ of simultaneously existing orders, and Weber benefit for state research: on the one hand, itper se avoids attempts to illustrate a process in which rationalisation the power-blind reductionism still often practiced with a per se (in the sense of a progressing cognitive control control-oriented and technocratic bias and the economic of reality) only represents a partial aspect of gradually or functionalist narrowness of power-sensitive approaches. extending interdependent chains of action and condensing On the other hand, it does not restrict the definition of figurations. Nonetheless, the two theoreticians are in close power to the Weber-influenced and still widespread notion quarters here: both assume that the genesis of Western of power as a unilateral assertion of one person’s will modernity was grounded in a growing rationality within in a social relation; that is, the exertion of influence on social relations. others (‘power over’) as an interpretation of power that inadequately simplifies the contextual analysis of complex [28] What has also to be neglected here is Weber’s power relations. After all, if such a one-dimensional ‘double constitution of the subject’: Weber was not only an forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 21-34 33

intentional observer of the historically newly constituting Clegg, Stewart R., and Mark Haugaard, eds. The SAGE capitalist society in Germany, astutely distinguishing Handbook of Power. Sage, 2009. between a private bourgeois entrepreneurial spirit and a Coronil, Fernando. The Magical State: Nature, Money, and far-reaching bourgeois ideology, which led to an overall Modernity in Venezuela. U of Chicago P, 1997. reconstitution of the way of living. As a political activist, he also was an ideological designer of a new bourgeois Dépelteau, François, and Tatiana Landini, eds. Norbert subjectivity aiming at moral reform of the upper classes Elias and Social Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. and the integration of the intellectuals and the skilled labour Dunning, Eric, and Jason Hughes. Norbert Elias and force so that precisely this new form of social organisation Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, could develop and stabilise itself. Max Weber presented Power, Process. Bloomsbury, 2013. himself as a class-conscious apologist of the German national interest, who in the sense of a ‘liberal imperialism’ Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. The Great Revolutions and the was desirous of a foreign politically self-assertive German Civilizations of Modernity. Brill, 2005. power state. Elias, Norbert. What is Sociology? (1970). University College Dublin Press, 2012. Works Cited ---. The Civilising Process. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (1939). Blackwell, 1994. Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why Nations Elias, Norbert, and Eric Dunning. Quest for Excitement: Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process. Dublin, Crown Business, 2012. University College Dublin Press, 2008. Amin, Samir, and Russell Moore. Eurocentrism. Monthly Elias, Norbert, John L. Scotson, and Cas Wouters. The Review Press, 1989. Established and the Outsiders. University College Dublin Press, 2008. Baehr, Peter. “The ‘Iron Cage’ and the ‘Shell as Hard as Steel’: Parsons, Weber, and the Stahlhartes Ertmann, Thomas. The Birth of the Leviathan: Building Gehäuse Metaphor in the Protestant Ethic and the States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Spirit of Capitalism.” History and Theory, vol. 40, no. Europe. Cambridge UP, 1997. 2, 2001, pp. 153–169. Fukuyama, Francis. State Building: Governance and World Bauman, Zygmunt. Strangers at Our Door. John Wiley & Order in the 21st Century. Cornell UP, 2004. Sons, 2016. Gabriel, Norman, and Stephen Mennell, eds. Norbert Elias ---. Dialectic of Modernity. Sage, 2000. and Figurational Research: Processual Thinking in Sociology. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Beck, Ulrich. Cosmopolitan Vision. Polity Press, 2006. Gerstenberger, Heide. Impersonal Power: History and Brinkgreve, Christien. “Elias on Gender Relations: The Theory of the Bourgeois State. Brill, 2007. Changing Balance of Power between the Sexes.” The Sociology of Norbert Elias, edited by Steven Goudsblom, Johan. “Christian Religion and the European Loyal and Stephen Quilley, Cambridge UP, 2004, Civilising Process: The Views of Norbert Elias pp. 142-154. and Max Weber Compared in the Context of the Augustinian and Lucretian Traditions.” Irish Journal Centeno, Miguel A. “Blood and Debt: War and Taxation of Sociology, vol. 12, no.1, 2003, pp. 24-38. in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 102, no. 6, 1997, pp. Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science 1565-1605. Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, 1988, Centeno, Miguel, and Elaine Enriquez. War and Society. pp. 575-599. Polity Press, 2016. Hirschman, Albert O. The Passions and the Interests: Cetrángolo, Oscar, Juan Carlos Gómez Sabaini, and Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Dalmiro Morán. “La Evasión Tributaria en los Países Triumph. Princeton UP, 1977. de la Región.” Consensos y Conflictos en la Política Tributaria de América Latina, edited by Juan Carlos Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger. The Invention of Gómez Sabaini, Juan Pablo Jiménez and Ricardo Tradition. Cambridge UP, 1983. Martner Fanta, CEPAL, 2017, pp. 337-364. Kisner, Matthew J., and Andrew Youpa, eds. Essays on Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Spinoza’s Ethical Theory. Oxford UP, 2014. Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton UP, Lord, Beth. Spinoza’s Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical 2000. Guide. Edinburgh UP, 2010. Ciaffa, Jay A. Max Weber and the Problems of Value- Máiz, Ramón. “La Hazaña de la Razón: La Exclusión Free Social Science: A Critical Examination of the Fundacional de las Emociones en la Teoría Política Werturteilsstreit. Bucknell UP, 1998. Moderna.” Revista de Estudios Políticos, no. 149, Clark, Colin. The Conditions of Economic Progress. 2010, pp. 11-45. Macmillan and Co, 1940. Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1, 34 H-J. Burchardt: Rethinking the State

A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760. Author’s biography Cambridge UP, 1986.

Nadler, Steven. “On Spinoza’s ‘Free Man’”. Journal of the Hans-Jürgen Burchardt is Director of the American Philosophical Association, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 103–120. Maria Sibylla Merian Center of Latin American North, Douglass C., John Joseph Wallis, and Barry Advanced Studies (CALAS), Director of the R. Weingast. Violence and Social Orders. A Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos (CELA) Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded in Kassel and Chair of International Relations Human History. Cambridge UP, 2009. at the University of Kassel. He has published Rehbein, Boike, and Jessé Souza. “The Incorporation of extensively on North-South relations, ecological, Symbolic Inequality.” Transcience, vol. 6, no. 1, labor and social policy regimes from an 2015, pp. 20-32. international perspective, on theories of State Schlichte, Klaus, ed. The Dynamics of States: The Formation and Crisis of State Domination. Ashgate, and development, especially focusing on Latin 2005. America and the Caribbean. Schluchter, Wolfgang. “The Paradox of Rationalisation: On the Relation of Ethics and World.” Max Weber’s Vision of History: Ethics and Methods, edited by Guenter Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, U of California P, 1979. Soyarslan, Sanem. “The Distinction between Reason and Intuitive Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics.” European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 24, no. 1, 2016, pp. 27- 54. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Death of a Discipline. Columbia UP, 2003. Tilly, Charles. Coercion, Capital, and European Status, AD 990-1990. Cambridge UP, 1990. ---. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.” Bringing the State Back in, edited by Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, Cambridge UP, 1985, pp. 169-191. Walby, Sylvia. Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities. Sage, 2009. Weber, Max. Economy and Society [1922]. U of California P, 2013. ---. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Routledge, 2009. --- Soziologie, Universalgeschichtliche Analysen, Politik. Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1973. West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmermann. “Doing Gender.” Gender and Society, vol. 1, no. 2, 1987, pp. 125- 151. Wickham, Gary, and Barbara Evers. “Elias in the Footsteps of Hobbes?” Human Figurations: Long-term perspectives on the human condition, vol. 1, no.1, 2012, pp. 2-11. perspectives on the human condition, vol. 1, no.1, 2012, pp. 2-11. forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 35-45 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

Max Weber, Understanding and the Charge of Subjectivism Boike Rehbein (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany)

Abstract According to the prevailing opinion, there are three fathers of sociology, namely Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber, and Weber is supposed to be a subjectivist in contrast to the two other classics. This paper argues that Weber is not subjectivist enough. He awards the notion of understanding a key role in his philosophy of science but actually dismisses it in his empirical research. An average meaning, which can be identified on the basis of observation, replaces the process of understanding other human beings. The chapter explores the notion of understanding and the role that it should play in the social sciences in some detail.

Keywords: Explanation, meaning, philosophy of the social sciences, qualitative methodology, understanding

According to common knowledge, Max Weber for the relevance of understanding because any was a subjectivist who tried to explain society on social action is meaningful and linked to some the basis of the subjective meaning generated meaning for human beings. All human beings in the minds of individuals. In this paper, I will participate in the construction of the social argue that this opinion is not only wrong but that world by acting meaningfully and interpreting almost the opposite is the case. Actually, Weber meaning. However, both Weber and Bourdieu is far more objectivistic than subjectivistic. His have tried to come up with theories that render classification as a subjectivist is based on the the understanding of particular human beings first few lines of Economy and Society (Weber and their perspectives superfluous. Ideally, 1972), where the expression “subjective the social science of Weber and Bourdieu can meaning” figures prominently. But if we continue accomplish what all objectivist science is aiming to read the book, we see that Weber does not at, namely explain and predict the particular put subjective meaning into use either for his perspectives and the actions emanating from theory of science or for his actual research. them. Bourdieu (Weight of the World), at least, This point has been made before by Peter introduced the necessity of understanding as a Winch. [1] I will follow Winch in his critique of method giving access to subjective meaning but Weber but not in his suggestion of an alternative in the end these subjective meanings only serve approach, which according to him captures to illustrate his general theory. meaning more appropriately. Winch proposes However, it was Max Weber who first took the to interpret social relations as relations between problem of understanding in the social sciences concepts, while I would suggest to follow Pierre seriously and thereby opened the field for all Bourdieu [2] in interpreting social relations as later researchers. He did so by drawing on the anchored in embodied and mostly unconscious Historical School and Neo-Kantianism, both of meaning. From this perspective, I propose to which were influential intellectual tendencies give the practice of understanding a much more in Germany at the time. They initiated the first prominent role in sociology than either Weber phase of what was later called the explanation- or Bourdieu have done, even though the notion understanding-debate (Apel). In light of this, the of understanding has occupied a central role first part of this paper will be devoted to the notion in their work (Weber; Bourdieu, Weight of the of understanding developed in this debate, on World). Both Bourdieu and Weber have called which Weber drew. The second section of the 36 B. Rehbein: Max Weber, Understanding

paper will discuss the notion of understanding, with an object of the natural sciences. Vico’s which Weber develops on the first pages of argument in direct opposition to Descartes and Economy and Society that have been used to Galilei was that we cannot comprehend nature show that he is a subjectivist. The remaining two because God created it; and for this reason, sections will unfold the notion of understanding nature can only be comprehended by God. In by exploring two dimensions which appear in contrast, the human participates in the creation Weber’s work but are in fact entirely neglected of the human world and thereby plays a role in by him. I argue that these two dimensions were his or her own destiny and must deal with that. made accessible by Weber and that they should Even if it seems unlikely that we comprehend play a key role in the social sciences. The first the human world better than the natural world dimension is the object that understanding in simply because we construct it ourselves, in the social sciences actually has or should have, identifying the basic difference between the namely another human being. The second natural sciences and the humanities, Vico at the dimension is the methodological application of very least made this question accessible from this understanding for social research. the perspective of the philosophy of science. Science itself is a part of society. That notion Explanation and Understanding has a whole row of consequences which were worked out in connection with Vico. Many of According to the mainstream theory of science, them figured prominently in the debates about which is historically rooted in the works of Galilei, the theory of science that should be applied to a Descartes and the Enlightenment, the purpose new set of academic disciplines, which were the of science is to explain a given phenomenon. social sciences. The explanation consists in a description of The social sciences were formed in the the object and the application of a lawlike nineteenth century as a relatively unified group proposition, which deduces the description of the of academic disciplines. Emerging as the first object from a previous state of affairs. In other discipline of social sciences in the eighteenth words, explanation is structurally identical with a century, British economics was able to divorce prediction (Hempel). The main goal of science, itself from the field of philosophy. Sociology therefore, is to find lawlike propositions, which emerged partly as a result of disputes with can be used to predict a great number of similar economics and partly from discussions of the cases or phenomena. Ideally, this knowledge French Enlightenment. These traditions were can be formulated in mathematical terms, which extensions of the Cartesian philosophy of are precise and entirely deductive. science and, adhering to Galilei’s approach to Confronting the ideas of both Descartes and the natural sciences, sought to apply the theory the Enlightenment, Giambattista Vico argued of explanation, i.e. to subsume the object under that the Cartesian philosophy of science was not universal laws. In Germany, an opposition applicable to the human world. According to him, emerged to that approach in the nineteenth the human world can be more fully comprehended century. It took Vico’s argument as its point of than nature, because we ourselves create it departure and with that was more sympathetic to (Vico). A mathematically formulated knowledge the humanities than to the natural sciences. [3] in this regard is neither necessary nor meaningful This opposition mainly arose in two different but because we can interrogate the object, reproduce related schools. its functions, and understand ourselves. We can The Neokantian School postulated that an imitate or even replicate the actions of another explanation regarding the human world really human being but not of an object of the natural concerns itself only with an individual case sciences. We can understand what another or object and does not allow for the formation human being is saying but not what an object of general laws (Rickert). One is interested of the natural sciences is saying. And we can in comprehending a specific historical event, engage in a conversation with another human a text, a person or a cultural configuration. being clarifying what he or she meant but not The explanation of any of these should render forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 35-45 37

plausible the many factors which lead to the remain unsatisfactory. Secondly, if we were to occurrence of the phenomenon. The German arrive at a statistical explanation of the social Historical School argued, following Vico, that world, which was plausibly and thoroughly ideas were entirely different from things and objective, we could only do so by overlooking their study thus required a completely different the bulk of the social world. We simply know methodology. Johann Gustav Droysen added more about the social world than statistics are that values were contained within history, and capable of revealing. More importantly, we want that humans made decisions on the basis of to know more. We want to know, for example, these values. “Morality”, then, was first and what a text or ritual means; why a person made foremost in the composition of the human world. one decision instead of another; why or how The Neokantians recognized the object of the a certain institution came into being; on what social sciences and the humanities as being basis someone was found innocent or guilty entirely particular, precisely because these by a judge; and perhaps most succinctly, how disciplines pursued a different goal than did the another person sees the world. natural sciences. Their goal was not to deduce The related issues can be illustrated with from universal laws but rather to understand reference to an explanation –or prediction– of meaningful objects, incidences, expressions, voting behavior. If the social scientist comes opinions and people. It would be wholly from a society, in which the political system has uninteresting to form an explanation of a work never included elections, he or she would have of art using universal laws. The same is true to understand the institution of elections before for an important historical event. An attempt at attempting any kind of explanation. Otherwise, understanding the work or the person in the first he or she might interpret the election as a game, a place is much more appealing. The investigation lottery or a religious ceremony, all of which would of the social world does not often contain general be misguided. This kind of misinterpretation is or universal pronouncements, but instead has exactly what the first European anthropologists as its goal the particular, which the Neokantians presented in their work. The misinterpreted referred to as the “historical individual” (Rickert many phenomena they encountered against the 84). background of their society and, on this basis, One often wants to know what something presented explanations and theories that have means or how someone sees the world. There nothing to do with any kind of reality. are not only limitless possible descriptions Therefrom arises another issue, namely and explanations but also myriad possible that interpretation plays a significant role in epistemological interests and all are more or less understanding. One could easily interpret an equally legitimate. Even if one claims to have election as a neutral poll regarding the best and/ understood a written statement, the conditions or most rational political program for a society to under which it was written, why it was written embark on for the next four or five-year period. one way and not another, and what exactly the Alternatively, one could understandably view an author intended it to mean remain unknown. election as a choice between candidates whose None of these epistemological interests can be appeal in the eyes of the electorate is more or reduced to another. less emotional. An election appears differently, The relationship between subject and object however, if one understands it as a clash of in the social sciences has to do with the role of ideologies or a legitimation of the ruling class. understanding. Firstly, we must understand the Each of these explanations is in part warranted, object’s significance or place in the social world yet each explanation, at least to some extent, before we can explain it, which is precisely what contradicts the others. Even more important Weber argued in response to the Neokantians. is the fact that the explanations exert some We need to know if an action is the casting of kind of influence on reality. Voting decisions a vote, a spirit cult or a game –and what these are influenced by these explanations however are. Objectivist approaches attempt to avoid this one interprets an election, and, with that, each very problem, and to that end, these approaches forecast influences the course of an election. 38 B. Rehbein: Max Weber, Understanding

What would become of the election forecast any phenomenon, which is relevant to the social if a group were to, based on some projected sciences, is rooted in an individual mind. At outcome, stage a coup d’état or if the forecast least, the social scientist has to anchor his or her caused the electorate to lose faith in the societal explanation in an individual mind. function of voting? What scientific value would It is certainly true that Weber believed all explanations of voting behavior have in a world social phenomena to be rooted in meaning and in which elections no longer take place? meaning in turn to be linked to the subjective experience of the mind. Insofar as machines, for Max Weber’s Concept and Practice of example, are regarded only as physical matter, Understanding they have no meaning and are therefore no sociological objects (Weber 3). However, not Max Weber replied to the issues discussed everything that is meaningful can be understood. in the preceding section. He took the Historical The core characteristic of sociological objects is School’s argument seriously that any the reference to meaning, nothing else. Weber explanation in the social sciences presupposes distinguishes different types and levels of understanding and he agreed with the meaning and acknowledges that many aspects Neokantians that the formulation of universal of the human world are void of meaning but they laws in the social sciences misses the point. He have to have some relation to human meaning if did not follow the Neokantians in their normative they are to be included in the scientific research approach, however. Weber attempted to develop of sociology. a specific science, which was value-free and Subjective meaning seemed to be of central non-philosophical for approaching the human importance for Weber, but, in the end, it did not world. play much of a role in either his examinations of In his sociology, Weber endeavored to the philosophy of science or his empirical work. provide a connection between explanation In the first instance, Weber excluded those topics and understanding. This is very evident in his from the purview of sociology which were imbued most famous sentence. His main work begins with a singular and known meaning, at least with the famous postulate: “Sociology … is a insofar as he differentiated between meanings science concerning itself with the interpretive which were considered ordinary and those which understanding of social action and thereby were construed as ideal types (Weber 1). Of the with causal explanation of its course and ordinary types, Weber dismissed random actions consequences” (Weber 1, my translation). Weber and put the focus on an “average meaning”. For understood action as an internal or external example, if somebody greets another person in activity, bearing or omission, if it is imbued with the cultural context of Brazil by showing his fist, subjective meaning. For him, action was then this is extraordinary and not the common type of social insofar as it related to the meaning in the greeting. The average greeting is a handshake conduct of other people. along with saying “oi”. This is what sociology The consequential formulation of should focus on. “interpretation” and “thereby” has misguided By observing a certain regularity in actions, students of Weber to classify him as a subjectivist. for example a repetition of the handshake as One could read the sentence as claiming that the greeting, one can establish this type of action understanding of meaning already is or at least as an “ideal type”. Only the ideal types should enables the “causal explanation”. The scientific be considered objects of sociological inquiry process begins with understanding, which is (Weber 2, 9). Following Weber, these objects also the basis for explanation. Many interpreters should not have anything to do with ordinary, of the sentence have added that Weber after singular meanings. A meaning can, for the sake this claim goes on to define the meaning to be of order, be subsumed under the figurative understood as “subjective meaning”. This they heading of an ideal type if an action repeatedly take to refer to a concrete state of mind in an takes place, either in the same person or in a individual. Thereby, Weber seems to imply that group of persons (Weber 14). forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 35-45 39

In contrast to Durkheim, Weber’s sociology had ideal-typical action was selected as a conceptual as its principal object of inquiry “social relations”, guide because Weber’s sociology did not arise not the totality of a “society”. According to Weber, from or aspire to a subjective meaning but rather a social relationship is a mutual, reciprocal and sought to depict and render understandable potentially replicable exchange between people the social contexts from which meaning can (13f). The propensity for recurrence defines the be derived. Sociology is supposed to aim at social relation as a sociological object (Weber larger contexts of meaning, not at individual 14). This regularity needs to be observed from interpretations or experiences. Therefore, a scientific perspective, is not established by the Weber allowed only one type of action to be social actors themselves and can be ascribed reconstructed in the relationship between with a degree of validity. The human interaction subjective and comprehensive meaning, and his then finds its orientation in the establishment motives for doing so were purely rational and of the legitimacy of the social relationship in explicit. question (or better yet, in the “organization” of Weber’s sociology sought firstly to identify the social relationship) (Weber 16). meaningful or important social phenomena Sociology should, following Weber, situate and secondly to explain them in the context of the ideal-typical action in a comprehensive a hierarchy of meaning. Understanding in and correlation of meanings. This correlation of itself, however, remained largely irrelevant can then be viewed in a “typical manner” as for his approach to sociological knowledge a reason or motive for an action (Weber 4). (Winch 113). If one sticks to the Cartesian Weber regarded as typical those characteristics perspective, understanding’s contribution to the contained within dominant mental and emotional social sciences is meager and provides only habits or practices, characteristics which can be peripheral illustrations and verification. Adhering viewed in similar experiential terms (Weber 5). to the Cartesian perspective, however, is neither He depicted the first criterion as being adequate possible nor desirable in the social sciences. on the level of meaning and the second as being Weber did not want to fully give up the ideal of adequate in a causal context. “A correct causal a Cartesian science, because for him this idea interpretation of a specific action means to grasp called into question the notion of Wertfreiheit and, the observable process and the motive correctly with that, scholarship in general. He attempted and at the same time intelligibly in their context” to avoid these questions by presenting a whole (Weber 5, my translation). Sociology must line of as-if hypotheses, which in their totality establish categories of actions and with that allowed sociology to approximate the Cartesian explain how these categories are incorporated approach to science. into comprehensive, determining contexts. With that, understanding has as its sole Existential Understanding function the comprehension of the meaning of an action. In contrast, sociology’s chief task lies Even if Weber had based his sociology on in explaining the aforementioned categories subjective meaning, he would have developed through comprehensive contexts. How can the an external or psychological perspective, which criteria be fulfilled, which context should be was the Neokantian perspective. Only after viewed as determining, if the criteria themselves Weber, philosophy and sociology managed are not tasked with comprehending the internal to elaborate a non-psychological notion of workings or the meaningful experience of meaning. This was carried out on the one hand the actors? Weber replies that the categories by the phenomenological tradition inaugurated should be reconstructed according to the model by Weber’s contemporary Edmund Husserl and of instrumental rationality, the relation between on the other hand by the philosophy of language purpose, means and marginal consequences. linked to philosophers like Wittgenstein. The actual actions as they unfold, then, can be While Husserl tried to understand meaning considered deviations from the pure, difficult to entirely from the perspective of introspection, recognize ideal-typical action (Weber 3). This Wittgenstein located meaning exclusively in the 40 B. Rehbein: Max Weber, Understanding

context of social practice. Their interpretations of life-form insofar as one learns the way in which meaning can be situated at the opposite ends of the action is performed. The forms of life and a spectrum between society and individual but expression are mutually dependent on one they have one thing in common as opposed to another and form the hermeneutical boundary Neokantianism: they do not regard meaning as of possible experience. This boundary, like the something that can be understood by drawing life-form itself, changes constantly (Wittgenstein on scientific hypotheses about the psychological 65). According to Wittgenstein, we are not structures of the mind. capable of understanding a single word if we are Weber and the Neokantians had no particular not well acquainted with the practice to which interest in understanding itself. As I tried to it is attached. In this sense, we can equate show in the preceding section, Weber was not the understanding of activities with practical even interested in subjective meaning, which understanding. is accessible only through understanding. On the basis of practical understanding, If we study understanding, we realize that we can construct psychological, historical, it varies according to the type of its object. sociological or other theories in order to explain We can distinguish between five types of actors’ motives. That is more or less exactly the objects of understanding. The various objects same as von Wright’s teleological explanation. It of understanding require different types of is teleological because a motive is not the same understanding. Meaningful objects obviously as a cause. A motive does not trigger an activity represent an important type of understandable according to any kind of law, because an actor, objects, and for the hermeneutical tradition, in spite of his or her motives, could act differently text was the archetype for these objects. or be hindered from performing an activity. For We can with very few problems comfortably that reason, Hempel characterized this form of equate the understanding of meaningful objects explanation as statistical and differentiated it with hermeneutical understanding. The goal from the nomological explanation. By combining of hermeneutical understanding consists in practical understanding with a teleological comprehending the meaning of something. explanation, one can perhaps understand why Explanation plays a role in this process, chiefly a person acts one way and not another. This as an instrument for explaining, for example, a kind of understanding can be referred to as the grammatical mistake or the absence of a page understanding of motives. from a text. This kind of understanding is of Practical understanding and the understanding fundamental importance for the humanities but of motives are components for most approaches is far less important in the social sciences. in social sciences, but they only constitute the The social sciences place priority on actions. core of the scientific approach in anthropology Von Wright argued that the explanation of an and psychology. The majority of the social action was a teleological explanation which could sciences use practical understanding and the also contain a causal explanation. The social understanding of motives in order to gain entry scientific connection to action is certainly much to social structures or contexts – and to verify more complex. Von Wright contended further statistical studies. They regard actions and that one must understand the meaning attached motives as expressions of a life-form, which itself to a given action, and with that, he seemed to becomes an object of inquiry. In this context and have had Wittgenstein’s concept of life-form in connected to Hegel, Dilthey (180) spoke about an mind, which in turn is related to Weber’s complex “objective meaning”, which we can understand of meaning. With a social scientific observation here in terms of traditions, norms, or institutions. of an action, we must be well acquainted with For example, one hopes to understand why a the social environment in which the activity law has been enacted, how an art form has been takes place if we hope to understand or explain transformed or how an organization functions. it. For Wittgenstein, activities represented the This particular kind of understanding is closely expression of a life-form (19). One can only connected to explanations and can be referred understand the language-game of an unknown to as objective understanding. This is also the forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 35-45 41

type of understanding, which would characterize Winch in criticizing Weber for neglecting Weberian sociology. In summary, at least three subjective meaning and understanding in his different kinds of understanding activities can theory of science. While Weber claimed that be distinguished. One can differentiate between all social phenomena were linked to subjective action, motive and objective meaning with meaning, he rendered its understanding regards to the universe of discourse. irrelevant by focusing on ideal-types and Beyond texts and activities, we sometimes want explaining these by complexes of social to understand another way of seeing the world – meaning instead of subjective meaning. Even or another person. I would like to refer to this kind though I agree with Schütz in his critique of of understanding as existential understanding. Weber, I think that Weber’s theory of explanation Attempts have been made to reduce existential as interpretation of layers of meaning is a understanding to the understanding of motives, perfectly adequate concept of sociology, while practical understanding or hermeneutical Schütz’ interpretive sociology is misguided. It understanding. These attempts, however, have is misguided simply because social meaning is been misdirected. If we truly want to understand not generated out of individual meaning. Social another person, we do not try to explain motives, meaning is largely unconscious and it mostly reconstruct mental conditions, understand precedes any individual meaning. It is a more activities or meaningful objects and consider that fundamental layer of meaning and should be person’s state of mind. All of these processes the core object of sociology, just as Weber has require a theory of the object and are connected claimed. to an explanation. Furthermore, Schütz (like Weber) associated The understanding of another person merely meaning with the mind or consciousness. Just implies an existence and has nothing to do with like the focus on the individual is misguided, so is an explanation. If we want to understand another the concept of consciousness. Heidegger made person, we attempt to conceive of his or her way clear that existential understanding’s object of being in the world. We can only really do that of inquiry, existence, is not really an object at in a hypothetical way, because we do not have all. The earlier renditions of hermeneutics and access to another being in the world. Existential phenomenology made the mistake of equating understanding is neither empathy (Stein) nor existence with “consciousness” or “experience” a change of perspective (Mead) but is instead and as a result fully overlooked the particularities a construction. It implies pre-understanding, of existence (Heidegger 45ff). The human is not hypotheses and falsification. One could well a thing, substance or object but is an existing say that we construct or even dream up the way being, fully aware of his or her own existence. of being of another person. If our observations The particularity of existence stems from its of another person plausibly match up with our being lived out. In other words, this particularity construction, then we can justifiably make the is not that thing which one observes but is rather claim that we have understood that person. what one is during the course of observation. This process can be differentiated from the A reified object can certainly be observed, but conventional forms of knowledge in at least nothing is “there” for him or her; rather, something two ways: firstly, its object is a lived experience is “there” only for the observer, who is a “being- and thus is really not an object; and secondly, there” (“Dasein”) (Heidegger 55). this experience is principally not open to If one seeks to conceive of humans as intersubjective verification. For those reasons, consciousness, then one tends to objectify them I am of the opinion that one should certainly and overlook the decisive factor. A way of life, differentiate between the understanding of imbued with “experiences” or “consciousness”, another person and knowledge –or, at least, certainly does exist but does so in an entirely distinguish different forms of knowledge. different way than does a thing. In order to get Following Max Weber, Alfred Schütz has an appropriate grasp of this notion, the mode of attempted to base the social sciences on existence must be allowed to come into full view. existential understanding. He preceded Peter The meaning of an experience or consciousness 42 B. Rehbein: Max Weber, Understanding

is attributed by the observer, but existence and turned instead towards being. He was not itself is lived out. Rather than being an object, at all interested in understanding persons but he it is the point itself (Heidegger 48). Existence opened the path towards it. distinguishes itself from all objects in that it is lived out. The human is his or her own existence. Methodological Understanding This observation, which Heidegger employed to much different ends, not only allows us to If understanding partly aims at discovering conceptualize another person as a living being meaning as constructed or experienced by but also allows us to do the same regarding other human beings, it is also methodologically ourselves. Existence differs from other forms of relevant. It gives access to the meaning of being to the extent that it permits us to thematize objects in the social sciences as well as to our own being. Heidegger (55) illustrates just the world view of other human beings. This is that point with his example of a chair standing important because the social scientist is a human near a wall. The chair is not “near the wall” being him- or herself. He or she only has one because the wall does not exist “for the chair”. particular perspective on the world and needs Only with regards to existence is something to understand the perspectives of other human there, and the presence of the thing is not beings if he or she does not want to run the risk coincidental or accidental but is only possible of merely proclaiming his or her own world view. on the basis of existence. This implicates the This point has been made by ethnomethodology, notion of meaningfulness. Existence’s specific which emerged in the wake of Weber and Schütz. way of being is meaningfulness (86). From the It is also a core assumption of anthropological perspective of existence, meaning does not methodology. emerge by means of organizing a predicate and Even if we say that another person’s subject in a propositional structure but rather experience is in principle not observable, this comes from being there. Heidegger referred does not mean that pure fantasy contributes to existence’s meaningfulness as “being in something to understanding. We need a plausible the world” (53). Only existence is in the world, basis for the hypothesis we come up with. In the because something can only exist for existence. nineteenth century, Western anthropologists All other things, of course, exist as well, but traveled into the “wild”, described the behaviors nothing exists for those things. Existence, they encountered and attempted to convey however, exists only in relation to something. to their readers who these people were whom It might seem a bit obvious, but a person is an they were observing –without being able to existing being only insofar as he or she exists. speak their language or being able to interpret Weber never acknowledged the object of their activities. In Wittgenstein’s words, these sociology as an existing being and never linked anthropologists knew very little about the life- meaning to this kind of existence. forms and language-games of the people they Heidegger rightly indicated that human were describing. Or, in Weber’s words, they did knowledge and life should not be conceived of not understand the more fundamental complexes as categories or objects but should instead be of meaning. Thus, most anthropological thought of as being or existence. Similarly to explanations from the nineteenth century have Kant, however, he was interested in existence as not stood the test of time and are now regarded a theoretical process and extended this thinking as baseless. They now serve to illustrate the to being. Humans are not in the world so that point that one must be able to act in a manner theories can be formulated and so that the world similar to another person in order to understand can be viewed as theory’s object of inquiry but are that person –at least in his or her imagination. here in the first place as active beings. It should Of equal importance is the idea that one therefore come as no wonder that Heidegger, must at least to some extent understand the after the publication of Being and Time (which respective symbolic universe. A certain amount was to be the first volume of a philosophical of practical and hermeneutical understanding is work), shied away from the analysis of existence then a necessary precondition for an existential 43 B. Rehbein: Max Weber, Understanding

understanding. The actual carrying out this different opportunities (Humboldt 261). process is not a necessary requirement, but it Understanding another person teaches us provides a much better basis than does pure about existence but does not tell us anything imagination or fantasy. There is a vital difference about an object. Our involvement with other between imagining oneself to be hungry and people strengthens both the possibilities of life actually being hungry –or imaging oneself and our examination of understanding. In an eating and actually eating. The familiarity with interaction, one attributes a subjective experience language-games and life-forms is of a different to the other person, and this experience is kind for the observer than for the actor. If we then verified by means of further observations want to recognize or even learn a new language- which show them to be either compatible or game and life-form, we do so on the basis of the incompatible with the attribution. This process is life-forms and language-games which we have indeed similar to a scientific experiment. These already mastered. attributions can then be communicated to the In many cases, we revert back to the life- other person and discussed. This would imply forms and language-games we already know. that one can carry out or perform his or her life We then have a more extensive knowledge in a similar way to the other person. The precise than the actors, but we invest less. We thus are point at which this implication becomes dubious not capable of relaying the exact experience of would be foreign territory for the other person. other people. We certainly do not understand This experience can be made or produced in an object automatically once we have fully connection to people with whom one has lived for mastered the language-games and life-forms years. Understanding is not rendered impossible which that object has already mastered, and we by such an experience but rather opens up new can sometimes understand an object without possibilities for one’s own life and sparks a further knowing much about his or her life-form. The effort towards understanding. Furthermore, we only real requirement is the re-enactment of the tend to pursue a reflexive approach with regards experience. This re-enactment is, of course, to the people we are trying to understand. On hypothetical and not real. One can master a the basis of our own existence –including our foreign life-form and still not understand anybody. life stories, our times, our languages and our It can also be the case that one arrives in a knowledge– we make assumptions about the foreign place and can more or less understand existence of other people, and we then attempt another person straightaway. One must be in a to either confirm or disprove these assumptions position to re-enact his or her existence. That by means of observation. can take place entirely in one’s own imagination I wish to argue that existential understanding (Geertz 31). should be a core feature of any sociological The imagination must be compatible with the methodology. Understanding is used in the social observed behavior and is merely a hypothesis sciences as a method implicitly all the time, in which must be validated empirically. This fact every single moment. However, it has been hypothesis is roughly equivalent to a scientific theoretically neglected because the access to hypothesis but is even more problematic, meaning has been taken for granted or even because that which is contained within it is dismissed. This is especially true for existential wholly unobservable. One acquires a notion of understanding. How another person sees the the connection between that which is observed world and exists in it seems to be rather irrelevant and the consummated experience throughout for most social scientists. The objectivism the course of his or her own life history via inherent in the social sciences, including Weber’s involvement with other people. Our own sociology, is largely responsible for this. If one experience teaches us something about being wishes to arrive at general statements about the in the world, but the notion of our own being social world, it seems to be necessary to leave in the world is only approachable as a result subjectivity behind as soon as possible. of our experience with other people. Our own Bourdieu (Weight of the World) has shown us experience evinces the openness of life to many a different path. He has argued that the social 44 B. Rehbein: Max Weber, Understanding

world consists of social positions that are relative the first sociologist to acknowledge the complex to each other giving rise to different perspectives and special relation between subject and object that need to be understood. Each person has a in the social sciences. He also clarified the specific perspective on the world, which is linked relation between individual and society to a large to his or her existential conditions, which in turn degree by postulating layers of meaning, which are shared by an entire group of people. From are more or less general, and by detaching these this sociological perspective, existence and layers both from the individual consciousness subjective meaning matter. The other human and the society interpreted as nation state. being is not merely an informant who delivers These are very important advances in the theory data to be integrated into a theory by the social of science over the objectivism prevailing in the scientist but another being-in-the-world with nineteenth century. whom one has to enter into a hermeneutical However, Weber fell short of an adequate process of mutual understanding because conception of understanding because the both sides have something to say. Sociological positivistic theory of science was still too dominant research from this perspective becomes an at the time. With the help of Neokantianism and exercise in existential understanding. the Historical School, he was able to include Following Bourdieu (Weight of the World), the subject into his science. But he still dreamt this type of understanding has been further of a science without perspective generated by developed into a full-fledged method. The a free-floating spirit or even a divine point of Hannover school of Michael Vester has view. His ideal was value-freedom and towards produced the method of “habitus hermeneutics”, this ideal, he sought to establish a dismissal of which aims at the reconstruction of the other’s the scientist’s and the object’s subjectivity. For habitus. Habitus in this sense is the link between this reason, he never adequately dealt with position and perspective. The method comprises understanding or with subjective meaning. life-course interviews, which are not interpreted Another reason for the inadequacy was the in a monologue of the scientist with him- or notion of consciousness or mind. Weber, like herself but by a group of researchers who also the entire nineteenth century before him and thematize their own position and perspective in phenomenology after him, linked meaning to an the process. [4] interior world, which is supposed to happen in the A similar methodological approach has been mind and to be accessible only to the individual. adopted by Jessé Souza and his research On the basis of this assumption, understanding team. [5] The goal was to establish a personal always refers to an individual state of mind. relationship and to understand the other human Wittgenstein has shown that meaning is always being by doing a series of interviews. Each shared, Heidegger has deconstructed the interview was supposed to produce a closer notion of consciousness, Merleau-Ponty has relationship and to make a deeper understanding demonstrated that meaning is located not in the possible. As with Bourdieu and Vester, the guiding mind but in the entire body and Bourdieu has assumption behind the research process was developed these ideas into a theory of practice. that researcher and interviewee are members of There is no way back to Weber’s concept of a society whose existence is largely determined subjective meaning from here. by the social conditions, which are different for different social groups. This assumption only Ednnotes comes to the fore if one actively engages with the other through existential understanding. [1] See Winch 1958. [2] See Bordieu 1990. Conclusion [3] For more, see Apel 1979. Weber opened the space for social research. He [4] Cf. Vester 2003. put the concepts of meaning and understanding [5] Cf. Souza et al. 2009. into the centre of his approach. Thereby, he was 45 B. Rehbein: Max Weber, Understanding

Works Cited Author’s biography

Apel, Karl-Otto. Die Erklären: Verstehen-Debatte in Boike Rehbein is professor for the sociology transzendentalpragmatischer Sicht, Suhrkamp, 1979. of Asia and Africa at Humboldt University Berlin. He studied philosophy, sociology and history at Bourdieu, Pierre. The Weight of the World. Stanford Up, 1999. Freiburg, Paris, Goettingen, Frankfurt and Berlin and received his PhD in 1996 and “habilitation” in ---. The Logic of Practice. Polity Press, 1990. 2004 at the University of Freiburg. He was acting Dilthey, Wilhelm. Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften. Suhrkamp, 1970. chair of sociology at Freiburg from 2004 to 2006 and director of the Global Studies Programme Droysen, Johann Gustav.Historik. Frommann-Holzboog, 1977. from 2006 before moving to Berlin in 2009. His areas of specialization are social theory, Geertz, Clifford. “The Cerebral Savage.” Encounter, vol. 28, 1967, pp. 25-32. globalization, social inequality and mainland Southeast Asia. Recent books in English: Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. Niemeyer, 1986. Critical Theory after the Rise of the Global South Hempel, Carl Gustav. “Explanation in Science and History.” (Routledge 2015; translated from German), Frontiers of Science and Philosophy, edited by Robert Garland Colodny, U of Pennsylvania P, Society in Contemporary Laos (Routledge 1962, pp. 9-19. 2017), Inequality in Capitalist Societies (with Humboldt, Wilhelm. Gesammelte Schriften. vol. I, Behr, Surinder Jodhka and Jesse Souza, Routledge 1903. 2017), Inequality in Economics and Sociology Mead, George H. Mind, Self, and Society. U of Chicago P, (edited with Gilberto Antonelli, Routledge 2018). 1934. Rehbein, Boike. Was heißt es, einen anderen Menschen zu verstehen? Metzler, 1997 Rickert, Heinrich. Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, 5th ed., Mohr, 1929. Schütz, Alfred. Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Suhrkamp, 1993. Souza, Jessé et al. A ralé brasileira. UFMG, 2009. Stein, Edith. Das Problem der Einfühlung. Buchdruck des Waisenhauses, 1917. Vester, Michael. “Class and Culture in Germany.” Sociologia - problemas e práticas, no. 42, 2003, pp. 25-64. Vico, Giambattista. The New Science by Giambattista Vico. Cornell UP, 1968. von Wright, Georg Henrik. Explanation and Understanding. Cornell UP, 1971. Weber, Max. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 5th ed., J.C.B. Mohr, 1972. Winch, Peter. The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophische Untersuchungen. vol. 1, Suhrkamp, 1984. forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 46-57 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico” do Senhor e do Escravo

Jessé Souza (Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), São Paulo)

Resumo O texto aqui apresentado pretende discutir a importância científica e política da recepção da obra de Max Weber nas Américas. A tese central do texto afirma que Max Weber foi o autor mais importante para a construção da interpretação dominante e do “mito nacional” tanto dos Estados Unidos quanto do Brasil, as duas nações mais populosas e importantes do continente. No entanto, nos dois casos estudados, Weber foi utilizado como um pensador “culturalista,“ ou seja, a partir do uso de sua análise da gênese do capitalismo baseada na religiosidade protestante, como se a mesma pudesse ser utilizada para a questão, muito diferente, da “expansão do capitalismo” para o globo, que o próprio Weber imaginava como exportação de “instituições prontas,” com fábricas, burocracias e escolas. O uso “culturalista” de Weber construiu, por um lado, uma mentalidade que legitima o imperialismo informal americano, como fica claro no trabalho de Talcott Parsons esua idealização da sociedade americana, quanto, por outro lado, a mentalidade “vira-lata” do povo brasileiro, percebido como corrupto e inconfiável. Weber, portanto, serviu para legitimar uma mentalidade do senhor e do escravo nas duas nações mais importantes da Américas.

Palavras-chave: Culturalismo; ética protestante; mito nacional; imperialismo informal

Os seres humanos são animais que se original dessas ideias que são tão importantes interpretam. [1] Isso significa que não existe para nossas vidas ainda que, normalmente, não “comportamento automático,“ mas, sempre, nos demos conta disso. Afinal, a ciência herda comportamento influenciado por uma “forma o prestígio da religião no contexto pré-moderno específica de interpretar e compreender a e assume, em boa parte pelo menos, o papel vida.“ Essas interpretações que guiam nossas de explicar o mundo moderno. Não existe escolhas na vida foram obra de profetas tema que seja discutido na esfera pública de religiosos no passado. Nos últimos 200 anos qualquer sociedade moderna que não invoque essas interpretações que explicam o mundo a “palavra do especialista” que fala pela ciência. e nos diz como devemos agir nele foram obra Assim, o potencial da ciência de produzir efetivo de intelectuais seculares. O mais importante aprendizado individual e coletivo está ligado desses intelectuais no Ocidente moderno foi – e muitas vezes decisivamente condicionado, juntamente com Karl Marx– o sociólogo alemão por força de seu prestígio público, a servir de Max Weber. Afinal, foi da pena de Max Weber instância legitimadora e primeira e decisiva que se originou a forma predominante como trincheira da luta social e política pela definição todo o Ocidente moderno se auto-interpreta e legítima de “boa vida” e “sociedade justa.“ se legitima. As ideias dominantes que circulam Em outras palavras: não existe ordem social na imprensa, nas salas de aula, nas discussões moderna sem uma legitimação pretensamente parlamentares, nas discussões de botequim, científica desta mesma ordem. e em todo lugar, são sempre formas mais Talvez o uso de Max Weber e de sua obra simplificadas de ideias produzidas por grandes sejam um dos exemplos mais significativos pensadores. do caráter bifronte da ciência: tanto como Daí a importância de recuperar o sentido mecanismo de esclarecimento do mundo 47 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

como quanto mecanismo de encobrimento das Mas Weber, e nisso reside sua influência e relações de poder que permitem a reprodução atualidade extraordinárias, também percebia, de privilégios injustos de toda a espécie. É no entanto, o lado sombrio do racionalismo um atestado da singular posição que Weber ocidental. Se o pioneiro protestante ainda ocupa no horizonte das ciências sociais possuía perspectivas éticas na sua conduta, perceber que, precisamente por ter captado seu “filho” e, muito especialmente, seu “neto,“ a “ambiguidade constitutiva” do racionalismo habitante do mundo secularizado, é percebido singular ao Ocidente, [2] ele tenha formulado por Weber de modo bastante diferente. Para os dois diagnósticos da época mais importantes descrevê-lo Weber lança mão de dois “tipos para a autocompreensão do ocidente até ideais,“ ou seja, de modelos abstratos, no nossos dias: uma concepção liberal, afirmativa caso, de modelos abstratos de condução de e triunfalista do racionalismo ocidental; e uma vida individual, os quais se encontram sempre concepção crítica extremamente influente deste misturados em proporções diversas na realidade mesmo racionalismo, que procura mostrar sua empírica concreta. Esses “tipos ideais” que unidimensionalidade e superficialidade. explicam o indivíduo típico moderno para Weber Para a versão liberal e afirmativa, Weber são, por um lado, o “especialista sem espírito,“ fornece, por um lado, sua análise da “revolução que tudo sabe acerca do seu pequeno mundo de simbólica” do protestantismo ascético, para ele atividade e nada sabe (nem quer saber) acerca a efetiva revolução moderna, na medida em que de contextos mais amplos que determinam seu transformou a “consciência” dos indivíduos, e pequeno mundo, e, por outro lado, o “homem do a partir daí a realidade externa. É a figura do prazer sem coração,“ que tende a amesquinhar protestante ascético, que com vontade férrea e seu mundo sentimental e emotivo à busca de com as armas da disciplina e do autocontrole, prazeres momentâneos e imediatos. [3] que cria o fundamento histórico para a noção Se a primeira leitura fornece o estofo para do “sujeito moderno.“ É esta ideia que cria a a apologia liberal do mercado e do sujeito noção moderna de “personalidade” enquanto percebido como independente da sociedade e entidade percebida como um todo unitário com de valores supra-individuais, a segunda leitura fins e motivos conscientes e refletidos. Essa marcou profundamente toda a reflexão crítica ideia é o fundamento da noção de “liberalismo da sociedade moderna até nossos dias. A moderno,“ uma espécie de “religião secular” da percepção do indivíduo moderno como suporte época, sendo a base de toda ética e toda lógica das ilusões da independência absoluta e da seja na dimensão institucional seja na dimensão própria perfeição narcísica, quando, na verdade, individual. realiza, sem saber, todas as virtualidades de uma A grande maioria das versões apologéticas razão instrumental que termina em consumismo do “sujeito liberal” nutre-se, quase sempre com e conformismo político, está na base de grande fundamento empírico na história da pujança parte das vertentes críticas mais influentes do econômica e política norte-americana, em maior século XX. [4] ou menor grau, na figura do pioneiro protestante Nesta introdução, nosso interesse é examinar weberiano. Além disso, por ouro lado, é Weber de perto o elemento apologético e o uso do quem reconstrói sistematicamente a lógica de prestígio científico weberiano para a afirmação funcionamento tanto do mercado competitivo de uma visão distorcida, conformista e superficial capitalista quanto do Estado racional da realidade. Minha tese é a de que a própria centralizado, de modo a percebê-los como construção de uma oposição substancial entre instituições cuja eficiência e “racionalidade” não sociedades avançadas do centro – Europa teriam igual. Ainda que a perspectiva liberal ocidental e EUA– e sociedades atrasadas da apologética se restrinja ao elogio do mercado, periferia –por exemplo, as sociedades latino- confluem, aqui, os aspectos subjetivos e americanas– foi construído, pelo menos em objetivos (institucionais) que fundamentam, de sua versão mais “moderna” e “culturalista,“ modo convincente, a afirmação do “dado,“ ou em grande medida com base nas categorias seja, do mundo como ele é. weberianas. forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 46-57 48

Nesse sentido, as categorias científicas científico” a uma visão de mundo atrelada a são utilizadas “por debaixo do pano,“ ou seja, interesses particulares que se mascaram com sem que seu real caráter fique efetivamente a universalidade e a neutralidade apanágio do explícito, como justificação de uma violência prestígio científico. Isso fica claro quando o simbólica que, ao fim e ao cabo, funcionam atributo de “universal” é atrelado às sociedades como uma espécie de “equivalente funcional” do centrais, e o atributo de “particular” ou “regional” racismo. Estou consciente que a aproximação é reservado às sociedades periféricas. O entre “racismo” e “ciência” provoca desagrado objetivo deste texto é, nesse sentido, construir a a certos espíritos delicados. Talvez o desagrado categoria de “racismo culturalista” e demonstrar seja, como quase sempre, simplesmente o o caráter de violência simbólica desta visão “sintoma” de um problema real. Afinal, para o científica até hoje hegemônica tanto no centro mesmo Weber que estamos discutindo os ricos quanto na periferia do mundo atual. e felizes não querem apenas ser ricos e felizes. Pretendo defender essa tese em dois passos: Eles querem ter o “direito” de ser ricos e felizes. 1) reconstruindo o debate central e periférico que O aspecto que mais caracteriza Weber como usam essas categorias como seu eixo central; pensador crítico é precisamente sua atenção e 2) demonstrando o potencial de distorção aos processos que “legitimam” o poder social sistemática da realidade social das teorias até fático e o tornam “sagrado” –no contexto das hoje hegemônicas, tanto no centro como na grandes religiões analisadas por Weber– e o periferia, no discurso científico internacional. tornam “científico,“ ou seja, o equivalente do “sagrado” no mundo desencantado de hoje. Confiança/Racionalidade x Corrupção/Afeto Assim, do mesmo modo como o “racismo científico” –que possuía projeção internacional O racismo velado do “culturalismo científico” até a década de 20 do século passado– partia opõe e separa como configurações qualitativa e da superioridade “racial” dos povos brancos e substancialmente diferentes as sociedades ditas de olhos azuis, a versão “culturalista” do racismo “avançadas” e as ditas “atrasadas” ou como parte da superioridade de certo “estoque manda o politicamente correto, as “sociedades cultural” das sociedades do “atlântico norte” em desenvolvimento.“ Essa oposição é como fundamento da “superioridade” dessas construída simultaneamente na dimensão sociedades. Do mesmo modo que no racismo cognitiva e moral, ou seja, as sociedades de fundo “racial” é construída uma separação avançadas e por extensão seus membros são “ontológica” entre sociedades “qualitativamente percebidos como mais “racionais,“ ou seja, distintas” onde as diferenças não são de “grau,“ o dado cognitivo, assim como “moralmente ou seja, não são quantitativas, mas de “essência,“ superiores,“ ou seja, o dado moral. Como essas implicando a noção de “sociedade superior” – categorias só são compreensíveis na relação assim como de “indivíduos superiores” que a especular e dual com suas oposições binárias, compõem - no sentido moral do termo. as sociedades atrasadas, as sociedades latino- É preciso notar, especialmente para certo americanas no nosso caso, têm então que tipo de leitor que receia uma “extensão serem construídas como negatividade tanto indevidamente polêmica” do conceito de racismo na esfera cognitiva como na esfera moral. E que o “procedimento” – a distorção simplificadora é precisamente o que acontece na realidade. da realidade – e o “efeito” – a construção de Assim, para fazer a oposição especular uma fronteira entre “gente” e “sub-gente” de perfeita, as sociedades latino-americanas são modo “ontológico” funcionando como uma “pré- percebidas por todas as versões hegemônicas compreensão,“ uma dimensão não discutida, deste culturalismo como “afetivas e passionais” de grande parte dos conceitos e noções que e, consequentemente, corruptas dado que utilizamos – são precisamente os mesmos do supostamente “personalistas” como se “racismo científico.“ Minha tese é, portanto, houvesse sociedades “impessoais.“ que a obra de Max Weber foi utilizada em sua Como o afeto e a emoção são percebidos versão apologética para conferir “prestígio na hierarquia moral ocidental como o “outro 49 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

negativo” da razão deste Platão [5] e como a tornou o eixo teórico central de toda a “teoria doutrina platônica da virtude foi transformada da modernização,“ influente ainda hoje, ainda no caminho da salvação cristão, essa doutrina que com outras roupagens; quanto, também, tornou-se a base cotidiana e inconsciente de foi utilizado por teóricos latino americanos, toda ética ocidental. Quando Santo Agostinho, também a partir dos anos 30, para a construção no começo de nossa era, interpreta a virtude de uma interpretação “orientalizada” da América cristã como controle dos afetos pelo “espírito” Latina. [7] O conceito central dessa versão ele cristaliza a forma como primeiro a Igreja e hoje ainda dominante foi e é o conceito de depois todos nós iremos “avaliar” o mundo. Em “patrimonialismo,“ retirado de modo a-histórico grande parte, como resultante da própria ideia e sem rigor analítico da obra weberiana como da dominação dos afetos temos, também, a ideia iremos ver em maior detalhe a seguir. de uma suposta orientação “particularista” –a Ambas as construções são como imagens famosa preferência “pessoal” ao invés do domínio no espelho de uma e outra. À construção do da “impessoalidade”– do comportamento das predomínio do “primitivo,“ “pessoal” e “corrupto,“ sociedades latino-americanas que as tornariam como marcas da sociedade patrimonialista, temos essencialmente corruptas. A corrupção ou a a afirmação da “modernidade,“ “impessoalidade” desconfiança generalizada também seria, é e “confiança” típicas das sociedades centrais. claro, um apanágio dos habitantes dessas Esse quadro vigora até hoje nas “ciências da mesmas sociedades. ordem” hegemônicas praticamente sem críticas. Como essa oposição é criada e legitimada Esse ponto é fundamental posto que permite “cientificamente” e o que isso tem a ver com a obra demonstrar que a partir de um fundamento weberiana? Max Weber oferece os conceitos comum; uma leitura unilateral da tese weberiana centrais por meio dos quais foram pensados e da especificidade do ocidente, pôde se constituir tornados vida prática essa divisão racista entre uma leitura hegemônica das ciências sociais “gente” superior, das sociedades avançadas, contemporâneas cujo núcleo é um “equivalente e “sub-gente” inferior, das sociedades latino- funcional” do racismo científico sem disfarces americanas e periféricas. Mais que isso. Max antes dominante. O que antes era legitimado Weber é uma espécie de “chave mestra” que como diferença racial e biológica passa a ser nos permite abrir o registro profundo desse obtido pela noção de “estoque cultural,“ num “racismo científico” dominante em todo lugar, caso, o das sociedades do atlântico Norte, ainda que até hoje inarticulado, mas, por isso cognitiva e moralmente superior, e no caso mesmo, “naturalizado” e aceito por todos tanto exemplar das sociedades latino-americanas, na esfera científica quanto na esfera prática e cognitiva e moralmente inferior. cotidiana de todas as sociedades modernas. [6] É importante sempre notar que não são Na impossibilidade de tratar de todos os apenas as sociedades que são “inferiores” elementos que explicam essa conexão irei nos dois aspectos decisivos da moralidade escolher os mais representativos e importantes dominante; o cognitivo e o moral. Também os de modo a tornar convincente e plausível “habitantes” dessas sociedades passam a ser meu argumento. Tomemos então três obras vistos como indignos de confiança, basta ver a representativas que reproduzem com fidelidade representação dos mexicanos na imensa maioria o que acabamos de dizer: as obras de Talcott dos “westerns” americanos, e potencialmente Parsons –o mais importante sociólogo corruptos. americano do século XX– nos Estados Unidos e Mas isso ainda não é o mais importante. Hoje as obras de Gilberto Freyre e Sérgio Buarque – em dia parte-se do pressuposto que a “teoria da os fundadores da moderna sociologia brasileira– modernização” morreu no final da década de no Brasil. Weber tanto foi utilizado por Talcott 60 [8] quando alguns de seus próprios arautos Parsons, a partir dos anos 30, para criar uma mais importantes passaram a criticar de forma imagem idealizada da sociedade americana, decidida alguns dos pressupostos centrais dessa especialmente – ainda que não apenas – na teoria. [9] Isso simplesmente não é verdade. Os construção de seus “pattern variables” que se pressupostos do “racismo cultural” da teoria da forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 46-57 50

modernização continuam a operar até hoje em praticamente nenhuma área das ciências literalmente todas as grandes teorias sociais sociais que não fosse dominada pela procura que pretendem lidar com a sociedade mundial. da demonstração empírica da validade teórica Algumas indicações acerca disso serão feitas universal dessas categorias. [12] No começo na segunda parte deste texto. o aspecto mais importante era simplesmente E como o que é discutido nos jornais, na legitimar científica e politicamente –com farto televisão, nas universidades, nos tribunais financiamento das agências estatais americanas e nos parlamentos, é sempre alguma forma nos EUA e fora dele a superioridade americana de repetição mais simplificada da produção em relação a todas as outras sociedades. [13] de intelectuais influentes, conhecer esses Isso incluía tanto as sociedades europeias argumentos “intelectuais” é entender como o quanto muito especialmente as do terceiro mundo funciona. No mundo cotidiano essas mundo, de modo a transformar a sociedade ideias parecem não ter autoria e serem tão americana do pós-guerra em modelo absoluto, “naturais” como ter-se duas pernas e dois concreto e realizado de todas as promessas da olhos. Por conta disso, recuperar a sua gênese modernidade ocidental. A oposição moderno/ perdida é o mesmo que recuperar o sentido tradicional utilizada por Weber para explicar mais profundo de nossas ações e avaliações no a gênese da singularidade do ocidente e mundo. o “aparecimento do capitalismo apenas no Como se inicia o “racismo culturalista,“ até ocidente,“ no contexto de seus estudos sobre hoje dominante, e como ele se desdobra em uma as grandes religiões mundiais, foi utilizada para versão central e outra periférica? O culturalismo o estudo dos “entraves para a expansão do que passa a ser a leitura dominante nas ciências capitalismo em escala global.“ sociais americanas com a crítica ao “racismo Toda a ambiguidade de Max Weber em científico” em boa parte devido ao prestígio da relação tanto ao capitalismo –produtor de seres obra de Franz Boas [10] na primeira metade humanos amesquinhados precisamente nas do século XX, não começa com Parsons. Mas dimensões cognitiva e moral (os especialistas Parsons constrói a síntese mais coerente do sem espírito e homens do prazer sem ponto de vista teórico e mais influente do ponto coração)– e em relação à própria sociedade de vista pragmático/político. americana –seu texto nunca comentado A questão básica da sociologia para Parsons pelos culturalistas sobre a hipocrisia como é perceber como a ação social pode ser marca indelével da “confiança” interpessoal integrada por meio de valores compartilhados utilitária do protestantismo americano [14] –foi socialmente. Nesse sentido, a questão de cuidadosamente e intencionalmente posta de perceber como os valores sociais orientam a lado. Houve um esforço deliberado e consciente ação prática é o objetivo maior da ciência social. para a retirada de todas as ambiguidades da obra A construção das “pattern variables” (variáveis weberiana para o uso pragmático e apologético padrões) levada a cabo por Parsons e Edward de suas categorias para a percepção da Shills em “Toward a general theory of action” sociedade concreta americana do pós-guerra [11] espelhava precisamente pares dicotômicos como exemplo acabado de perfeição. [15] Foi de orientações valorativas que permitiriam a partir deste esforço “científico,“ politicamente determinar o sentido da ação social em qualquer financiado, que toda a hierarquia mundial contexto. Os polos dessas variáveis refletiam passou a ter o exemplo concreto americano precisamente as oposições que estamos como modelo máximo com todas as outras discutindo aqui, como as oposições entre sociedades sendo percebidas como versões racional, impessoal e universal, de um lado, e mais ou menos imperfeitas desse modelo. afetivo, personalista e particularista, por outro Os efeitos “políticos” desse modelo tornado lado. hegemônico de pensar o mundo são fáceis A importância deste esquema para as ciências de serem identificados. Primeiro, o efeito sociais americanas e depois para toda a ciência conservador e de acomodação “para dentro,“ social do pós-guerra foi retumbante. Não existia dado que, se os EUA já são perfeitos exemplo 51 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

de modernidade realizada então não existe de modernidade e tradição, este último como nenhuma mudança desejável para a própria apanágio da pré-modernidade, que Parsons e sociedade americana. Segundo, como a seus colaboradores realizariam mais tarde. Na modernidade é percebida como um conjunto versão original de Gilberto Freyre inexiste a unitário e homogêneo de orientações valorativas influência de Max Weber, mas a versão mais todas elas apenas positivas, então a legitimação poderosa e até hoje francamente hegemônica, científica da dominação fática dos EUA se torna se deve a uma reformulação –baseada em completa. Novamente, porque a repetição na conceitos weberianos– levada a cabo por Sérgio ciência pode ter a mesma importância que tem Buarque a partir da interpretação Freyriana. na música: esse esquema interpretativo geral Desde a publicação do livro “A modernização não é apenas americano e muito menos limitado seletiva” [16] defendi a tese de que a ao período do pós-guerra como é sempre muito interpretação que se tornou dominante durante repetido. Ao contrário, depois da recuperação o século XX, da realidade social brasileira – europeia a partir dos anos 60 e 70 esse esquema certamente generalizável a diversas sociedades continua a ser utilizado apesar das críticas às latino-americanas–, [17] envolve, na verdade, suas categorias principais com a única diferença a articulação das noções de personalismo/ que se utiliza agora a palavra “ocidente” como patrimonialismo de modo a justificar uma suposta algo restrito às sociedades do “atlântico norte,“ singularidade cultural e social pré-moderna ou seja, Europa ocidental e EUA/Canadá. É entre nós. Essa “pré-modernidade” é o núcleo, nesse sentido que –o que sempre surpreende nunca na verdade explicitado, de noções hoje alguns latino-americanos – nesses lugares se correntes como “jeitinho brasileiro”; da visão fale do Brasil e da América latina como não só do Brasil e das sociedades latino-americanas não fazendo parte do ocidente, mas, também, como funcionando a partir de uma hierarquia como perfeito exemplo, do “orientalizado” comandada pelo “capital social de relações oposto ao ocidente. pessoais.“ Seria esse capital de relações com Mas que a ciência hegemônica e não crítica pessoas influentes que constituiria tanto o nas sociedades afluentes legitime seu próprio “personalismo,“ ou seja, relações favor/proteção poder fático não é muito de se espantar. Afinal enquanto fundamento da hierarquia social como a ciência crítica, ou seja, àquela que explicita e um todo; quanto o “patrimonialismo,“ ou seja, critica seus pressupostos, é minoritária em todo uma vida institucional que tem como fundamento lugar. O que causa mais espanto, no entanto, é uma “elite estatal,“ também pré-moderna, que o fato de que precisamente o mesmo esquema parasitaria toda a sociedade. interpretativo foi utilizado também pelas Hoje em dia, essa tese da “singularidade sociedades periféricas –como a brasileira– para cultural” brasileira, pensada de modo absoluto explicar suas próprias sociedades. Este o fato como um povo com características únicas e mais intrigante e o nosso desafio a seguir. incomparáveis –para o bem e para o mal– é como Apesar de Parsons e a teoria da modernização uma “segunda pele” para todos os brasileiros ter exercido e –sempre vale a pena repetir, ainda intelectuais ou não. Essa singularidade é exercer até hoje– impacto avassalador nas constituída pela junção e combinação das ciências sociais brasileira e latino-americana a noções descritas acima de personalismo e partir dos anos 60 do século passado, a gênese patrimonialismo. do “culturalismo brasileiro” é operada de modo A figura de Gilberto Freyre é central neste independente de sua obra. A interpretação tema posto que Freyre fundou, literalmente, a culturalista brasileira foi criada e imediatamente forma dominante como o Brasil contemporâneo se tornou hegemônica na década de 30 do percebe-se a si mesmo, não apenas neste século passado com a publicação de “Casa “romance da identidade nacional” chamado Grande e Senzala” por Gilberto Freyre. “casa grande e senzala” [18], mas em toda Essa auto-interpretação realiza, pelo próprio a sua obra. Ainda que os temas recorrentes punho dos pensadores periféricos, a mais usados na imagem da “identidade” do brasileiro, perfeita relação especular com a definição como “o encontro de raças,“ sejam tão velhos forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 46-57 52

quanto a independência do Brasil [19] –e crítica.“ Isso nem Parsons e seus colaboradores consequentemente da necessidade prática lograram com tanto sucesso. Esse ponto é de fontes alternativas de solidariedade social, fundamental para compreendermos de que além do poder local e pessoal dos donos de maneira as “ideias” dos intelectuais passa a terra e gente, para a jovem nação que se afetar decisivamente a vida prática de uma constituía– foi apenas quando Freyre inverteu sociedade legitimando e reproduzindo um a fórmula “racista científica” que condenava a cotidiano, como no caso brasileiro ainda hoje, nação de mestiços a um futuro sombrio, que a de desigualdade e humilhação. Afinal, no “identidade nacional” passou a ser um elemento mundo moderno, é a “ciência,“ substituindo a de extraordinário sucesso tomando coração e função das religiões éticas nas sociedades pré- mentes de brasileiros de norte a sul. Foi Freyre, modernas, que detém a “autoridade legítima” afinal, o primeiro a articular a tese do “mestiço is para falar no espaço público sobre qualquer beautiful,“ permitindo interpretar a miscigenação assunto relevante. A esfera política não é visível e palpável da sociedade brasileira como exceção. A forma dominante de se perceber a uma “virtude cultural” –quando durante todo o política no Brasil foi produto de intelectuais cujas século XIX e até os anos 30 do século passado “ideias” foram associadas, de modo intencional era considerado por todos como nosso principal ou não, a “interesses” poderosos. Depois de defeito– e sinal, “empiricamente verificável nas institucionalizadas, essas ideias ganham vida ruas,“ da suposta tolerância e abertura cultural própria e “esquecem” sua gênese e passam a brasileira. Foi Freyre, portanto, quem construiu o influenciar a pauta dos jornais e a imaginação “vínculo afetivo” do brasileiro com uma ideia de dos políticos e homens de ação. Se quisermos Brasil, em alguma medida pelo menos, “positiva,“ compreender de que modo percepções com a qual a nação e os seus indivíduos podiam arbitrárias do mundo se tornam norma de se identificar e se autolegitimar. conduta “legítima,“ inclusive para aqueles que Essa ideia caiu como uma luva nos interesses são oprimidos por ela, precisamos “relembrar” de arregimentação política do governo sua gênese. industrializante e modernizante de Getúlio Se pudemos dizer acima que Freyre é o Vargas e passou, como política de Estado, pai-fundador da concepção dominante como a ser ensinada nas escolas, e a ser cantada o brasileiro se percebe no senso comum, em prosa e verso como fundamento mesmo então Sérgio Buarque é o pai-fundador das da “unidade morena” da nação brasileira. ciências sociais brasileiras do século XX, e, Afinal, a miscigenação racial funcionava como consequentemente –e muito mais importante– “redutor de todas as diferenças,“ especialmente o autor da forma dominante como a “sociedade das de classe social e prestígio, além de brasileira” contemporânea se compreende até permitir uma associação “espontânea” com hoje com a chancela e a autoridade “científica.“ ideias como “calor humano,“ hospitalidade, Sérgio Buarque fez sua obra-prima “Raízes sensualidade, cordialidade e todas as do Brasil” em 1936, ou seja, três anos depois qualidades ambiguamente “pré-modernas” que da publicação de Casa-grande & senzala em hoje são patrimônio afetivo de todo brasileiro. 1933. Como todos os brasileiros desse período, Essa ideia é hoje, portanto, “evidência não Buarque foi influenciado decisivamente por passível de discussão,“ tornada uma “segunda Freyre11 nas ideias pioneiras que desenvolveu natureza” e incorporada à identidade individual neste livro, que me parece, sem sombra de de todo brasileiro que se imagina incorporar dúvida, o mais influente do pensamento social virtualidades do comportamento humano que só brasileiro no século XX na medida em que existiriam por essas bandas tropicais. construiu a “ideia-força” (uma ideia articulada a O mais interessante no nosso contexto é interesses poderosos que permite mascará-los examinar o modo como o mito da brasilidade e justificá-los) mais importante da vida política e sua celebração das virtudes ambíguas da do Brasil moderno. pré-modernidade se transformam em “ciência” Qual é a ideia-força que domina a vida conservadora com toda a “aparência de ciência política brasileira contemporânea? Minha tese é 53 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

a de que essa ideia força é uma espécie muito ainda mais simplista. [22] O Mercado capitalista peculiar de perceber a relação entre mercado, deixa de ser uma instituição ambivalente - Estado e sociedade, onde o Estado é visto, fruto de longo aprendizado histórico, que “a priori,“ como incompetente e inconfiável e permite tanto separar o interesse econômico o mercado como local da racionalidade e da de considerações éticas e com isso produzir virtude. O grande sistematizador dessa ideia riquezas em quantidades inauditas, mas, foi precisamente Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. também, produzir e legitimar desigualdades Buarque toma de Gilberto Freyre a ideia de injustas de todo tipo indefinidamente - para ser que o Brasil produziu uma “civilização singular” apenas o reino da “virtude” por excelência. O e “inverte” o diagnóstico positivo de Freyre, Estado, também ambivalente, podendo refletir defendendo que essa “civilização,“ e seu “tipo interesses de todo tipo, sendo ele próprio um humano,“ o “homem cordial,“ é, na verdade, ao campo de lutas intestinas, é “congelado” no lado contrário de nossa maior virtude, o nosso maior de uma suposta “elite privilegiada,“ a qual, como problema social e político. ninguém a define, se refere a todos e a ninguém Na realidade, Buarque assume todos os e pode ser usada em qualquer contexto ao bel pressupostos meta teóricos e teóricos da tese de prazer do falante (quase sempre, ele próprio, de uma sociedade pré-moderna e dominada pela alguma “elite”). emotividade e pessoalidade como formulada Mas o “toque de Midas” dessa ideologia, por Freyre. O que Buarque acrescenta de que vai explicar a sua adesão popular, é a (aparentemente) novo é transformar a ênfase associação, efetuada “por baixo do pano” e no personalismo –a emotividade como um sem alarde, entre mercado e a sociedade como dado psicossocial que guia as relações um todo, nos “convidando” a nos sentirmos tão interpessoais de favor/proteção–típica da virtuosos, puros e imaculados como o mercado. interpretação freyriana em ênfase no aspecto A partir daí, como a “recompensa narcísica” é institucional e político, ou seja, supostamente o aspecto decisivo, a associação é tornada patrimonial. O patrimonialismo é uma espécie “afetiva” e, em grande medida, infensa à crítica de amálgama institucional do personalismo, de racional. É precisamente este aspecto que resto compartilhando literalmente todos os seus permite a “adesão popular” de setores que não duvidosos pressupostos inseridos para fins têm nada a ganhar com a “mercantilização” pragmáticos na construção do “mito” freyriano. da sociedade como um todo. Desse modo, os É isso que confere o aparente “charminho partidos doutrinariamente liberais no Brasil crítico” de sua tese. Afinal, o “homem cordial” –ainda que todos os partidos sem exceção é emotivo e particularista e tende a dividir o estejam submetidos à sua hegemonia– que mundo entre “amigos,“ que merecem todos os representam interesses de uma elite muito privilégios, e “inimigos,“ que merecem a letra pequena, podem “universalizar” seus interesses dura da lei. Quem exerce a crítica patrimonialista particulares ao demonizar a intervenção estatal no Brasil o faz com “ar de denúncia,“ fazendo como sempre ineficiente e corrupta. pose de “intelectual crítico.“ [20] O interessante É a partir desse raciocínio que o tema no argumento de Buarque é que, apesar do da corrupção política passa a ser um dos “homem cordial” estar presente em todas as temas mais centrais e recorrentes do debate dimensões da vida, sua atenção se concentra acadêmico e político brasileiro. O que está em apenas na ação do “homem cordial” no Estado. jogo, no entanto, não é a melhoria do combate [21] à corrupção por meio do melhor aparelhamento É o Estado dominado pelo homem cordial e dos órgãos de controle. O que existe é uma particularista que se tornará o conceito mais dramatização da oposição mercado (virtuoso) importante da vida intelectual e política brasileira e Estado (corrupto) construída como uma até hoje: o “patrimonialismo” do Estado e da suposta evidência da singularidade histórica “elite” corrupta. Nos inúmeros seguidores de e cultural brasileira. Como já observado, é Buarque, parte expressiva da intelectualidade apenas o “Estado” que passa a ser percebido brasileira até hoje, essa oposição se torna como o fundamento material e simbólico do 54 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

patrimonialismo brasileiro. Ora, se todos somos “interesses e ideias em conflito” e passamos a “cordiais,“ porque apenas quando estamos ter um mundo político dividido entre “honestos” no Estado desenvolvemos as conseqüências e “corruptos.“ O tema do patrimonialismo não patológicas dessa nossa “herança maldita”? só oferece a semântica através da qual toda Porque o mercado, por exemplo, não é a sociedade compreende a si própria, mas percebido do mesmo modo? E, porque, ao também coloniza a forma peculiar como o contrário, o mercado é inclusive visto como a próprio debate político se articula no Brasil e principal vítima da ação parasitária estatal? na América latina. O tema do patrimonialismo, É que de Max Weber, de onde se retira a precisamente por sua aparência de “crítica autoridade científica e a “palavra” no sentido do radical,“ dramatiza um conflito aparente e falso, “nome” – patrimonialismo– e não do “conceito aquele entre mercado idealizado e um Estado científico,“ para a legitimação científica dessa “corrupto,“ sob o preço de deixar na sombra noção central para a auto-compreensão dos todas as contradições sociais de uma sociedade brasileiros, tem-se muito pouco. No Brasil, a –e nela incluindo tanto seu mercado quanto seu influência do pensamento weberiano também é Estado– que naturaliza desigualdades sociais dominado pela mesma leitura liberal apologética abissais e um cotidiano de carência e exclusão. que deu origem à teoria da modernização de [23] Essa é a efetiva função social da tese do inspiração parsoniana. É de Weber que se patrimonialismo no Brasil. retira a autoridade científica e a “palavra,“ no sentido do “nome” e não do “conceito científico,“ O Racismo Culturalista Hoje para a legitimação científica da noção central, ainda hoje, da sociologia e da ciência política As páginas anteriores não são mera brasileira: a noção de “patrimonialismo,“ para reconstrução de “história das ciências,“ indicar uma suposta ação parasitária do Estado referindo-se a épocas passadas as quais, e de sua “elite” sobre a sociedade. Entre nós, hoje em dia, lançaríamos um olhar cheio de no entanto, esse conceito perde qualquer compreensão histórica a quem não tinha nem contextualização histórica, fundamental no poderia ter, dado a certo contexto cognitivo que seu uso por Max Weber, e passa a designar se impunha a todos, o distanciamento que hoje uma espécie de “mal de origem” da atuação desfrutaríamos. O contrário disso é verdade. A do Estado enquanto tal em qualquer período história que acabamos de resumir é, talvez, a histórico. Na crítica à obra de Sérgio Buarque maior história de sucesso das ciência sociais mais abaixo iremos reconstruir em detalhe o modernas. A teoria da modernização, o filho tema do patrimonialismo em Weber para criticar mais dileto da tradição weberiana apologética, seu uso na sociologia brasileira. não só não morreu na década de 60 como Entre nós o uso dessa noção é sempre continua hoje, certamente com outras máscaras “político” e não “científico,“ ou seja, a noção e roupagens, a dominar a discussão mundial. de patrimonialismo “simplifica” e “distorce” a Assim como se diz da ética protestante que realidade social de diversas maneiras e sempre ela se tornou a primeira religião a se tornar em um único sentido: aquele que simplifica e “profecia realizada” no mundo prático [24], e, “idealiza” o mercado e subjetiviza e “demoniza” ao se tornar realidade prática, “morre” enquanto o Estado. Para se amesquinhar ainda mais o religião, já que a religião ocidental pressupõe horizonte reflexivo e retirar qualquer atenção a tensão e não o amálgama com a realidade aos consensos sociais e inarticulados que mundana, o mesmo pode se dizer da teoria constituem a referência última de qualquer ação da modernização. A teoria da modernização, política, basta personalizar o debate político, de como a realização mais consumada da leitura modo consequente, ao nível das telenovelas. À apologética da interpretação weberiana do personalização, subjetivação e simplificação do ocidente, só “morre” para se transformar no Estado na noção de “estamento estatal” todo pano de fundo não tematizado das grandes poderoso, é acrescentada uma teatralização da teorias sociais –e a partir delas da vida prática política como espetáculo bufo: deixamos de ter de todos nós– com pouquíssimas exceções, 55 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

[25] que tematizam a sociedade mundial ou são realizados de modo muito semelhante em a articulação entre sociedades avançadas e todas as sociedades modernas, sejam elas sociedades periféricas. centrais ou periféricas. [29] Existe todo um A leitura apologética weberiana tronou-se caminho a ser percorrido para a construção de uma “segunda natureza” para a sociologia uma sociologia crítica contemporânea que seja dominante e amplamente hegemônica em capaz de ser fundada em outro terreno que todo o planeta. Por “sociologia culturalista” não o do preconceito travestido de evidência eu não penso, portanto, em um ramo dentre científica. Nesse caminho, é o Weber crítico, outros dentre diversas sociologias, mas o fundo precisamente o Weber que dedicou o melhor de comum das sociologias, centrais e periféricas, seus esforços a tentar perceber os meandros da que logram ocupar posição de hegemonia. Ela legitimação de toda forma de dominação social, é, inclusive, o pano de fundo não tematizado de quem pode nos ajudar. Talvez, ele percebesse sociologias que reivindicam terem ultrapassado que, hoje em dia, boa parte da legitimação dos o culturalismo tradicional e ter adentrado em interesses que não se podem exercer à luz do uma nova dimensão da reflexão sociológica dia são legitimados pela própria ciência que como a reflexão de Niklas Luhmann por deveria denunciá-los. exemplo. Luhmann usa outro “vocabulário” mas a ideia de uma “corrupção estrutural” Endnotes das sociedades periféricas, como se esta não existisse nas sociedades modernas centrais – [1] Ver Taylor 1985. que são portanto “idealizadas” e vistas como [2] A palavra “racionalismo” para Weber significa a forma tendencialmente “perfeitas” de um modo muito como uma determinada formação cultural percebe e avalia próximo como a teoria da modernização clássica o mundo em todas as suas dimensões. Ver sobre isso Souza 1997 e, também, Schluchter 1979. fazia –continua a estar presente em toda a sua argumentação. [26] [3] Ver Souza 1997. Isso para não falar em teorias que [4] De György Lukács até a escola de Frankfurt, passando explicitamente continuam o legado dessa por Jürgen Habermas e Pierre Bourdieu é difícil se pensar mesma teoria com grande sucesso de público em um grande expoente da teoria social crítica não influenciado por Max Weber. Ver acerca dessa influência, e crítica como Fukuyama ou Ronald Inglehardt. Habermas 1986. [27] Também no Brasil de hoje os maiores “best sellers” das ciências sociais são aqueles que [5] O argumento que liga a herança platônica à hierarquia moral do ocidente talvez tenha sido melhor desenvolvido “atualizam” essa mesma leitura do mundo que em todas as suas conseqüências por Taylor (1989) do que separa os dignos de confiança e incorruptíveis qualquer outro pensador. das sociedades centrais dos corruptos e [6] Habermas utilizou procedimento semelhante no seu Der inconfiáveis das sociedades periféricas. No philosophische Diskurs der Moderne ao utilizar Nietzsche Brasil, as mesmas categorias, no entanto, como “chave mestra” (Drehscheibe) do pensamento pós– servem para mostrar como as classes altas e moderno. médias são moral e cognitivamente superiores [7] Uso aqui uma adaptação livre do termo cunhado por às classes populares, [28] reproduzindo uma Edward Said. oposição realizada em termos nacionais e [8] Knöbl 2002. regionais na sociologia mundial. [9] Como, por exemplo, Eisenstadt 1979. Na realidade, como a outra versão “reprimida” e “dominada” dentre as possíveis leituras do [10] Stocking 1996. legado weberiano mostra, a modernidade [11] Parsons, ed. 1965. ocidental é um todo ambíguo e contraditório, seja no centro seja na periferia do sistema, e [12] Ver Latham 2000 e Gilman 2007. que funciona segundo critérios que muito mais [13] Por exemplo, os livros clássicos de Banfield 1967 e as aproximam do que as distanciam. É possível Almond e Verba 1989. demonstrar que tanto a hierarquia social [14] Weber 2011. quanto a legitimação dessa mesma hierarquia 56 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

[15] Gilman 2007. Gilman, Nils. Mandarins of the Future. John Hopkins UP, 2007. [16] Souza 2000a, tese desenvolvida depois em outros livros especialmente no Souza 2009. Habermas, Jürgen. Die Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Suhrkamp, 1986. [17] As obras de Octávio Paz no México e de Gino Germani ---. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Suhrkamp, na Argentina demonstram que esses temas não eram 2005. apenas brasileiros, mas, também, latino-americanos em sentido amplo. Inglehart, Ronald. Cultural Shift in Advanced Societies. Princeton UP, 1990. [18] Freyre 1990. ---. Modernization and Postmodernization. Princeton UP, [19] Maciel 2007. 1997.

[20] Em entrevistas empíricas que realizamos mais de 90% Knöbl, Wolfgang. Spielräume der Modernisierung. dos brasileiros tendem a identificar os problemas sociais Velbrück, 2002. brasileiros com a corrupção estatal. Souza, ed. 2000. Lamounier, Bolivar, and Amaury de Souza. A classe média brasileira. Campus, 2009. [21] Buarque 2001. Latham, Michael. Modernization as Ideology. The University [22] Ver, por exemplo, Schwartsmann 1995 e Faoro 1984. of North Carolina Press, 2000. [23] O meu próprio trabalho recente se concentra na crítica Luhmann, Niklas.“ Inklusion und Exklusion.“ Soziologische de nossa tradição sociológica dominante e na construção Aufklärung 6. Wiesbaden, 2008. de uma alternativa verdadeiramente crítica. Ver Souza ---. „Kausalität im Süden.“ Soziale Systeme, vol. 1, no. 1, 2006, 2012a, 2011 e 2012b. 1995, pp. 7-28. [24] Por exemplo, Cohn 2002. Maciel, Fabrício. O Brasil nação como ideologia. Annablume, 2007. [25] Pierre Bourdieu seria, talvez, uma exceção parcial neste contexto. Infelizmente, Bourdieu não lançou as Parsons, Talcott, ed. Toward a General Theory of Action. bases de uma sociologia efetivamente mundial. Harper Torchbooks, 1965

[26] Ver, por exemplo, Luhmann 2008 and Luhmann 1995. Schwartsmann, Simon. São Paulo e o Estado nacional. Difel, 1995. [27] Ver Inglehart 1990 e 1997. Ver Fukuyama 1992. Souza, Jessé. Patologias da modernidade. Um diálogo [28] Um exemplo recente é Lamounier e de Souza 2009. entre Weber e Habermas. Annablume, Ver também o “best seller” A Cabeça do brasileiro de de 1997. Almeida 2007. ---. A modernização seletiva. UnB, Brasília, 2000a.

[29] Ver Souza 2007, Souza 2012a, Souza 2011. ---. Ed. Valores e Política. UNB, 2000b. ---. A invisibilidade da desigualdade brasileira. UFMG, 2006. Works cited ---. Die Naturalisierung der Ungleichheit. VS Verlag. 2007.

Almeida, Alberto Carlos de. A cabeça do Brasileiro. Record, ---. A ralé brasileira: quem é e como vivem. UFMG, 2011. 2007. ---. A construção social da subcidadania. UFMG, 2012a. Almond, Gabriel A., and Sidney Verba. The Civic Culture: ---. Batalhadores Brasileiros: nova classe média ou nova Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. classe trabalhadora? UFMG, 2012b. Sage, 1989. Stocking, George. Volksgeist as Method and Ethic: Essays Banfield, Edward. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. on Boasian Ethnography and the G e r m a n The Free Press, 1967. Anthropological Tradition. Wisconsin UP, 1996. Buarque, Sérgio. Raízes do Brasil. Companhia das letras, Taylor, Charles. Philosophical Papers Volume 1. Human 2001. Agency and Language. Cambridge UP, 1985. Cohn, Gabriel. Crítica e Resignação. Editora Tao, 2002. ---. Sources of the self: the making of the modern identity. Eisenstadt, Shmuel. Tradition, Wandel und Modernität. Harvard, 1989. Suhrkamp, 1979. Weber, Max. Die protestantischen Sekten und der Geist Faoro, Raymundo. Os Donos do Poder. Globo, 1984. des Kapitalismus. C.H. Beck, 2011. Freyre, Gilberto. Casa Grande e Senzala. Record, 1990. Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press, 1992. 57 J. Souza: Max Weber e o “Culturalismo Científico”

Biografia do autor

Prof. de sociologia da Universidade ABC, São Paulo e da Universidade Sorbonne Paris I, se dedica a estudos teóricos e empíricos sobre desigualdade social, dominação política e simbólica, construção das classes sociais e racismo. É autor de mais de 30 livros em vários idiomas, incluindo os “best sellers,“ “A elite do Atraso,“ “A classe média no espelho,“ “A tolice da inteligência brasileira” e a “A ralé brasileira.“ forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 58-74 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

A recepção de Max Weber no pensamento de Fernando Henrique Cardoso e a legitimação intelectual do projeto de reforma do Estado no Brasil

Marcos Abraao Ribeiro (Instituto Federal Fluminense)

Resumo Este artigo analisa a recepção de Max Weber, realizada por Fernando Henrique Cardoso, com o objetivo de defender a centralidade do conceito de patrimonialismo para o sociólogo que o utilizou para interpretar o atraso brasileiro, resultante da dominação tradicional representada pela colonização de interesses privados no Estado. Desta forma, defendo a centralidade de Cardoso como o principal sistematizador político da tese do patrimonialismo no Brasil, pois esta foi central para o projeto de reforma do Estado desenvolvido durante o governo FHC.

Palavras-chave: FHC, Max Weber, reforma do Estado, atraso brasileiro.

Introdução fossem o reflexo de uma clara incoerência com o seu passado. Tal fato ocorreu porque Ao assumir a Presidência de República, Cardoso teria elaborado os seus projetos como em 1995, Fernando Henrique Cardoso teve político fora do marco teórico e ideológico em como objetivo central acabar com a chamada que transitara como sociólogo (Sorj, Fernando Era Vargas (Barboza Filho, Os Paulistas Henrique Cardoso 121). Portanto, Cardoso não no Poder). Isto porque o modelo nacional- seria coerente com o seu passado. desenvolvimentista criado em 1930 seria o Como elemento auxiliar da dicotomia entre responsável por encastelar interesses privados o intelectual e o político, existe a tese sobre a no seio do Estado, fazendo com que este fosse importância central de Raymundo Faoro como o responsável por mazelas como a profunda o pilar dos debates político-ideológicos sobre desigualdade social existente no país. Para tanto, uma suposta tradição patrimonialista no Brasil o governo FHC produziu um amplo programa de (Campante, Raymundo Faoro: Brasil). Nesse privatizações e de abertura econômica. Desta sentido, Cardoso, cujo projeto político foi a forma, poder-se-ia integrar o Brasil à economia proposição de uma revolução antipatrimonialista globalizada, bem como extirpar os interesses (Souza, Para além de Raymundo Faoro?), teria privados presentes no Estado e construir um recepcionado a obra de Faoro na construção de modelo de gestão gerencial. seu projeto político com a criação do Partido da Este objetivo de acerto de contas com a tradição Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB). política brasileira seria uma demonstração clara Esta interpretação foi sistematizada no Brasil da dicotomia existente entre o intelectual e o a partir dos trabalhos de Luiz Werneck Vianna político, pois o suposto passado marxista de (Weber e a Interpretação do Brasil, O presidente Cardoso se contrapunha às medidas tomadas e a revolução passiva). A tese de Werneck pelo seu governo. Bernardo Sorj talvez seja o Vianna é fundamental, pois demonstra como autor a melhor articular a interpretação sobre a além das questões conjunturais a interpretação incoerência entre as instâncias do intelectual e weberiana do Brasil foi basilar para o processo do político em Cardoso. Isto porque o sociólogo de reforma do Estado. Este ponto é crucial seria um socialista declarado nos anos 1980, pois, como defende Jessé Souza, as ideias fazendo com que suas ações como político produzidas pela ciência possuem um papel 59 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

central para a legitimação da dominação a metodologia de Florestan Fernandes para simbólica. A partir da relação de continuidade defender que tanto Karl Marx quanto Max entre religião e ciência, Souza demonstra Weber são fundamentais para a compreensão como ocorre a institucionalização das ideias e das teses de Cardoso, mesmo que a sociologia sua naturalização na vida cotidiana através da da dominação weberiana seja o fio condutor determinação do comportamento prático dos de suas interpretações sobre o Brasil. Na indivíduos (A guerra contra o Brasil 24). Para terceira, demonstro como Cardoso recepciona Souza, portanto, um processo de dominação a sociologia weberiana para interpretar o Brasil material só pode ser plenamente compreendido entre as décadas de 1950 e 1980. Por fim, quando analisamos a trama das ideias que apresento como Cardoso mobiliza o conceito legitima e justifica a dominação (A guerra contra de patrimonialismo nos anos 1980 e 1990 para o Brasil). legitimar intelectualmente o projeto de reforma Para sustentar a força das ideias, Souza do Estado no Brasil. Nas considerações finais, propõe uma cadeia funcional que nos permite defendo a necessidade da vinculação da obra compreender sua eficácia na vida cotidiana: de Cardoso com o projeto de reforma do Estado “a) o nível da produção de ideias abstratas b), levado a cabo pelo PSDB. o nível dos operadores dessas ideias abstratas nas constelações de poder fático; e, finalmente, A recepção de Max Weber no Brasil c) os divulgadores e popularizadores das ideias dominantes.” Essa cadeia é desdobrada, Antes de demonstrar como Cardoso de forma concreta, nas disputas no campo recepcionou a sociologia da dominação intelectual, científico e universitário, nos weberiana, apresento como o sociólogo alemão operadores dos subsistemas da política, do foi recepcionado em nosso pensamento social direito e da economia e nos divulgadores e político, bem como quais foram os principais existentes e na esfera pública maior (A guerra autores a fazê-lo. De acordo com Dias, o primeiro contra o Brasil 28). trabalho sobre o sociólogo alemão foi elaborado Através da estrutura proposta por Souza, por Emílio Willens, que publicou o artigo temos condições de sustentar a eficácia social Patrimonialismo e Administração na Revista das ideias, ou seja, como são justificadas e de Administração Pública, em 1945 (Presença legitimadas na vida cotidiana. A citação a seguir de Max Weber 49). A partir da leitura pioneira vai ao encontro do argumento de Souza: “O de Willens, foram realizados outros trabalhos conceito de patrimonialismo, na trilha de sua por intelectuais como Guerreiro Ramos, L.A. legitimação, difusão e solidificação acadêmica Costa Pinto e Florestan Fernandes, cujos temas e social, sofreu essa espécie de ‘modificação’, giravam em torno da burocracia como tipo ideal, criou aquele tipo de ‘vida própria’ – alheia modalidades de poder e as dimensões e tipos e, em alguns momentos e elementos, até de estratificação social (Dias, Presença de contrária à sua formulação original” (Campante, Max Weber 49). As primeiras leituras de Weber Patrimonialismo no Brasil 122). no Brasil, contudo, não foram realizadas em Desta forma, a compreensão ampla do alemão, mas sim através das traduções em projeto de reforma do Estado no Brasil é espanhol e inglês. alcançada quando transpassamos as questões Todas essas leituras tinham como pano de conjunturais e procuramos entender como as fundo compreender o processo de mudança ideias produzidas pelo sociólogo Fernando social no Brasil, que passava por um importante Henrique Cardoso se materializaram em um processo de mudança em torno da urbanização programa político nos anos 1990. e da industrialização. Nesse sentido, Villas Bôas O artigo é dividido em três partes. Na argumenta que durante longo período nossos primeira, apresento a recepção de Max Weber intelectuais se debruçaram sobre o país com no Brasil para que eu possa demonstrar a intuito de demarcar suas particularidades para importância do conceito de patrimonialismo apontar as possibilidades de desenvolvimento, para Cardoso. Na segunda parte, exponho uma vez que o Brasil seria marcado pela forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Jul. 2020) 58-74 60

perspectiva do descompasso em relação aos interesses na sociedade haveria a constituição países centrais, modernos e desenvolvidos (A de uma dinâmica benfazeja, que teria como recepção controversa de Max Weber). ponto central produzir maior igualdade social Como traço decisivo foi realizada uma (Werneck Vianna, Weber e a Interpretação do interpretação que demarcava a dualidade entre Brasil). tradição e modernidade (Villas Bôas, A recepção Esta versão, portanto, tem como ponto controversa de Max Weber). Com isso, parte dos fundamental a política como foco analítico, pois o sociólogos brasileiros reportou uma perspectiva Estado seria o grande entrave à consolidação da normativa que possuía como elemento central modernidade no Brasil (Sell, As duas teorias do a institucionalização da sociedade moderna, patrimonialismo). Além destas características, como supostamente existente nos países esta ponta da recepção de Weber ainda seria a centrais (Villas Bôas, A recepção controversa de versão hegemônica na academia e na opinião Max Weber 18). Portanto, a recepção de Weber pública brasileiras: tinha como interesse compreender o atraso da sociedade brasileira e lutar pela sua superação. O Weber da versão hegemônica nas De acordo com Werneck Vianna (Weber e a ciências sociais e na opinião pública sobre Interpretação do Brasil), o Weber recepcionado a controvérsia sobre a interpretação do no Brasil não fora aquele das patologias da Brasil tem sido aquele dos que apontam modernidade, mas sim do acesso ao moderno. o nosso atraso como resultante de um Para tanto, Werneck Vianna propõe duas formas vício de origem, em razão do tipo de de recepção do sociólogo alemão a partir de colonização a que fomos sujeitos, a chamada herança do patrimonialismo sua sociologia da dominação e da consequente ibérico, cujas estruturas teriam sido perspectiva do atraso: o patrimonialismo estatal, ainda mais reforçadas com o transplante, que seria oriundo da herança ibérica, cujos no começo do século XIX, do Estado autores principais são Raymundo Faoro (Os português no solo americano. (Werneck Donos do Poder) e Simon Schwarzman (Bases Vianna, Weber e a Interpretação do Brasil do Autoritarismo Brasileiro); e o patrimonialismo 35) societal, oriundo das relações de produção no mundo agrário, cujos autores principais são Já a outra ponta da recepção de Weber tem Florestan Fernandes (A revolução burguesa) e na sociologia seu suporte. Esta interpretação Maria Sylvia de Carvalho Franco (Homens livres afirma que nosso patrimonialismo é fruto das na ordem escravocrata). relações de produção no mundo agrário. Para a Para a recepção de Weber denominada recepção de Weber que enfoca o patrimonialismo de patrimonialismo de Estado, o Brasil de origem societal, o Estado é considerado havia herdado uma cultura privatista com como instrumento da dominação de classes. a transferência do Estado português, uma Além disso, o Estado não se caracteriza como vez que o Estado antecede aos grupos de um Estado português prolongado, uma vez interesse, sendo o grande responsável por que houve uma combinação ambígua entre mazelas como a desigualdade social (Warneck a ordem racional legal, advinda do Estado, e Vianna, Weber e a Interpretação do Brasil). a patrimonial, oriunda da sociedade civil, que Ou seja, nossos males seriam provenientes formaram desde a independência uma relação da colonização ibérica. Essa interpretação de compromisso. A ruptura não deveria ser teria como fim político-normativo a reforma feita ao nível do Estado, mas sim no âmbito das do Estado, que poderia abri-lo à diversidade relações sociais de padrão patrimonial (Warneck dos interesses existentes na sociedade civil. Vianna, Weber e a Interpretação do Brasil). Desta forma, o sistema de representação Além de mapear a recepção de Weber, seria imposto, bem como os interesses seriam Werneck Vianna ainda advoga que estas libertos de qualquer razão tutelar (Werneck interpretações foram incorporadas pelo Vianna, Weber e a Interpretação do Brasil 36). Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) (a versão do Com a concessão de liberdade à diversidade de patrimonialismo societal) e pelo PSDB (a versão 61 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

do patrimonialismo estatal), nos fornecendo A metodologia de Florestan e o marxismo uma importante tese sobre a vinculação entre em Cardoso a interpretação weberiana do Brasil e o projeto político de reforma do Estado: Quando nos referimos ao pensamento de Essas versões fizeram fortuna – embora nem Cardoso nos vem de imediato a ligação com a sempre estivesse visível, em especial em fins obra de Karl Marx, sobretudo porque o sociólogo, da década de 80 e no começo da de 90, o que em 1958, fundou junto com outros intelectuais as singulariza irredutivelmente – e constituíram uspianos, como José Arthur Giannoti, Paul no suporte ideal das forças políticas que, após a Singer, Fernando Novas, Ruth Cardoso e promulgação da Constituição de 1988, se fizeram Octávio Ianni, um seminário para estudar O dominantes na opinião pública e nos segmentos Capital, a obra magna do pensador alemão. organizados da sociedade, vindo mais tarde a Schwarz (Um Seminário de Marx) assumir configuração partidária no PSDB e no argumenta que a composição do seminário era PT, não por acaso originários do estado de São interdisciplinar, pois contava com representantes Paulo, o primeiro deles, como notório, ocupando de história, filosofia, economia, sociologia e a Presidência da República, e segundo o lugar antropologia, que eram requisitados de acordo de maior partido de oposição do país. (Werneck com os assuntos estudados. Estes intelectuais Vianna, Weber e a Interpretação do Brasil 45) se reuniam quinzenalmente para discutir em Como defendo neste artigo, Cardoso utiliza- torno de 20 páginas de O Capital. O interesse se das duas pontas da recepção de Max Weber pela obra de Marx era de caráter puramente nos três momentos de sua produção intelectual acadêmico, pois os intelectuais que fizeram para compreender o atraso brasileiro, pois parte deste seminário procuraram se afastar da o sociólogo inicia sua produção intelectual cultura política da esquerda marxista que era defendendo a existência de um patrimonialismo dominada pelo Partido Comunista Brasileiro societal e termina advogando sobre a força de (PCB): um patrimonialismo estatal oriundo da herança ibérica, o que marca uma importante inflexão Dito isso, a contribuição específica do em seu pensamento. seminário veio por outro lado. Os jovens Antes de prosseguir, é importante apresentar professores tinham pela frente o trabalho os problemas existentes na recepção de de tese o desafio de firmar o bom nome Weber no Brasil. Sobre a questão, Carlos Sell da dialética no terreno da ciência. argumenta que as interpretações brasileiras De modo geral, escolheram assunto ignoram que o tema do patrimonialismo é brasileiro, alinhados com a opção pelos de baixo que era própria à escola, onde se baseado em dois modelos separados pela desenvolviam pesquisas sobre o negro, Primeira Guerra Mundial. Nos primeiros escritos o caipira, imigrante, o folclore, a religião de Weber, o patrimonialismo seria uma derivação popular. (Schwarz, Um Seminário de Marx do patriarcalismo (Sell, As duas teorias do 7) patrimonialismo 9). Na produção do pós-guerra, Weber defende que a dominação patrimonial A ligação puramente teórica com o marxismo possui uma relação de descontinuidade em também é referendada por Cardoso, sobretudo relação à dominação patriarcal (ibid. 11). No ao se referir ao núcleo duro do seminário caso brasileiro existe a mistura dos dois modelos (Cardoso, Fernando Henrique Cardoso). Aliado sem a devida atenção às descontinuidades (ibid. ao caráter puramente acadêmico, que deslocara 11). Em virtude da não atenção às mudanças a utilização da dialética marxiana da política internas nas formulações de Weber em sua socialista, outro elemento que singularizou o sociologia da dominação, as leituras brasileiras relacionamento de Cardoso com o marxismo perdem validade teórica quando relacionadas foi a sua utilização a partir da proposta à formulação original dos escritos do sociólogo metodológica levada a cabo por Florestan alemão (As duas teorias do patrimonialismo). Fernandes. Esta se constituía na utilização conjunta dos métodos de Émile Durkheim, forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Jul. 2020) 58-74 62

Max Weber e Karl Marx, chamada por Gabriel podem vir mais adiante no âmbito metodológico” Cohn de ecletismo bem temperado. Segundo (Cohn, O ecletismo). Cardoso, o Marx ensinado por Florestan era A exposição da proposição metodológica de aquele para o desenvolvimento de análises de Fernandes é de fundamental importância para longa duração (Fernando Henrique Cardoso). o argumento que defendo neste artigo, pois Não descarto, portanto, a importância que a Cardoso incorpora esse fazer sociológico do dialética marxiana possui para o pensamento mestre, como pode ser visto, por exemplo, em de Cardoso que, sem ela, teria profundas Capitalismo e Escravidão no Brasil Meridional, dificuldades em analisar a própria formação do obra que, em princípio, seria a reprodutora de capitalismo e as relações resultantes do processo uma interpretação puramente marxista sobre a de dependência entre centro e periferia, que formação do capitalismo no Brasil: são baseadas em categorias fundamentalmente marxistas (Campante, Patrimonialismo no Quando escrevi este livro, eu já havia Brasil 148). Todavia, acredito que a utilização lido muito Parsons, Merton (que eram de Max Weber possui um papel de fio condutor funcionalistas) e Weber. Minha leitura de do argumento, uma vez que aponta para o Marx foi posterior a estes autores, e eu patrimonialismo como grande dilema a ser não poderia desprezar a contribuição de enfrentado e vencido pela sociedade brasileira. seus modos de análise para obter uma Fernandes (Fundamentos) se debruça durante visão mais diferenciada da sociedade escravocrata. A ideia do patriarcalismo os anos 1950 sob a questão da indução na escravista vem de Weber. A análise de sociologia. Na proposição do autor, os métodos “ajustamento entre expectativas”, de papel funcionalista (Émile Durkheim), compreensivo social ou da socialização incompleta vem (Max Weber) e dialético (Karl Marx) poderiam dos funcionalistas. E, assim como essas, ser utilizados de forma conjunta de acordo com muitas outras análises e conceitos não os interesses de pesquisa. Cardoso afirma que provêm de Marx. Isso, que pode parecer aprendeu a utilizar os três grandes clássicos “ecletismo” aos marxistas teológicos, de acordo com o tipo de análise que iria ser era usual entre os que foram alunos e desempenhada. trabalharam com Florestan Fernandes. A Tal proposição seria possível porque os paixão pelo saber, a pachorra da análise, métodos acima citados teriam limitações que os tormentos da síntese não respeitavam seriam complementadas pela junção com as “escolas” político-filosóficas. os outros métodos. De acordo com Cohn (O Podíamos até tê-las, mas éramos, como ecletismo bem temperado 49), Florestan tem sou em quase tudo hoje, heréticos e como questão central a proposição sobre como antifundamentalistas. (12-13) se poderia dar conta dos fenômenos na sua diferenciação interna e na sua multiplicidade. A citação acima demonstra como Cardoso Ainda segundo Cohn, Fernandes propõe esse incorporou o mesmo fazer sociológico de fazer sociológico através da generalização da Florestan. Todavia, ao contrário do fio condutor noção de tipo (O ecletismo bem temperado). marxista contido na obra do mestre, acredito que Fernandes (Fundamentos) constrói uma Cardoso terá em Max Weber e sua sociologia proposta eclética, uma vez que haveria uma da dominação os elementos norteadores de relação de complementaridade entre os sua interpretação do Brasil. Defendo este métodos dos três pais fundadores da sociologia. ponto abaixo, ao analisar a forma como Essa perspectiva eclética, todavia, não possui Cardoso recepciona a sociologia da dominação um caráter relativizador e estéril porque leva em weberiana para compreender a formação do consideração as descontinuidades existentes capitalismo, da sociedade brasileira e dos seus nas proposições dos clássicos: “Quer dizer: eu dilemas mais importantes. vou à realidade ou bem construindo tipos ideais, tipos médios ou tipos extremos. No interior deste universo é que se articulam as diferenças que 63 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

Max Weber e o pensamento de Cardoso síntese dos trabalhos sobre a mudança social.

Meu objetivo nesta seção é construir uma Estudos sobre relações raciais e mudança interpretação abrangente do pensamento de social Cardoso. Nesse sentido, analiso detidamente sua produção intelectual mais vigorosa, Cardoso havia feito a pesquisa sobre a construída entre a segunda metade dos anos sociedade escravista e as relações raciais em 1950 e o início dos anos 1980. Para tanto, utilizo Santa Catarina juntamente com Octávio Ianni como suporte metodológico o contextualismo e Renato Jardim Moreira. O projeto, contudo, linguístico de Quentin Skinner (Significado abrangia ainda os Estados do Paraná e Rio y comprensión). Através da metodologia de Grande do Sul. O Paraná ficou por conta de Skinner tenho uma importante ferramenta Ianni, e o Rio Grande foi estudado por Cardoso. para dividir o pensamento de Cardoso em Inicialmente, a pesquisa envolveria uma análise três momentos específicos: estudos sobre que ia desde a constituição da sociedade as relações raciais e a mudança social; escravista até a década de 1950. [1] Todavia, desenvolvimento e dependência; dependência a criação do Seminário de Marx fez com que o e autoritarismo. Com esta divisão consigo foco da pesquisa fosse modificado através da demonstrar quais eram os léxicos linguísticos utilização da dialética como a metodologia mais que estruturavam o debate intelectual de importante. A partir desta utilização, a questão cada uma dos momentos do pensamento do das relações raciais passou a ter um patamar sociólogo, bem como as respectivas intenções subordinado na pesquisa levada a cabo por de suas publicações. Cardoso: O primeiro momento da produção intelectual de Cardoso dá-se na metade dos anos O que o livro investiga em pormenor são 1950 com suas pesquisas sobre as relações as conexões efetivas entre capitalismo raciais no Sul do Brasil e seus textos sobre a e escravidão numa área periférica do mudança social. Tais investigações foram um país, área com certa autonomia, mas desdobramento das pesquisas inicialmente dependente do que se passava nos feitas por Florestan Fernandes e Roger Bastide âmbitos centrais e na vizinha Argentina, em São Paulo para o Projeto UNESCO. Até o onde vigorava o trabalho assalariado. (Schwarz, Um Seminário de Marx 8) início dos anos 1960 a temática das relações raciais possui centralidade na Cadeira de Cardoso passou a analisar a constituição Sociologia I da Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências do capitalismo em uma ordem pautada pela e Letras da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), escravidão e pelo profundo arbítrio. Nesse pois além dos trabalhos sistemáticos sobre a sentido, Max Weber ganhou centralidade uma questão Florestan e o seu grupo publicaram vez que o conceito de patrimonialismo tornou-se alguns trabalhos sobre a mudança social. elemento de crucial importância para demarcar Neste momento, portanto, mudança social e a singularidade do capitalismo escravista, bem democracia racial, feudalismo, racionalização, como do dilema referente à sua plena realização secularização, modernização, conformavam os na ordem social competitiva. léxicos principais do debate intelectual no qual O sociólogo afirma que a sociedade gaúcha Cardoso estava inserido sobre questão racial, se organizou nos moldes de uma estrutura sociedade escravista e mudança social. patrimonialista, com a constituição de posições Como meu objetivo é demonstrar a recepção assimétricas na estrutura social. Nesta estrutura, e a importância do conceito de patrimonialismo as formas autocráticas de dominação, com apelo para Cardoso, farei a exposição de Capitalismo ao arbítrio e à força bruta, tinham peso decisivo e Escravidão no Brasil Meridional, obra na para a manutenção do controle social. Isto fazia qual Max Weber e Karl Marx são utilizados com que as normas formalmente estatuídas conjuntamente para interpretar o Rio Grande pelo Estado patrimonialista português fossem do Sul escravocrata, e realizarei também uma forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Jul. 2020) 58-74 64

desrespeitadas. Tal transgressão ocorria porque contra tudo o que o trabalho desqualificado tanto a ordem militar estabelecida quanto significava, que faria com que os negros a própria sociedade gaúcha não possuíam vivessem na ociosidade e no desregramento as condições necessárias para manterem o (Cardoso Capitalismo e escravidão). Cardoso respeito à ordem jurídica estabelecida (Cardoso, afirma que esta nova etapa representou uma Capitalismo e escravidão). resignificação do preconceito sobre o negro. O regime instaurado no Rio Grande do Sul Em síntese, a sociedade escravocrata tinha como fatores estruturantes o sistema analisada por Cardoso tinha como escravocrata, o latifúndio e o patrimonialismo características centrais os grandes domínios patriarcal, que faziam com que o domínio da rurais e a escravidão estruturada pela violência Coroa portuguesa fosse corrigido em nível e o arbítrio, derivados do patrimonialismo local. O sistema escravocrata patrimonialista societal, responsáveis por explicar o atraso era o grande obstáculo para o desenvolvimento da sociedade riograndense e o preconceito de forças produtivas que viessem a implantar racial. O patrimonialismo instituído nas relações de maneira plena o sistema capitalista no Rio de produção era o elemento central, neste Grande do Sul, constituindo-se como o grande momento da obra de Cardoso, para explicar o fator de atraso da região. Cardoso (Capitalismo atraso brasileiro. e escravidão) afirma que da escravidão derivaria Cardoso também publicou alguns trabalhos uma concepção alienadora do trabalho, sobre o tema da mudança social, que enfocavam responsável por impedir a constituição de a questão agrária (Cardoso, Mudanças Sociais), formas mais complexas de trabalho humano. o sistema educacional (Cardoso e Ianni, As A escravidão possuía um caráter totalizador exigências educacionais) e o comportamento do na sociedade gaúcha, na medida em que ela operariado (Cardoso e Ianni, Tensões sociais). impunha uma série de avaliações sobre o papel Esses trabalhos têm uma ligação direta com do empreendedor, o trabalho, os homens livres, suas pesquisas sobre a sociedade escravista e a sociedade e o destino humano (Cardoso as relações raciais no Sul do Brasil, visto que Capitalismo e escravidão). Além destes pontos são indissociáveis para um entendimento amplo centrais, a escravidão ainda legava aos escravos dos dilemas da mudança social. Essa relação um processo de não reconhecimento social, que ocorre porque o processo de mudança social fazia com que eles não fossem considerados rumo a uma sociedade industrial, urbana e de como pessoas humanas, mas sim como coisas. classes só se completaria quando a herança O malogro do regime escravocrata no Sul patrimonialista herdada do antigo regime fosse deu-se em virtude de dois fatores decisivos: a derrotada plenamente. Desta forma, o autor abolição da escravatura e a imigração. Estes defendeu que a sociedade brasileira dos anos movimentos, todavia, não representaram a 1950 e início dos anos 1960 ainda possuía uma constituição de uma nova ordem para os ex- presença marcante da sociedade escravista, escravos, bem como de outra representação patrimonial e tradicional, que deixava como destes estratos frente aos brancos. De acordo consequência uma profunda desigualdade social com Cardoso (Capitalismo e escravidão), os e um atraso nas questões agrária, educacional movimentos de abolição e imigração foram e no comportamento do operariado. apropriados pelas camadas dominantes, que reorientaram a reintegração do negro na nova Desenvolvimento e dependência ordem de acordo com seus interesses. Havia, portanto, a perpetuação do antigo regime A temática do desenvolvimento possui patrimonialista na nova ordem. um espaço fundamental no pensamento de Esta ação dos homens brancos fazia com que Cardoso. O autor escreve alguns artigos sobre os ex-escravos tivessem como únicas opções o assunto entre a segunda metade dos anos continuar trabalhando nas mesmas condições 1950 e o início dos anos 1960. Estes estudos, em que viviam no regime escravocrata, tendo o todavia, foram trabalhos periféricos em relação estatuto formal de homens livres, ou se rebelar à temática central da Cadeira de Sociologia I 65 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

da FFCL da USP, que eram os estudos sobre marxista histórico-estrutural, que possibilitava as relações raciais e a sociedade escravista no a análise da realidade brasileira enquanto Brasil. Além deste fato, os textos publicados por totalidade, e a sociologia compreensiva Cardoso nesse período não tinham o objetivo weberiana. de adentrar de maneira sistemática no debate De Weber, ele procura compreender as ações sobre o desenvolvimento brasileiro. Tal fato pode da burguesia brasileira a partir da construção de ser comprovado com o texto publicado pelo dois tipos ideais: homem de empresa e capitão sociólogo sobre desenvolvimento econômico de indústria, além da caracterização do conceito e nacionalismo na década de 1950 (Cardoso, de patrimonialismo como um dado estrutural Desenvolvimento econômico). Este texto possui para explicar o não protagonismo da burguesia uma visão completamente oposta àquela o autor no processo de desenvolvimento sobre bases terá sobre o nacionalismo após sua pesquisa autônomas, ou seja, o seu atraso civilizatório se sobre o empresariado brasileiro. comparada às burguesias dos países centrais. Assim, a temática do desenvolvimento se A partir da permanência do patrimonialismo de torna central na produção de Cardoso através origem agrária, Cardoso caracteriza o sistema da criação do Centro de Sociologia Industrial e político brasileiro como tradicional, bem como do Trabalho, o CESIT. A partir deste momento explica o processo de exclusão das classes a temática do desenvolvimento torna-se o tema populares. de pesquisa principal para os pesquisadores A construção dos tipos ideias, capitão de vinculados à Cadeira de Sociologia I da FFCL indústria e homem de empresa, foi importante (Romão). para demonstrar como a burguesia nunca A partir da criação do CESIT, Cardoso possuiu consciência de classe, e também como procura sistematicamente intervir nos debates esta sempre agiu com relações de compromisso intelectuais da época sobre o desenvolvimento com a política patrimonialista, responsável pelo brasileiro. Nesse segundo momento havia atraso. Esta visão e comportamento arcaico como léxicos fundamentais: nacionalismo, da maior parte da burguesia brasileira serviam imperialismo, nação-antinação, transplantação, como fatores para a negação das interpretações dependência, desenvolvimento, emancipação, mais influentes sobre o papel dessa classe no burguesia empreendedora. A partir destes processo de desenvolvimento brasileiro. Os léxicos, aliados às agências intelectuais capitães de indústria teriam um tipo de ação produtoras e disseminadoras, é que conseguimos deformada pelo patrimonialismo, o que estiolava compreender de forma ampliada este momento a possibilidade de consciência de seu papel no da produção intelectual de Cardoso. Neste processo de desenvolvimento, fazendo com o segundo momento ele polemiza com as teses que atraso prevalecesse. defendidas pelo PCB, pelo Instituto Superior de Após os estudos sobre a burguesia Estudos Brasileiros (ISEB) e, posteriormente, empresarial brasileira e o seu compromisso com pela Comissão Econômica para América Latina o atraso representado pelo patrimonialismo de (CEPAL) sobre a possibilidade da construção de origem agrária, Cardoso aprofunda suas teses um desenvolvimento sobre bases autônomas e sobre o desenvolvimento brasileiro e formula, nacionais. junto com o sociólogo chileno Enzo Faletto, Em Empresário Industrial e Desenvolvimento a teoria da dependência. Se na obra sobre o Econômico no Brasil, Cardoso (Empresário desenvolvimento brasileiro Cardoso teve como Industrial) refuta a tese de que a burguesia interlocutores mais importantes o PCB e o ISEB, brasileira poderia agir como um agente decisivo em sua obra escrita junto com Faletto seus para instituir um desenvolvimento sobre bases interlocutores principais estão no âmbito da autônomas e nacionais, como era amplamente CEPAL, que visualizava para a América Latina defendido nos âmbitos do PCB e do ISEB. Para um processo de desenvolvimento sobre bases tanto, ele efetua um cuidadoso estudo sobre nacionais. a mentalidade da burguesia brasileira a partir Assim como ocorrido em sua pesquisa sobre da continuação da junção entre o instrumental a atuação da burguesia, Cardoso também 66 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

demonstra com a teoria da dependência a de seus consequentes dilemas. É interessante impossibilidade da constituição de um processo notar como as relações de dominação, tão caras de desenvolvimento autônomo na América a Max Weber, são fundamentais para a teoria de Latina, na medida em que os países latino- Cardoso. americanos mantêm relações de dependência No lugar de constituir um processo de com os polos hegemônicos do sistema capitalista desenvolvimento sobre bases autônomas e internacional. nacionais como pregavam as teses do PCB, Existe um elo de continuidade entre a tese ISEB e da CEPAL, o caso latino-americano sobre a burguesia brasileira e a teoria da será caracterizado pela heteronomia e por um dependência. Como vimos na seção anterior, desenvolvimento parcial. A realidade latino- Cardoso analisa o processo de desenvolvimento americana, portanto, é marcada pela existência brasileiro a partir de componentes sociais de países periféricos, industrializados e e políticos radicados no comportamento da dependentes (Dependência e desenvolvimento burguesia, de maneira a fugir da perspectiva 127). Nesse sentido, a dependência estrutural economicista. De acordo com Cardoso e Faletto a que estão submetidos os países latino- (Dependência e desenvolvimento) “A estrutura americanos deixa um espaço para a realização social e política vai-se modificando na medida da dinâmica interna. É dentro deste espaço em que diferentes classes e grupos sociais de autonomia relativa que a dominação conseguem impor seus interesses, sua força e sua patrimonialista era reproduzida no Brasil, dominação ao conjunto da sociedade“ (Cardoso através das correlações de forças que instituíam e Faletto, Dependência e desenvolvimento 22). a dominação política nos diversos momentos Assim como na análise sobre o empresariado históricos analisados pela teoria de Cardoso. brasileiro, a teoria da dependência tem nas estruturas de domínio um caráter central. Isto Dependência e autoritarismo ocorre devido ao protagonismo da estrutura de dominação, através de sua interação com Como vimos na seção anterior, a grande capitalismo central no sentido de encaminhar o temática da intelectualidade brasileira durante processo de desenvolvimento latino-americano. os anos 1960 foi referente à questão do Portanto, a dinâmica referente ao sistema de desenvolvimento. Durante a década de 1970, relações entre as classes sociais nas nações todavia, o desenvolvimento dependente não dependentes torna-se o fator chave para se será a única preocupação de Cardoso. Haverá compreender o processo de desenvolvimento. também a preocupação em compreender a Neste sentido, Cardoso e Faletto (Dependência natureza do Estado brasileiro de forma a poder e desenvolvimento 36) afirmam que o ponto constituir um entendimento preciso do regime central para a dinâmica do sistema econômico militar instaurado no Brasil. dependente “no âmbito da nação, está O autoritarismo apenas torna-se uma questão determinado - dentro de certos limites - pela decisiva para a intelectualidade brasileira capacidade dos sistemas internos de alianças durante os anos 1970, precisamente a partir para proporcionar-lhe capacidade de expansão“. de meados desta década. Neste momento, os Como neste momento o objetivo central de léxicos linguísticos principais que vão conformar Cardoso não é fazer nenhuma análise exegética o debate intelectual são: dualismo, estagnação, sobre o Estado brasileiro, mas sim construir populismo, nacional-desenvolvimentismo, uma nova explicação macroestrutural para o autoritarismo, sociedade civil, democracia, processo de desenvolvimento latino-americano, desenvolvimento, dependência, modernização a questão do patrimonialismo passa como conservadora, Estado burocrático, revolução algo sem maior importância na argumentação socialista. Analiso nesta seção a interpretação do autor. Nesse sentido, a condição de do Brasil formulada por Cardoso nos anos 1970, dependência parece funcionar como uma quando este modifica sua caracterização do variável independente das mudanças ocorridas patrimonialismo brasileiro de societal, oriundo nos países latino-americanos, como o Brasil, e do modo de produção escravocrata, para estatal, 67 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

resultante da herança ibérica patrimonial. inicia sua análise com o processo de formação Juntamente com essa significativa modificação das cidades na América Ibérica, que teriam na caracterização do patrimonialismo brasileiro, como função atender as necessidades do Cardoso circunscreve os dilemas brasileiros em mercantilismo ibérico e do Estado patrimonial torno da constituição de uma ordem democrática português. Haveria uma dialética entre a vila ao universo eminentemente institucional. agroindustrial e o Estado patrimonial, ou seja, Cardoso afirma que nosso desenvolvimento entre os interesses dos senhores territoriais e os econômico dependente é ancorado a uma funcionários da Coroa, constituindo o pano de estrutura política não democrática que foi fundo da vida colonial (Cardoso, Autoritarismo plasmada em solo ibérico, sendo transplantada e democratização). Para demonstrar o peso da para o Brasil sem possuir traço efetivamente burocracia no Brasil, Cardoso afirma que nas europeu, pois o desenvolvimento capitalista cidades coloniais os dois tipos que estruturavam e a revolução burguesa não conseguiram as relações sociais eram o funcionário e o modificá-la plenamente (Cardoso, Autoritarismo senhor de terras. Esta relação começou a ser e democratização 12). Cardoso afirma que: modificada alguns anos antes do processo de independência através da reativação das É que o Estado nacional independente cidades como foco de decisão política, com o no Brasil nasceu depois da transferência fortalecimento dos mercados existentes nas do Estado imperial português para este cidades e também com a crescente influência das país. Foi a única situação na América classes dominantes na vida política da Região Latina em que o Estado da Metrópole se (Cardoso, Autoritarismo e democratização). deslocou, com D. João VI e toda a sua Com o processo de independência foi constituída burocracia, para uma colônia. Por isso, o a fase de dependência nacional. Cardoso afirma aparelho estatal brasileiro é extremamente que este processo de independência levou complexo desde o século XIX. E quando prosperidade para várias partes da América se efetua o processo da independência o Estado nacional herda esse aparelho Latina, mas sem romper com o antigo regime estatal do Império português. (O Estado patrimonialista. na América Latina 84) Durante o Império, o Estado patrimonialista brasileiro era regido por um rei-senhor, A tese da herança patrimonial teria o papel que derivava para o plano administrativo o de um dos elementos explicativos dos vários sistema de patronato (Cardoso, Autoritarismo momentos de autoritarismo existentes no país, e democratização). Cardoso (A construção como paternalismo autocrático do Império, da democracia), fazendo referência direta a a democracia de elites da República Velha, Faoro, fala sobre a existência de estamentos o populismo autoritário e o autoritarismo burocráticos durante o Império. Inclusive, a tecnocrático (Cardoso, Autoritarismo e queda do Império será capitaneada, assim democratização 13). Ou melhor, até a instituição como defende Faoro, por um estamento do golpe de 1964 será o elemento fundamental burocrático militar que havia sido deixado de do autoritarismo brasileiro, pois até então a lado durante o Império. Cardoso (A construção dominação política no Brasil seria plenamente da democracia) afirma que a mudança para a tradicional. República foi bastante significativa no sistema Outro ponto a ser notado é a afirmação de de dominação e no nível das instituições. Cardoso de que no Brasil o liberalismo funcionou Todavia, não foi suficiente para romper com o como algo de fachada, não possuindo autênticos domínio burocrático e patrimonialista. liberais e também porque era fortemente derruído Após este primeiro momento de domínio pela desigualdade (Cardoso, Autoritarismo e do estamento burocrático militar foi instituído democratização). Tal proposição vai ao encontro o domínio oligárquico, que seria vigente até a da caracterização feita por Faoro (Os Donos do instituição do golpe militar em 1964. As relações Poder) sobre o liberalismo no Brasil. se constituíam numa base patrimonialista Cardoso (Autoritarismo e democratização) entre Estado e sociedade, entre poder central 68 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

e poder local, reforçando as características do e também porque subordinou a economia Estado patrimonial (Cardoso, Autoritarismo nacional a formas mais modernas de dominação e democratização). Neste sentido, Cardoso econômica. Além destes fatores, ainda diverge de interpretações como a de Faoro possibilitou a modernização da máquina estatal ao considerar simplista e insatisfatória a e também lançou as bases para a implantação caracterização do Estado como controlado de um setor público da economia, chamado unicamente por um estamento burocrático pelo autor de burguesia de Estado, que estava pairando sobre a nação. integrada ao capitalismo internacional (Cardoso, Cardoso afirma que o patrimonialismo estaria Autoritarismo e democratização 98). Com isso, enraizado na América Latina e que teria no teríamos a passagem do sistema patrimonialista catolicismo seu suporte cultural. Para tanto, o tradicional para o regime autoritário corporativo, autor constrói uma relação dicotômica entre o estruturado em termos civis e militares, e que catolicismo e o individualismo protestante para teria no capitalismo oligopólico seu ponto central demonstrar como a religião seria responsável (Cardoso Autoritarismo e democratização). pela constituição do patrimonialismo católico. Mesmo com as importantes modificações Este seria coletivista, menos responsável efetuadas, a tradição de Estado forte aliada individualmente, sendo o Estado visto como a um controle político elitista fez com que pai benevolente (Cardoso, Autoritarismo e o patrimonialismo ibérico fosse refeito democratização). Nosso Estado patrimonialista nesse período. O atraso representado pelo teria uma feição católica, que seria reforçado patrimonialismo coexistira na nova ordem pelo processo de mobilização das massas entrelaçado com a modernização do aparelho urbanas. Interessante a ser ressaltado é que a estatal e com o moderno desenvolvimento visão do patrimonialismo brasileiro como católico econômico. é similar à interpretação feita por Faoro, que De acordo com Cardoso houve neste também liga o patrimonialismo ao catolicismo momento o protagonismo da tecnocracia. A (Santos Jr.). partir do protagonismo deste setor ocorreu Em virtude do domínio do patrimonialismo um processo importante de modernização do católico, teríamos um estilo de participação aparelho do Estado (aliado à repressão social), fortemente dependente do Estado, tendo pouco bem como a adoção de medidas econômicas a ver com o sistema de representação e voto favoráveis à ação empresarial (Cardoso herdado do liberalismo individualista europeu Autoritarismo e democratização). Este processo (Cardoso, Autoritarismo e democratização). foi se intensificando até o ponto da constituição Como podemos perceber, o patrimonialismo do regime burocrático-autoritário, regime estava enraizado em nossa realidade social, estruturado em um processo de dependência tendo peso decisivo para a interpretação dos internacional, que permitia certo dinamismo do dilemas do Brasil e da América Latina no que crescimento econômico e mobilidade social, se refere à questão da sociabilidade. Cardoso mesmo que apenas no âmbito urbano (Cardoso (Autoritarismo e democratização) argumenta Autoritarismo e democratização). que o passado colonial e o patrimonialismo Este regime, entretanto, não seria mais contínuo deixaram uma pesada herança nas economicamente apenas dependente, mas sociedades brasileira e latino-americana. possuiria como característica definidora o Até o populismo teríamos o domínio seu caráter dependente e associado. Neste do Estado patrimonial estruturado por um sentido, teríamos como dois fatores importantes sistema político eminentemente tradicional. do regime burocrático-autoritário o caráter Este domínio, todavia, seria modificado com dependente de nossa economia aliado à tradição o regime instaurado em 1964. Segundo centralizadora, burocratizante e patrimonialista Cardoso (A construção da democracia), este do Estado brasileiro, que foram responsáveis teve consequências revolucionárias em nossa pela redefinição do quadro institucional realidade social, pois colocou a burguesia junto (Cardoso Autoritarismo e democratização). ao desenvolvimento do capitalismo internacional Esta redefinição se deu com a gestação de um 69 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

sistema híbrido, que fortalecia os interesses das a ter maior atualidade (Lahuerta, Intelectuais e multinacionais e também a empresa pública, e a transição). ampliava a capacidade de controle do governo Para combater o regime autoritário estruturado sobre a sociedade: pelo patrimonialismo, Cardoso propõe a reativação da sociedade civil. Isto se daria pelo São alguns exemplos: o empresariado fortalecimento do Estado de Direito, pelo controle estatal constitui-se como camada responsável do aparelho do Estado. Existiria significativa da classe dominante; a antiga uma tendência democratizadora na sociedade, burguesia nacional não desaparece, mas mas que seria resistente ao nível do Estado se incrusta entre a empresa estatal e a (Cardoso, A democracia na América Latina). multinacional, tratando de reservar para Neste sentido, a resistência democrática deveria si espaços econômicos relativamente se estruturar enquanto uma luta antiburocrática, importantes; o grande capital estrangeiro no sentido de maior controle público da ação aparece socialmente como burocracia estatal. O processo de democratização com a internacionalizada constituída por administradores profissionais, com forte reativação da sociedade civil seria responsável ‘presença estrutural’ mas com enorme por fazer com que as associações profissionais, dificuldade para constituir-se, no plano os sindicatos, as igrejas, os grêmios estudantis da política local, como classe para si. pudessem propor soluções, entrando em (Cardoso, Desenvolvimento dependente- conflitos produtivos para o país (A democracia associado 458) na América Latina). Cardoso afirma ainda que era necessário reconstituir a sociedade civil As relações travadas entre os componentes para que ela pudesse se expressar na ordem do regime burocrático-autoritário e a sociedade política e também para contrabalançar o Estado, civil se davam através de anéis burocráticos, tornando parte da realidade política da nação (A mecanismo de cooptação dos membros das democracia na América Latina). Desta forma classes dominantes nas cúpulas decisórias o Brasil poderia constituir uma democracia (Cardoso Autoritarismo e democratização). substantiva. Cardoso afirma que utilizou o termo burocrático Como vimos até aqui, a condição estrutural para demarcar a necessária localização no de dependência não era o fator impeditivo da aparelho do Estado. Estes anéis demonstrariam constituição de uma ordem democrática no como os interesses patrimonialistas estariam Brasil, uma vez que o dilema democrático fortemente enraizados no Estado. brasileiro era representado pelo patrimonialismo Este sistema de anéis foi responsável pela ibérico. Portanto, apenas reativando a sociedade exclusão das massas como fontes legitimadoras civil e derruindo o patrimonialismo enraizado no do Estado. O sistema político brasileiro teria seio do Estado é que conseguiríamos instituir como ponto crucial um amálgama entre uma uma ordem plenamente moderna, plural e organização política baseadas na existência democrática na qual os interesses existentes na de classes inseridas numa ordem de cunho sociedade pudessem ser livres e efetivamente industrial e monopólico, aliada a outra enraizada representados, uma vez que a sociedade era no patrimonialismo estatal originário do sistema vítima do autoritarismo exclusivo do Estado. capitalista colonial (Cardoso, Autoritarismo e democratização 236). Com isso, teríamos Max Weber, Cardoso e o projeto de reforma uma condução elitista e patrimonialista do Estado da vida política no Brasil, pautada pelas relações de compromisso entre a burguesia Se durante os anos 1970 Cardoso colocou internacionalizada e os empresários públicos, sua análise a serviço do desmantelamento do coexistindo com uma sociedade de massas. regime político burocrático-autoritário, a partir Neste momento, Cardoso afirma que a teoria do final dos anos 1980 o sociólogo passa a marxista seria insuficiente para compreender a ter como encaminhamento as proposições em complexidade do mundo, passando Max Weber torno da abertura econômica e da reforma do 70 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

Estado, sob uma perspectiva socialdemocrata devem ser numa democracia: a expressão da representada pelo PSDB: vontade da população socialmente organizada” (Democracia e desigualdades sociais 27). Dito isso, convém ressituar a social- Ao analisar as relações entre Estado, democracia como a brecha que permite, mercado e democracia, Cardoso aponta a nossa cum grano salis, limitar os abusos do formação social escravista como o fator decisivo poder, tanto público quanto privado, para a constituição de uma relação distorcida para obter o que nas filosofias anteriores entre ambos, uma vez que as potencialidades parecia impossível: que a mola individual do mercado, por exemplo, não puderam ser (melhor dito, privada) da prosperidade plenamente consolidadas: pressione a eficiência da economia e que o interesse coletivo seja preservado, A força do mercado sempre foi muito através da esfera pública democratizada, mais acanhada e constrangida pela para que os deserdados deixem de sê-lo. existência de fatores políticos, por um (Desafios da social-democracia 42) tipo de dominação política que nada tem a ver com a ação do Estado reformador Cardoso afirma que desde os seminários do mercado, à europeia. O Estado aqui de fundação do PSDB foi difundida a ideia se acomodou à sociedade e ambos a de revisão dos papéis de Estado, sociedade um certo tipo de produção, guardando e mercado no mundo globalizado. Ou seja, características mais do que conhecidas de o partido representaria uma visão moderna patrimonialismo, de clientelismo etc. [...] e consentânea com as mudanças ocorridas Alguns autores fizeram uma análise mais no mundo, pois seria necessário refazer a culturalista dessas diferenças, em termos engenharia institucional de forma a poder gerar de uma tradição corporativista, de uma práticas democráticas. Cardoso entendia que o cultura católica, da tradição ibérica etc. A mercado era uma realidade inescapável depois literatura sobre o tema é ampla. Não é o da queda do socialismo real. Sendo assim, seria caso de fazermos a revisão dela, mas o necessário construir uma nova ordem através da fato é que, de alguma forma, a vinculação conjugação entre mercado, Estado e sociedade entre Estado, sociedade e democracia a partir da ação nos seguintes pontos: retomada na América Latina deu-se a partir de outros pressupostos, outro background. do crescimento econômico; diminuição das (Democracia e desigualdades sociais 28) desigualdades; governabilidade. O crescimento econômico se daria através de uma política de Para Cardoso, a formação patrimonialista da internacionalização da economia e também sociedade brasileira fora o elemento crucial para de privatizações, que deixariam a capacidade gerar uma relação diferenciada entre Estado estratégica do Estado para ativar a economia e sociedade ao compararmos às sociedades (Congresso, desenvolvimento e democracia de típica formação capitalista, pois seria uma 43). característica básica das sociedades de base Assim como já ocorrera no período anterior, o latifundiário-patrimonialista (Democracia e Estado passa a ser a fonte de todos os nossos desigualdades sociais). Portanto, o grande dilemas mais importantes, como a profunda dilema no Brasil não estava nas lutas de desigualdade social. Ao comparar a realidade classe ou na imposição do imperialismo, como brasileira com a existente na Europa e nos defendem as interpretações marxistas, mas no Estados Unidos, Cardoso aponta que nosso patrimonialismo que havia se reproduzido de passado escravista, colonial, patrimonialista forma secular na realidade brasileira. De acordo e clientelista fora elemento crucial para a com Campante, Cardoso faz parte do campo reprodução da abissal desigualdade. Por isso, ideológico que defende o paradigma do mercado deveria haver uma luta social articulada “contra e, por consequência, interpreta o Estado como o a imposição de mecanismos burocráticos- grande vilão: manipuladores, que tornam o Estado e as instituições representativas no oposto do que 71 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

Na narrativa de Cardoso, ocupa lugar poder, à busca de subsídios e crédito central a crítica ao Estado patrimonial, fácil. O estamento se encastelou em entendido como nacionalizante e nichos cartoriais para defender privilégios estatizante, que teria se implantado contra e regalias. (Cardoso, A modernização do as verdadeiras classes modernizantes Brasil 34) do país, o complexo agrário-industrial paulista. Assim, a agenda de ‘reforma do Seria preciso a instituição de um Estado Estado’ foi o leitmotiv do governo Cardoso. socialmente necessário, capaz de universalizar (Patrimonialismo no Brasil 145). as vantagens sociais (Cardoso, Congresso, desenvolvimento e democracia). Desta forma, Por conta desse domínio, seria necessária a aumentaria o controle democrático sobre a reforma do Estado para que este pudesse, de gestão do Estado, fazendo com que este maneira efetiva, atender ao interesse público se tornasse sensível ao interesse público (Cardoso, Democracia e desigualdades (Congresso, desenvolvimento e democracia). sociais). Tendo em vista este quadro, o sociólogo Para Cardoso, como temos demonstrado, o coloca o melhor de sua produção intelectual patrimonialismo seria o grande entrave para e política em favor da abertura econômica e a modernização do Estado brasileiro e a da reforma do Estado. Cardoso faz a defesa consolidação da democracia. da socialdemocracia tendo como base sua As mudanças institucionais seriam interpretação do Brasil elaborada a partir dos responsáveis por gerar uma cultura democrática, anos 1970, acrescida dos seus diagnósticos institucionalizando as práticas de liberdade, da época (Congresso, desenvolvimento e criando-se no país o controle democrático democracia). do aparelho do Estado pela população e O sociólogo argumenta que o Estado havia conseguindo, desta forma, vencer o atraso. sido privatizado na América Latina. Em virtude O modelo de desenvolvimento dependente- de tal privatização, a instituição de um mercado associado não deveria ser modificado, pois seria competitivo seria um elemento decisivo para o possível para o caso brasileiro. Não havia derruir o patrimonialismo e o clientelismo condições para escapar da ação do mercado enraizados, pois os dilemas brasileiros eram (Cardoso, Notas sobre a reforma). Estas fenômenos exclusivos do Estado, como o autor teses estarão presentes nos programas do já argumentara em suas proposições sobre o PSDB, partido criado por Cardoso no final dos regime burocrático-autoritário: anos 1980. Sobre a relação entre as teses de Cardoso e os programas do partido, Sobrinho Vejamos o fenômeno do patrimonialismo. argumenta: Sabemos que ele sobreviveu a Vargas, progrediu sob o regime militar e, ainda hoje, De sorte que as orientações propositivas se coloca no caminho da modernização de Cardoso –que estão referendadas nos do Estado. Cheguei a estudar o assunto primeiros programas do PSDB– enfatizam durante os anos do autoritarismo. Falei a descentralização do poder político e a na existência de “anéis burocráticos”. organização autônoma da sociedade civil Buscava representar o conluio que se enquanto pressupostos básicos para o dava no interior do Estado entre grandes exercício da cidadania. Nessa direção, a empresários e a alta burocracia, para reforma do estado teria que empreender definir onde e como se dariam incentivos a desprivatização do conjunto do públicos. Foi uma das formas encontradas estado e a superação do clientelismo, para o arbítrio perpetuar a gestão do fisiologismo e corporativismo, através do bem público por interesses localizados. estabelecimento de novos mecanismos Com o retorno do Estado de Direito, o de relacionamento entre estado e a fenômeno assumiu novos contornos, mais sociedade. (O pensamento político 277) transparentes, o que facilitou sua crítica. Os lobbies ganharam os corredores do Ao analisar o processo de reforma levado 72 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

a cabo por seu governo, Cardoso afirma que intelectual de Cardoso nos mostra como seu estava reconstruindo o Estado brasileiro. Nesse pensamento político guarda afinidades eletivas sentido, com a reforma “Substitui-se o antigo com a interpretação liberal de Raymundo Faoro, controle burocrático, frequentemente casado considerado por Luiz Werneck Vianna como o com interesses particularistas de clientelas grande sistematizador da interpretação que deu patrimonialistas, por agências reguladoras a justificação intelectual ao projeto de reforma com responsabilidade pública” (Notas sobre a do Estado. reforma 10). Estas ações seriam fundamentais Concordo com Werneck Vianna quando este para modificar a tradição de centralização, cuja afirma que a interpretação do Brasil baseada lógica era atender aos interesses dos grandes e em Max Weber foi elemento crucial para a ter pouca eficiência. Nesse sentido, seu governo justificação intelectual do projeto de reforma ia de encontro a essa má tradição (Cardoso, do Estado. Todavia, considero Fernando Notas sobre a reforma). Henrique Cardoso o intelectual que construiu No lugar da gestão burocrática e privatista a interpretação baseada que funcionou como seria criada a gestão gerencial, responsável por justificação intelectual para o projeto levado promover um espírito de mérito na burocracia, a cabo pelo PSDB nos anos 1990. A partir da retirando os privilégios e universalizando o tese do patrimonialismo, portanto, podemos acesso à população. Assim, “... nas sociedades observar como as ações materiais só podem ser democráticas e de massas como a brasileira concretamente analisadas quando observamos crescentemente será, o antigo Estado o papel central das ideias e de sua eficácia intervencionista e patrimonialista passou a social (Souza, A guerra contra o Brasil). ser um traje apertado” (Cardoso, Notas sobre Nesse sentido, podemos entender porque a reforma 11). Com essas modificações em Cardoso teve como um dos objetivos centrais de torno da reforma do Estado o atraso brasileiro, seu governo acabar com a chamada Era Vargas representado pelo patrimonialismo, seria (Barboza Filho, Os Paulistas no Poder). Isto vencido, uma vez que o Estado democratizado porque o atraso brasileiro estava circunscrito poderia finalmente atender a milhões de à dimensão institucional representada pela excluídos que viveriam em uma sociedade que perpetuação do patrimonialismo no Estado, não mais aceitaria a condição de penúria a que identificado por ele durante suas análises sobre estavam submetidos. Dessa forma, derruindo- o regime burocrático-autoritário. Não tenho o se a gestão patrimonialista do seio do Estado objetivo de analisar os oito anos de mandato poderíamos constituir uma democracia efetiva de Cardoso, nem de discutir as continuidades e no Brasil, segundo a interpretação weberiana rupturas com a sua obra durante o período em de Cardoso. que foi presidente do Brasil. Quero, no entanto, demonstrar como sua produção intelectual, Considerações finais especificamente o seu pensamento político, teve importância crucial para a elaboração do Cardoso baseou suas análises sobre o projeto de reforma do Estado. Estado brasileiro do final dos anos 1980 na Como vimos ao longo deste artigo, Max interpretação do país produzida por ele nos Weber possui um patamar de centralidade anos 1970, acrescida, como demonstrei, aos no pensamento de Cardoso, uma vez que foi seus diagnósticos de época. Ou seja, o político utilizado para compreender o atraso brasileiro e Cardoso norteou suas proposições a partir balizar a ação política derivada deste diagnóstico. do seu pensamento político, esquecido pelos Com esta ligação, apresento de forma precisa intérpretes que querem fazer uma vinculação a hipótese de Werneck Vianna sobre a relação entre a produção intelectual e a prática política entre a tese do patrimonialismo e o projeto de ao analisarem apenas o tema da dependência, reforma do Estado no Brasil, pois defendo a como são os casos, por exemplo, de Velasco e necessidade de se unir aos fatores conjunturais Cruz, Traspadini e Batista Jr. explicativos do projeto, como a crise do Estado A análise da parte esquecida da produção nacional-desenvolvimentista, a globalização, 73 M. Abraao: A recepção de Max Weber

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Rio de Janeiro: ed. Campus, 2nd. ed., 1988. Sell, Carlos Eduardo.. Leituras de Weber e do Brasil: da política à religião, do atraso à modernidade. Ciências Sociais, Unisinos, vol. 43, no. 3, 2007, pp. 241-248. ---. “As duas teorias do patrimonialismo em Max Weber.” X Encontro da Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política (ABCP), 30 August 30th to September 2nd, Belho Horizonte, Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política, 2016. Web. Accessed 10 Jul. 2020. Skinner, Quentin. “Significado y comprensión en la historia de las ideas.” Prismas: revista de historia intelectual, no. 4, 2000, pp. 149-191. Sobrinho, Maria Juvêncio. O pensamento político de Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1973-1992): autoritarismo e democratização. 2003. Campinas UINICAMP, MA Thesis. Sorj, Bernardo. “Fernando Henrique Cardoso, o sociólogo e o político.” A Construção Intelectual do Brasil Contemporâneo: da resistência à ditadura ao governo FHC. Scielo – Centro Edelstein, 2000. Souza, Jessé. “Para além de Raymundo Faoro?” Raymundo Faoro e o Brasil, edited by Juarez Guimarães Raymundo, Ed. Perseu Abramo. 2009. ---. A guerra contra o Brasil. Como os EUA se uniram a uma organização criminosa para destruir o sonho brasileiro. Ed. Estação Brasil, 2020. Traspadini, Luciana. A teoria da (inter) dependência de Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Topbooks, 1999. Velasco e Cruz, Sebastião C. “Idéias do poder: dependência e globalização em F.H.Cardoso.” Estudos Avançados, 1999, pp. 225-247. Villas Boas, Glaucia. “A recepção controversa de Max Weber no Brasil (1940-1980).” Dados - Revista de Ciências Sociais, no. 1, 2014, pp 5-33. Werneck Vianna, Luiz Jorge. “Weber e a Interpretação do Brasil.” Novos Estudos, no. 53, 1999, pp. 33-47. ---. “O presidente e a revolução passiva.” Ed. Esquerda Brasileira e Tradição Republicana: Estudos de conjuntura sobre a Era FHC-Lula. Ed. Revan, 2006.

Biografia do autor

Doutor em Sociologia Política pela Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENF)e professor e pesquisador do Instituto Federal Fluminense (IFF) campus Campos Centro. Email: olamarcos@yahoo. com.br. forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 75-87 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

Patrimonial Liberalism: A Weberian Approach to Early Latin American State-Making

Francisco Colom González (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC))

Abstract The attempts to create liberal institutions in the absence of a recognizable liberal political culture have traditionally disconcerted historians of the Iberian world. Liberal ideas not only legitimized the termination of the colonial bond with the metropolis, but also bolstered attempts to create modern state institutions on both sides of the Iberian Atlantic. At the same time, patrimonial practices were widespread and recurrent phenomena throughout the early period of state formation. The ritual invocation and the political functionality of liberal ideas in this context demand a more nuanced explanation than simply discarding them as mere propaganda or empty political rhetoric. However unstable or contradictory 19th-century Latin American politics were, they were systematically worded in the language of liberalism and enjoyed a latent legitimacy that reflected the normative universe of the old colonial society. This article tries to explain the background of the ‘patrimonial’ type of liberalism that spread throughout Latin America after the Atlantic Revolutions and the potential that Max Weber´s theoretical framework offers for its interpretation.

Keywords: Max Weber, Patrimonialism, Liberalism, Latin America, State-making

Patrimonialism in Max Weber risked essentializing some of their features. In fact, there is no single, universally accepted For a long time, ‘patrimonialism’ was a definition of ‘patrimonialism’. The notion of term that critical social sciences loved to hate a Patrimonialstaat (patrimonial state) was because, since the 1960s, it had been used by originally devised by the conservative jurist Karl modernization theorists as a culturally biased Ludwig von Haller in the wake of the European and static concept to explain the alleged Restoration in opposition to the contractual ‘deviation’ of Latin American societies from the theories of the state disseminated by the French unidirectional path of change from tradition Revolution (von Haller). [2] According to him, to modernity (Schwartzman). [1] For Max patriarchal states were the most common ones Weber, patrimonialism was a type of ‘traditional in history and were derived from the aggregation domination’, that is, “when authority is claimed of seigniorial house and land rights (Haus- und by it and believed in by virtue of the sanctity of Grundherrschaft). Max Weber refined the term age-old rules and norms” (226-7). Organized rule a century later, conveying a new meaning is based in this case on “personal loyalty which to it within the wider context of his theory of results from common upbringing” (Weber 226-7). domination. For him, patrimonial conditions Whereas the roots of traditional domination grow have had extraordinary importance as a out of the master’s authority over his household historical platform for larger political structures. and the belief in the inviolability of traditional Patrimonialism, along with patriarchalism, norms, under bureaucratic domination the norms was thus portrayed as a subtype of traditional are established rationally, appeal to a sense domination that developed as a differentiation of abstract legality, and presuppose technical from the oikos, the household domain. It implied training. The application of such concepts to the legitimate exercise of jurisdictional power contemporary societies meant bringing them and of certain political rights as if they were back into the traditional-modern dichotomy and private. A ‘patrimonial state’ emerged when the 76 F. Colom: Patrimonial Liberalism

ruler managed his political authority in the same functionalist sociology and linked on the one discretional way as he did his patriarchal power, hand to traditional society and, on the other i.e. as a personal instrument. hand, used as an explanation of why some In Weberian terms, therefore, patrimonialism countries were ‘lagging behind’ in the process of essentially refers to the mode in which power economic and social modernization. is exercised and distributed throughout society, Patrimonialism acquired new connotations in but it also involves a certain type of legitimacy. the 1960s, when the then emerging paradigm of The origin and limits of the patrimonial ruler’s civic culture promoted a behavioral approach to authority are viewed as legitimate insofar as the study of politics. This perspective interpreted they are ‘traditional’, that is, as long as they rely political change through social attitudes and on the belief in the “inviolability of that which has led to the comparison of political cultures in the existed from time out of mind” (Weber 1006). Americas, a task that was carried out Patrimonial regimes are characterized by a with uneven skill and eventually transformed continuous tension between the central authority into an essentialist and culturalist interpretation and the centrifugal tendencies of the subordinate of social agency. Drawing on Parsons’ belief powers, as this mode of subjection is based on that Calvinist religiosity –with its egalitarian, customary bonds of reciprocity between the ruler individualistic ethos, and its skepticism of state and his dependents. The difference between power– had become institutionalized in the patriarchal and patrimonial authority was for United States as a pattern of social values, Weber only one of degree for, unlike the former, some authors maintained that in Latin America patrimonialism includes an administrative cadre. the combined effects of the Catholic Counter- Patrimonial rule could be exercised through Reformation, patrimonial rule, and colonial the granting of feudal tenure to dependants, dependence had inversely crystallized into a who could then transmit it to their heirs, or by monistic political culture that had outlived its bequeathing benefits to office-holders. The first original background and continued projecting its case was typical of the European Middle Ages, influence on contemporary societies in the forms whereas the prebendal mode is identified with of charismatic rule, authoritarian corporatism, ancient and Oriental societies. and bureaucratic paternalism. Admittedly, Hegel’s conception of the rational state (i.e. the state whose administrative The Patrimonial State in Spanish America body is based on the rationality of the law) as the dialectical culmination of Sittlichkeit (the Though there are few explicit mentions of ethical order of the community) looms large in Latin America in Weber’s work, his notion Weber’s legal-rational type of domination and of patrimonialism is particularly helpful in its ascription to the modern bureaucratic state. describing some characteristics of the colonial However, Weber’s categories were embedded in regime. [3] The Spanish system of domination in a larger conceptual network and used in complex America was originally devised to exploit mineral historical descriptions that did not strictly imply resources through forced labour and exact tribute an evolutionary outline. He recognized historical from native peoples. The Estado indiano, the passages connecting one type of authority to the colonial state that emerged from this scheme, other. For instance, revolutionary movements shows some resemblance to the ideal features guided by charismatic leaders could crystallize of the patrimonial state depicted in Weber’s into a traditional order or bureaucratize into work. Originally created by the private initiative a rational formal organization. It was Talcott of military entrepreneurs, the Conquistadores, Parsons, the first translator of Weber’s work who tried to impose patrimonial rule on domains into English and his most influential interpreter gained for the Crown at their own expense, in the American academy, who transformed it soon developed –not without struggle– into these ‘ideal types’ into a developmental process. a more cohesive and centralized structure of After the Second World War, the notion of domination. Colonial society became ethnically patrimonialism was reshaped by structural- organized into a caste system that differed from forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 75-87 77

the matrix society in the Iberian Peninsula. oriented, bureaucratic norms are established Spaniards and Indians were initially pressed according to instrumental purposes and have by the Crown to live in their own repúblicas or a formal-rational basis. Pressed by particular communities, but Creole domination depended circumstances, like competition with rival on the availability of indentured native labour. powers and fiscal necessity, Weber admitted the Unlike the fiefdom and the corvée institutions in possibility that patrimonial domination developed Europe, the encomienda and the repartimiento – some rational administrative traits, as happened which had some indigenous precedents, like the with modern capitalism in feudal Europe. mita system in the Inca Empire and the coatequitl Capitalism, however, had also been ‘advanced’ among the Aztecs– were not modes of servitude in Europe by the political and economic interests entailed to land tenure. They were temporary of the urban guilds and merchants, a role that grants of native workforce that were bestowed the colonial cities and the Creole elites failed by the Crown either to private individuals for their to play in Spanish America. The Spanish personal service or to community-driven projects. conquerors founded cities in order to legitimize Both types of service fell under royal discretion their achievements and as instruments for the and could not be transmitted by the beneficiaries control of the territory, but the land-owning and to their descendants. Despite the pressure of mining interests that prevailed among these the American encomenderos on the Crown and groups were linked to a seigniorial ethos, not to their occasional display of violent protest, they bourgeois entrepreneurship. [6] were unable to transform their privileged status The instructions emanating from the Crown into that of European feudal nobility. By the mid- were far from obtaining automatic obedience 16th century the Indian tribute was monetized, overseas; they had to be balanced against the formally putting the relationship between the interests of colonial society. In the absence of a natives and the encomienda holders on an equal substantial degree of political representation or a footing with the pecheros (peasant tributaries) constitutional separation of powers, the combined from Castile and their feudal lords, but with the effect of ill-defined competences, overlapping significant difference that the tax was imposed jurisdictions, and venal administrative practices on the Indians based on their ethnic status, helped the Crown to counterbalance different whereas the Castilian commoners were taxed local interests and exercise some remote control according to their property (Pollack). of colonial authorities. The result was a malleable This ethno-corporative system has sometimes system of governance that allowed colonial been described as ‘tributary despotism’. [4] society ample space for adaptation, bargaining, However, if some practices of the colonial and outright corruption (Phelan). The maxim ‘se regime showed patrimonial characteristics, other acata, pero no se cumple’ (the order is complied features, especially after the Bourbon reforms in with, but not implemented), usually applied to the 18th century, brought it closer to what Weber laws arriving from the Peninsula which were labelled as a ‘rational’ type of bureaucratic deemed inappropriate for the American context domination. [5] With time, colonial rule was or contradictory to the ‘real’ interests of the increasingly organized around a central authority, Crown, discloses the value-oriented rationality made use of ad hoc administrative bodies, like that underlay the whole colonial administrative the Council of the Indies in the Peninsula and system. This is a type of substantive rationality the Audiencias and Cabildos in America, and (wertrationales Handeln, in Weber’s terminology) developed a corpus of specialized jurisprudence. that strives for goals that may not be formally According to Weber, bureaucratic domination rational in themselves, but that are nonetheless presupposes a cadre of professionally trained pursued by rational means. Its features are administrators, as the enactment of norms easily recognizable in the colonial legal corpus is guided by permits and rules that appeal to (the Leyes de Indias or Derecho indiano), some sense of abstract rationality and constitute which combined local and Castilian law, and the core of legal authority. Unlike patriarchal was characterized by the lack of systematicity, commands, which are predominantly value a casuistic approach, and the ultimate reliance 78 F. Colom: Patrimonial Liberalism

on natural law. The reforms implemented Constitutional liberalism was an experience by the Bourbons during the mid-18th century induced both from the metropolis (the drafting of somewhat altered the administrative system of the first Spanish Constitution in Cádiz in 1810 the American territories, but the reinforcement included Spanish American representatives) of central authority did not necessarily make the and by the first insurrectional movements. whole structure more homogeneous. The reasons for the contrast between the Latin American history in the 19th century early constitutional experiences in the Iberian has often been portrayed as a beleaguered world and their political malfunctioning have attempt to erect state institutions legitimized by been alternatively searched for in cultural liberal doctrines in the societies that emerged characteristics, economic weakness, or in the from the demise of the colonial regime. [7] insurmountable differences between contending However, adjectives like ‘imaginary,’ ‘chimerical,’ factions. [11] Such interpretations are not ‘incomplete,’ or ‘disenchanted’ abound in the titles necessarily incompatible, but they seem unable of many monographs on the political history of to provide an integrated view of the local political the region. Even if Latin American states belong traditions, their institutional basis, and the social to the earliest wave of constitutional polities meanings attached to them. that emerged from the Atlantic revolutions, the foundations of the new independent regimes Liberalism, Natural Law and Traditional took a long time to consolidate. When this Domination occurred, the outcome was often weak and unstable governments. The old metropolis did A lasting matter of discussion between what not fare much better, and during most of the we could call the ‘Franco/American’ and the 19th century, insurrectional juntas and military ‘Hispanicist’ paradigms for the interpretation pronunciamientos were the order of the day. [8] of the Spanish-American revolutions was the However, an explanation is still needed for the perceptible affinity between some political recurrent and ritual invocation of liberal ideas notions expressed in the early constitutions in this context. Liberalism not only legitimized and Catholic natural law. This should be a the termination of the colonial bond but also surprise to no one, given that liberalism draws flanked subsequent attempts to establish its normative sources from natural law theories national institutions in the region and made and their political-theological background. The a stormy return at the end of the 20th century categories of natural law are nevertheless far under an economic, ‘neoliberal’ guise. Liberal from constituting a homogeneous body. Catholic ideas were not a mere ideological transplant in and Protestant legal theorists defined individual the region. Alongside the obvious imports from rights, sovereign authority, and the constitution the European Enlightenment and the American of society in recognisably different manners. The and French Revolutions, they emerged from a connections between natural law (a legitimation specific Ibero-American debate. [9] For a long of ‘traditional domination’), the contractual roots time, however, Latin American historiography of liberalism (an ideology about the political remained confined between the narrow limits and property rights of the individual) and drawn by the hagiographic tone of the historias patrimonialism cannot be understood without patrias, which conceived of the independence considering the background of feudalism and ideology as a ‘continuation’ of the French and the rise of absolute monarchy. American Revolutions, and a ‘hispanicist’ European feudalism can be formally described alternative associated with conservative as a network of transactional obligations within positions. In fact, the conventional literature on which the status of the King in relation to the the age of revolutions did not recognize such a nobles was little more than primus inter pares continuity, [10] whereas both perspectives are (the first among peers). Within this context, seen nowadays as being out of tune with reality. It natural law emerged as a body of legal norms is generally accepted now that the European and that attempted to settle feudal disputes and Spanish references are not mutually exclusive. to organise the different layers of authority. In forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 75-87 79

order to reaffirm the power of the monarch as conspicuously contrasts with the equivalent a right of its own, natural law theories codified task attributed to the market by the Scottish royal sovereignty as a contractual system. Enlightenment and its “commercial humanism” Early modern Europe became the first region (Pocock). Even today, German Ordoliberalismus, in the world with a pattern of political relations unlike Anglo-Saxon neoliberalism, emphasizes based on the legal control of sovereign power the juridical and political responsibility of the and on individual statutory rights. Constitutional state for ensuring an adequate environment for rule was nevertheless the contingent result of economic competition. a combination of elements, like the balance of The history of liberal ideas in the Iberian world powers between aristocracy and the Crown, is somewhat different. Spanish absolutism did the decentralisation of military structures, and not emerge from the suppression of internal the resilience of commoners’ rights (Downing). religious wars, but from territorial expansion, Institutions like parliaments and charters draw first in the Peninsula and then in America. The their original roots from the contractual customs repression and ultimate expulsion of religious of an evanescent feudal world in tension with the dissenters spared the Spanish sovereigns many emerging absolutist practices. The way in which of the obstacles that hampered the full assertion these strains were resolved gave the different of royal authority in other kingdoms. For liberal traditions their particular brand. centuries, scholasticism provided the framework English liberalism, the first to mark the for the moral and political self-interpretation of historical path, emerged from the reaction of Iberian society. [13] The extemporaneous resort the gentry and its political allies against the of Spanish political thought in the 16th century prerogatives of the Crown. Texts like those to Thomism (which is a medieval reformulation written by John Locke basically depicted what of Aristotelian philosophy) has been attributed to political practice had established in England after the particular situation of the country (Morse, El the civil war in the mid-17th century. The English Espejo de Próspero). After the crisis of medieval liberal matrix, permeated as it was by Protestant universalism, the emerging Spanish monarchy individualist values, viewed private property needed to conciliate the political rationale of as a safeguard for civic autonomy and as the absolutism with a new ecumenical order that expression of social competence. [12] In France, could incorporate the native peoples of the the materialization of liberty as civil equality and New World into Catholic civilisation. Natural law popular sovereignty was mainly the result of a provided a propitious template for this task. The cultural process. Even if French theories on the idea of the ‘common good’, as systematized by popular origin of political authority can be dated Thomas Aquinas and later developed by Iberian back to the late 16th century, it was the rationalism scholasticism, played a pivotal role. For Aquinas of the Enlightenment that prepared the path for there are different types of laws (human, natural the Rights of Men and the Revolution. German and divine), all of them accessible to human liberalism was somehow belated in comparison reason. Whereas natural law, which allows us to its English and French counterparts, due to a to discern good from evil, is available to man large extent to the tardy unification of the country. through natural reason, human law is “nothing The theory of the Rechtsstaat, as established in more than an ordinance of reason for the Kantian and Hegelian legal philosophy, offered common good, made by him who has care of the a juridical approach to political legitimacy. The community” (Aquinas art. 4). This is a normative formal generality of the law was seen as a self-description of patrimonial authority. To bulwark against arbitrary rule, whereas the put it in Weberian terms, legal rationality has ethical responsibility of the state as agent of civil for Aquinas a material purpose, for the law peace was brought to the fore. For Max Weber must be addressed to the common good, but too the rationality of the law, both in procedural it also exudes a patrimonial character, since and substantial matters, was the benchmark it is entrusted to the ruler of the community. of the legal-rational type of domination (Weber The normative affinity of monarchical power to 656-7). This aspect of German liberal theory patriarchal authority is even more obvious in the 80 F. Colom: Patrimonial Liberalism

work of Jean Bodin and Robert Filmer, the earliest that can be reversed if the sovereign betrays theorists of absolutism, who portrayed the just his natural function. In Catholic legal philosophy, administration of the household as a model for then, political authority serves a clear purpose: the governance of the polity by the sovereign. the preservation of the common good, [14] Spanish legal philosophers like Francisco understood as the harmony of society with a Suárez, Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, natural moral order. Scholars and public officials or Luis de Molina assumed the Aristotelian/ in the Iberian world were usually trained in this Thomistic view of society as an organic hierarchy. legal tradition. It is no surprise that modern liberal Within this architectonic worldview, political tracts were often read and interpreted within this authority does not emanate from naked force or template. This social imaginary can be clearly arbitrary rule, but from its natural position in the recognized during the political crisis created hierarchical order of society. Similarly, subjective by the forced abdication of the King in 1810 rights are not conceived as immanent to human under Napoleon’s pressure, when the American beings; they depend on a substantive moral juntas and cabildos claimed the reversion of order that transcends them. This is the ultimate sovereignty to them (Colom González, “El trono origin of the Catholic political tenet, according to vacío”). Similarly, Betham’s utilitarian philosophy, which unjust law cannot arouse obedience and whose introduction in Colombia was promoted dissolves the moral bond of the community. This very early by the libertador Francisco de Paula view had practical consequences, since for the Santander, was taught under the traditional political theory of the Spanish Golden Age, pattern of natural law, with the idea of ‘maximum utility’ swiftly transformed into the scholastic “The legal order is not the result of a notion of the ‘common good’. [15] decision or a rule […]. Rules and decisions do not create order. It is within a given, pre- Patrimonial Liberalism established order that their ruling function is ascribed to them […]. Social structure Liberal institutions in Latin America had to derives from natural law, and without it adapt to the difficult circumstances under which society cannot achieve its ends.” (Maravall the national states were built. The normative 124-5, my translation) expectations aroused by the independence movements lay far ahead of the institutional Spanish Thomism rejected the Calvinist capacity of the new regimes, whose social principle that made political authority dependent structures were still substantially the same as on the will of God. Even if the ultimate source of in the colonial period. Between 1810 and 1850, authority was to be found in divine law, sociability more than sixty constitutions were proclaimed was conceived as a natural attribute of human in the new republics. Several of the attempted beings, not as a heavenly grace. It is society polities crumbled, like Grand Colombia and the as a whole, not the isolated individuals, which Central American Union. Military uprisings and possesses the attributes for life in common the ousting of governments followed one another. through a ‘pact of association’. The common This turmoil reflected the inability of the new good, however, refers to something qualitatively regimes to establish a legitimate and functioning different, if not quite opposite, to the numerical political order. Insurgent actions often echoed addition of individual interests. According to the territorial tensions and were inspired by an doctrine established by Francisco Suárez, God oligarchic spirit that had been present from the did not bestow political authority directly on the very inception of the independence movements. sovereign but through the intermediation of The juntas that originally repealed the Crown’s civil society. The legitimacy of political authority officials in 1810 were mostly composed of the originates in the natural capacity that human landed and commercial groups of colonial beings have to associate and make laws. This society. In Bolívar’s famous speech in Angostura primordial capacity was conferred to the ruler in 1819, in which he made public his plans for by the community as a ‘pact of subordination’ an independent republic in Venezuela, the forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 75-87 81

new political arrangement included a life-term individual could proclaim it. The instigator presidency, an indirect representative system, of a political uprising did not have to try to and a hereditary senate. This was a more convince. It sufficed with ‘pronouncing’ his participatory model than the one the coastal opinion, as a prophecy that would shine in planters who first seized power in Caracas all its truth”. (Díez del Corral 481) [17] had attempted in 1811. The first Venezuelan constitution, while admitting the natives and the Bolívar himself reproduced this normative pardos (mixed-race subjects of African ancestry) intuition. His political language, emblazoned into citizenship, clearly biased the possibilities with the rhetoric of classical republicanism, of political influence in favour of the landed expressed an idea of liberty that was closer to gentry. This model offered a sharp contrast to that of the ancient republics than to modern the Mexican constitution of Apatzingán (1814), complex societies. For him, the new patrias, which removed caste distinctions and envisaged in order to fulfil their emancipating duty, had the incorporation of all male adults into the body to be created ex nihilo, breaking with the past politic. and leaning exclusively on the civic virtue of Among the ‘founding fathers’ of the new individuals. Much like the Jacobins during the republics, it was commonly believed that Terreur, Bolívar attributed the failure of the new the constitutions were responsible for the republics to the corrupting effect of the colonial happiness of the peoples. Good laws created legacy. Under such circumstances, a too liberal fair institutions, and these in turn could elevate legislation could only create repúblicas aéreas, the moral and political standards of society. political bodies with no substantial hold. The Military charisma, as expressed in caudillo rule, only alternative was to instil the principles of incarnated the desire of conveying a common freedom under the supervision of a ‘paternal purpose to the nation. This is why leaders like government’, but for him personally it was too Santa Anna in Mexico described their access late. By the end of his life he bitterly confessed to power as a personal sacrifice for the sake to General Flores in Ecuador that serving a of the country (Lomnitz-Adler 289ff). This type revolution was like ploughing the seas, and of vision overlooked the internal conditions declared Spanish America to be ungovernable, of society as a key element to its governance on the verge of falling “into the hands of the and relied instead on the effects of applying an unrestrained multitudes, and then into the hands external normative pattern to it –a “constitutive of tyrants of all races and colors” (Bolívar 146). outside,” to put it in Derrida’s terms. [16] Formal In Spain, the continued political function systems of neutral and legally enforceable rules of the Crown during most of the 19th century that could foster political compromise between made a difference with its former colonies. In opposing views and interests –the Weberian this case, the problem derived from the need type of legal-rational domination– were generally to fabricate parliamentary majorities that were ignored. This was not too far from the worldview favourable to the executive branch, whose head of traditional iusnaturalism, which conceived was appointed by the King. In 1833, upon the political integration in terms of a substantive death of Ferdinand VII –the felon King who had moral order to which society should conform. first nominally accepted and then betrayed the Luis Díez del Corral, in his classic description of first constitutional regime– his widow María 19th century Spanish liberalism, maintained that Cristina de Borbón was appointed regent. She became the legal guardian of her underage “The state, for an extreme liberal, could daughter Isabella II, whose dynastic rights not consist of a combination of concrete were challenged by her uncle Don Carlos, the or historical elements, but of the straight brother of the deceased King supported by the and immediate realization of an absolute absolutist, soon to be named Carlist, party. This logos. A logos which, for its absolute legitimist opposition would stay at the margins of character, did not need social channels the institutional system for most of the century, or the expression of support. A single a period during which it instigated two major 82 F. Colom: Patrimonial Liberalism

civil wars. On the other hand, the Regency order became illegitimate and could be resisted. established an alliance with the heads of the This was the normative logic running deep moderate liberal party, whose members were under the recurrent political uprisings. The mostly in exile, but it excluded the exalted or pronunciamientos somehow reproduced the progressive Liberals from the political circuit. contractual basis upon which the new liberal This left the Progressives with the sole recourse order was imagined. Antonio Annino has shown of insurrection, with the occasional support of how during most of the 19th century the Mexican the army, in order to press the Crown to bring pueblos felt free to break their subordination their faction into government. Once in power, to the national governments whenever they the conditions for legitimizing a de facto situation saw fit. This view was fully coherent with the were easily at hand. This scheme counted on doctrine of Catholic natural law on intermediate the preventive reaction of the Crown, which ‘moral bodies’, which saw the municipalities as anticipated every insurrectional assault on naturally self-sufficient communities that unite in power by bestowing its confidence on the order to create a larger body politic. From this successful rebellious faction. With the calling perspective, of new elections and the fabrication of an ad hoc parliamentary majority, the constitutional “The act of constituting the nation is not the system was reinstated, thus initiating a new sovereign act of a constituent assembly. cycle that in the long term tended to re-establish The nation already exists in its natural the hegemony of Moderate governments state and expresses itself through other (Artola). This pattern repeated itself with little representative bodies, whose reciprocal variation for over forty years, during which time contract predates the constitutional norm, and imposes an imperative mandate upon it included a short-lived dynastical change and the constituents by means of the plan a failed republican experiment. The Restoration [insurrectional program]”. (Annino 80, my of the Bourbon dynasty in 1874 inaugurated a translation). rotational spoils system by which the Liberals and the Conservatives, after a ritual of pre-arranged The dependence of the new constitutional elections, peacefully took turns in government, arrangements on the corporative imagination bringing their clients to public office. of traditional society may explain why political The first century of Ibero-American liberalism uprisings enjoyed such a high degree of thus reveals a general blockade of the formal legitimacy and were accompanied by an mechanisms for political succession. Rather than elaborate ritualization. A pronunciamiento a system of rules for open political competition, typically denounced the existing state of affairs, what we usually find are extra-institutional publicly declared the commitment with a new modes of mobilization and informal agreements political project, and invited the citizenry to between the contending groups for the sharing join the initiative, which generally aimed at of political power. Behind this patrimonial the ‘reconstitution’ of the nation. Economic pattern, it is possible to recognize the rationale decline and political turmoil prevented the of a patronage system that prolonged some creation of a professional civil service and traditional practices. Violent political change stable state institutions, which in turn stimulated and ad hoc legal rearrangements could be the proliferation of political machines, extra- seen as legitimate from the perspective of the institutional negotiations, and spoils systems. political and intellectual tradition in which Iberian The role of elections within this scheme was to liberalism was ingrained. Society was perceived give public sanction to the pacts reached behind as serving a collective purpose and as being the scenes between the different elite groups, something more than a mere aggregation of which exacerbated the old colonial syndrome its individual components pursuing their private of empleomanía (the drive for public jobs by interests in the market; its internal structure had political means). [18] Successful electoral bosses to correspond to certain principles of justice. In or caciques were able to organize extensive the absence of such conditions, the established forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 75-87 83

patronage networks through the dispensation supported in Spain the instauration of a Royal of favours and benefits in a process that Charter –a limited, mixed form of constitutional mixed the private and the public spheres. [19] government– by the Regency after the death of Voting was usually mobilized through clientelist Ferdinand VII. In 1843, the Spanish government networks or controlled by outright manipulation. sponsored the study tour of Julián Sanz del Río, Personal and territorial rivalries usually weighed a university professor, to Germany, with the more than doctrinal antagonism. Ideological purpose of importing a new public philosophy borders were porous and political actors often that better suited the political needs of the interchangeable. Violence was a constitutive nation. The long-term outcome of this initiative part of the whole process. As Hilda Sabato has was somewhat ironic, for it resulted in the described it, introduction of Krausism, a philosophical system developed by Karl Christian Krause, an obscure “The exercise of violence was seen as disciple of Hegel scarcely known in the rest of something legitimate not only against an Europe. In Spain, however, Krausism became a external enemy, but also internally […] civic pedagogy and a decisive instrument for the when it was considered that the central ideological revamping of liberal elites. It ultimately government violated the Constitution or helped establish, against the fierce opposition the premises upon which its legitimacy of the Catholic Church, the foundations for the was based […] The participation in these renovation of the educational system during the types of actions involved large portions of Second Republic (1931-1939). In Latin America, the population, often substantially larger on the contrary, the desire to do away with than those that took part in the elections”. (Sabato 25) [20] cultural remnants of the colonial past moved the intellectual elites to adopt positivism as an official This type of reaction replicated similar philosophy, a step that supplied them well into situations in the colonial times. The usual tactic the 20th century with an ideological frame to deal involved rebelling against the ‘bad government’ in with concerns about the modernization of their the name of the King. When Indian peasants I the countries. Not surprisingly, Mexican positivistic villages considered the King’s officials abettors of liberalism soon developed a patrimonialist tang, infringements of natural law and custom, “in their when the científicos –a political clique inspired eyes they became fair targets of action to restore by positivistic ideas– became the technocratic Díaz’ justice, including violence” (Guardino 26). As a support of Porfírio s long and allegedly collateral reaction, beleaguered governments in modernizing dictatorship. the republican period systematically resorted to The regimes that emerged from the emergency powers that were constitutionally ill- revolutionary cycle of independence in Latin defined, thereby placing the political agency of America have sometimes been characterized the state outside the law (Aguilar Rivera 43ff). as ‘constitutional oligarchies.’ In this respect, [21] they were not really different from the type of representative government first established Conclusions in the United States, France, or England. Moreover, by 1847, just before the revolutionary With time, the liberal ideology of Iberian wave that shook the foundations of the societies from both sides of the Atlantic assumed European Restoration, suffrage in Mexico and different itineraries. The old scholasticism was El Salvador, for instance, was more widespread commonly perceived as a cultural burden that than in the United States and most European needed to be substituted in order to instil new countries (Przeworski 296). On the whole, airs in society. In Argentina, Juan Bautista liberal ideas in the region helped to establish Alberdi introduced the type of ‘doctrinarian volatile constitutional regimes, declared a liberalism’ that prevailed in France during the variable range of civil and political rights, and Bourbon Restoration, the same ideology that advanced representative forms of government. At a deeper level, though, political practices 84 F. Colom: Patrimonial Liberalism

retained many of the patrimonial features of the or charismatic aura that surrounded equivalent old traditional society. Appealing to the common mobilizations in traditional societies. In spite of good of the nation as a reason to delegitimize this, Weber’s typology keeps offering a fertile and overthrow an extant government, or seeking hermeneutic framework for social analysis. It is social harmony through norms sanctioned by a up to us to adapt it to the changing nature of substantive moral order, were practices that contemporary societies. were coherently ingrained in a worldview that had been hegemonic for several centuries. Endnotes These types of practices extended to the 20th century, when urbanization, industrialization, [1] For a typical example of this culturalist view, see Wiarda 1974. and the upsurge of mass politics substantially changed Latin American societies. Here I have [2] See also Breuer 2006, p. 80-91. tried to explain how this normative universe [3] Max Weber’s writings were made available to the endorsed the legitimacy of patrimonial practices Spanish-speaking public relatively early, thanks mainly during the early period of state formation, but I to their precocious translation by a group of Spanish republican exiles in Mexico. The first (partial) translation have not implied a reduction of the phenomenon of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft into Spanish was published to a cultural cause. Patrimonialism should not be in Mexico by Fondo de Cultura Económica in 1944, three understood as a fixed cultural trait, but there is years before the also incomplete English translation by certainly a cultural side to it, since it refers to the Talcott Parsons. On this topic, see Álvaro Morcillo Laiz 2011. It took, however, several decades to engage the meanings of social action. There are also social, Weberian apparatus for the interpretation of Latin American economic, and political reasons involved. Weak society. See, for instance, Sarfatti 1966; Zabludovsky 1989; governments were often constrained to bargain Pietschmann 1982. with or were captured by powerful groups and [4] See Semo 1993. local elites. With the turn of the century, the [5] On the sale of public office, see Burkholder and Chandler consolidation of large export economies and the 1972. Claudio Véliz (1980) has observed that centralist arrival of foreign capital allowed governments rule falls under the rational type of domination, whereas in the region to increase their fiscal base, and lineage, heritage and personalism typically are features of with it their institutional sustainability and military patrimonial rule; see his The Centralist Tradition in Latin America, p. 7. muscle. However, some patrimonial features were reproduced by the new populist regimes [6] See Colom González 2016. that appeared in the subsequent decades. [7] See Jaksić and Posada Carbó (eds.) 2011; Peloso and The established idea that patrimonialism is Tenenbaum (eds.) 1996. confined to traditional or developing societies is [8] See Escalante Gozalbo 1992; Aguilar Rivera 2000; being increasingly challenged. Patrimonialism is Posada-Carbó 2006; Múnera 2011; and Rojas 2009. related, on the one hand, to weak state institutions [9] There is a vast and recent bibliography on the topic, and to different forms of patronage and personal mostly in Spanish and centered on the Cadiz Constitution rulership, but on the other hand elite conflict as a pivotal reference. See, for instance, Guerra 1992; Cruz within capitalist, bureaucratic societies can also et al. 1993; Portillo et al. 2006; Breña 2006; Colomer Viadel (ed.) 2011; Varela Suanzes-Carpegna 2011; Fernández generate patrimonialism. [22] Bureaucracies Sarasola 2011; and Gullón Abao and Gutiérrez Escudero are the battleground for interest groups and (eds.) 2012. organizations trying to capture or influence public [10] See, for instance, the classical work by Palmer 1959: investments and state regulatory functions. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History Social and political capital is transmitted through of Europe and America, 1760- 1800. Its time span is so family contacts and informal networks in modern designed as to exclude the Latin American and Iberian revolutions. pluralistic democracies. In a similar vein, new powerful forms of nationalism and populism – [11] See Safford 1992; and Hale 1973. mostly hybrid variations of them indeed– have [12] This normative core, which has attracted much appeared in recent years at the core of the of the Marxist critique of liberalism, was famously developed countries. The irrational legitimacy of formulated by Macpherson 1962: The Political Theory these movements has little to do with the magic of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 75-87 85

[13] Richard M. Morse, for instance, saw the ‘Thomistic procesos de emancipación de América, 1808- synthesis’ between social order and the common good as 1824: una revisión historiográfica del liberalismo the core of traditional Iberian ideology. See Morse 1954; hispánico. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006. and Morse 1982. Breuer, Stefan. “Patrimonialismus.“ Max Webers tragische [14] See Filmer 1991 [1680], edited by Johann P. Soziologie. Aspekte und Perspektiven. Mohr- Sommerville; Bodin 1992 [1576], edited and translated by Siebeck, 2006, pp. 80-91. J. H. Franklin. Burkholder, Mark A., and Donald S. Chandler. “Creole Appointments and the sale of Audiencia Positions [15] See de Mora 1825: Catecismo de Economía Política in the Spanish Empire under the early Bourbons,” (Londres: Ackermann). Journal of Latin American Studies, no. 4, 1972, pp. 187-206. [16] See Derrida 1988. Castells, Irene. “José María Torrijos. Conspirador [17] My translation. A pronunciamiento was the usual term romántico.” Liberales, agitadores y conspiradores. to refer to a not necessarily violent military rebellion in the Coordinated by Isabel Burdiel and Manuel Pérez Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries during the Ledesma, Espasa Calpe, 2000, pp. 73-98. 19th century. It consisted “in organizing the moment in which a military high rank, together with a group of patriots, Centeno, Miguel Angel and Agustín Ferraro. State would rebel in any part of the country and read a manifesto and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain: in favour of the Constitution. To their eyes, this gesture Republics of the Possible. Cambridge UP, 2014. sufficed for igniting, like a trail of powder, the uprising Colom González, Francisco. “Un nomos urbano: la ciudad of all the liberal focus ready for it. National insurrection en la tradición política hispanoamericana.” Forma y would follow as a natural consequence of this public política de lo urbano. La ciudad como idea, espacio announcement” (Castells 81, my translation). y representación. UNAL-Planeta Colombiana, 2016, pp. 121-155. [18] See de Mora 1827. ---.“El trono vacío. La imaginación política y la crisis [19] For an illustrative comparison of patronage practices in constitucional de la Monarquía Hispánica.” Relatos nineteenth-century Spain and Argentina, see Herrera and de nación. La construcción de las identidades Ferraro 2013. nacionales en el mundo hispánico. Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2005, pp. 23-50. [20] For a reconstruction of the social dynamics that accompanied the electoral processes in Bolivia, see Colomer Viadel, Antonio, editor. Las Cortes de Cádiz, Irurozqui Victoriano 2000. la Constitución de 1812 y las independencias nacionales en América. U Politécnica de Valencia, [21] As Diego Portales bluntly confessed in Chile, ‘that lady 2011. that they call the Constitution has to be violated whenever the circumstances are extreme’. Letter to Antonio Garfias, Cruz, Pedro, et al. Los orígenes del constitucionalismo December 6th, 1834. liberal en España e Iberoamérica. Junta de Andalucía, 1993. [22] See Lachmann 2011. Derrida, Jacques. Limited, Inc. Translated by Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehlman, North-Western UP, 1988. Works cited Díez del Corral, Luis. El liberalismo doctrinario. Instituto de Estudios Políticos, 1945. Aguilar Rivera, Antonio. En pos de la quimera: reflexiones sobre el experimento constitucional atlántico. Fondo Downing, Brian M.. “Medieval Origins of Constitutional de Cultura Económica, 2000. Government in the West.” Theory and Society, vol.18, no.2, 1989, pp. 213-247. Aquinas, Thomas. “First Part of 2nd Part, Teatrise on Law, Question 90, Art.4.” The Summa Theologica of St. Escalante Gozalbo, Fernando. Ciudadanos imaginarios. Thomas Aquinas. Burns Oates & Washbourne, Memorial de afanes y desventuras de la virtud 1912.. y apología del vicio triunfante en la República Mexicana. El Colegio de México, 1992. Artola, Miguel. Historia de España: la burguesía revolucionaria (1808-1869). Alfaguara, 1973. Fernández Sarasola, Ignacio. La constitución de Cádiz: origen, contenido y proyección internacional. Bodin, Jean. On sovereignty: four chapters from The Six Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, Books of the Commonwealth. 1576. Edited and 2011. translated by Julian H. Franklin, Cambridge UP, 1992. Filmer, Robert. Patriarcha and other writings. 1680. Edited by Johann P. Sommerville, Cambridge UP, 1991. Bolívar, Simón. “Letter to General Flores (1830).” El Libertador. Writings of Simón Bolívar. Translated by Guardino, Peter F.. Peasants, Politics, and the Formation Frederick H. Fornoff, Oxford UP, 2003. of Mexico’s National State: Gerrero 1800-1857. Stanford UP, 1996. Breña, Roberto. El primer liberalismo español y los 86 F. Colom: Patrimonial Liberalism

Guerra, François-Xavier. Modernidad e independencias. Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1, 1960, pp. 47-65. Ensayos sobre las revoluciones hispánicas. Fondo de Cultura Económica – Mapfre, 1992. Pietschmann, Horst. “Burocracia y corrupción en Hispanoamérica colonial.” Nova Americana, no. 5, Gullón Abao, Alberto, and Antonio Gutiérrez Escudero, 1982, pp. 9-37. editors. La Constitución gaditana de 1812 y sus repercusiones en América. U de Cádiz, 2012. Pocock, John Greville Agard. Virtue, Commerce and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Hale, Charles. “The Reconstruction of nineteenth-century Chiefly in the eighteenth Century. Cambridge UP, Politics in Spanish America: A Case for the History 1988. of Ideas.” Latin American Research Review, vol. 8, no. 2, 1973, pp. 53-73. Pollack, Aaron. “Hacia una historia social del tributo de indios y castas en Hispanoamérica. Notas en torno Irurozqui Victoriano, Marta. ‘A bala, piedra y palo’: la a su creación, desarrollo y abolición.” Historia construcción de la ciudadanía política en Bolivia, Mexicana, vol. 66, no. 1, 2016, pp. 65-160. 1826-1952. Diputación de Sevilla, 2000. Portillo, José María, et al. “El primer constitucionalismo Jaksić, Iván, and Eduardo Posada Carbó, editors. hispanoamericano.” U del País Vasco, 2006. Liberalismo y poder. Latinoamérica en el siglo XIX. Fondo de Cultura Económica Chile, 2011. Posada-Carbó, Eduardo. La nación soñada: violencia, liberalismo y democracia en Colombia. Norma, Lachmann, Richard. “American Patrimonialism: The Return 2006. of the Repressed.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 636. Przeworski, Adam. “Conquered or Granted? A History of Patrimonial Power in the Modern World, July 2011, Suffrage Extensions.” British Journal of Political pp. 204-230. Science, vol. 39, no. 2, 2009, pp. 291-321. Lomnitz-Adler, Claudio. Exits from the Labyrinth. Culture Rojas, Rafael. Las repúblicas del aire: utopía y desencanto and Ideology in the Mexican National Space. U of en la revolución hispanoamericana. Santillana, California P, 1992. 2009. Macpherson, Crawford B. The Political Theory of Safford, Frank. “The Problem of Political Order in Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford early Republican Spanish America.” Journal of UP, 1962. Latin American Studies, vol.24 (Quincentenary Supplement), 1992, pp. 83-97. Maravall, José Antonio. Teoría del Estado en España en el siglo XVII. Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, Sarfatti, Magali. Spanish Bureaucratic-Patrimonialism in 1997. America. Institute of International Studies – U of California, 1996. Mora, José Joaquín de. Catecismo de Economía Política. Ackermann, 1825. Schwartzman, Simon. “Back to Weber: Corporatism and Patrimonialism in the Seventies.” Authoritarianism Mora, José María Luis de. “Discurso sobre los perniciosos and Corporatism in Latin America, edited by James efectos de la empleomanía”. El Observador, México, M. Malloy, U of Pittsburgh P, 1977, pp. 89-106. 21 de septiembre, 1827. Obras sueltas. Librería de Semo, Enrique. Rosa, 1837. The History of Capitalism in Mexico: the Origins 1521-1763. U of Texas P, 1993. Morcillo, Laiz, Álvaro. “Un vocabulario para la modernidad: Economía y Sociedad de Max Weber (1944) y la Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, Joaquín. La teoría del sociología en español.” Documentos de Trabajo del Estado en las Cortes de Cádiz: orígenes del CIDE, No. 224, 2011. constitucionalismo hispánico. 2nd ed., Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 2011. Morse, Richard M. “Towards a Theory of Spanish American Government.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. Véliz, Claudio. The Centralist Tradition in Latin America. 15, no. 1, 1954, pp. 71-93. Princeton UP, 1980. Villanueva, Joaquín Lorenzo. Las angélicas fuentes o el ---. El espejo de Próspero. Siglo XXI, 1982. tomista en las Cortes. Imprenta de D. Diego García Múnera, Alfonso. Tiempos difíciles. La república del XIX: Campoy, 1811. una ciudadanía incompleta. Pluma de Mompox, Weber, Max. Economy and Society. Edited by Guenther 2011. Roth and Claus Wittich, U of California P, 1978. Palmer, Robert R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: Wiarda, Howard J.. Politics and Social Change in Latin A Political History of Europe and America, 1760- America: the distinct Tradition. U of Massachusetts 1800. Princeton UP, 1959. P, 1974. Peloso, Vincent C., and Barbara A. Tenenbaum, editors. von Haller, Karl Ludwig. Restauration der Staats- Liberals, Politics and Power. State Formation in Wissenschaft. In der Steinerischen Buchhandlung, Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Georgia UP, 1825. 1996. Zabludovsky, Gina. “The Reception and Utility of Max Phelan, John L. “Authority and Flexibility in the Spanish Weber’s Concept of Patrimonialism in Latin Imperial Bureaucracy.” Administrative Science forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 75-87 87

America.” International Sociology, vol.4, no.1, 1989, pp. 51-66.

Author’s biography

Francisco Colom González is Research Professor of the Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid. His work has mainly dealt with the normative relations between culture, political identity and social change. More recently, his research interests have turned towards the study of political spaces and urban theory. His last books are Tristes patrias. Más allá del patriotismo y el cosmopolitismo (2019) and (ed.) Narrar las ciudades. El espacio urbano a través de los textos (2020). Book Review forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 13.3 (Dec. 2020) 88-91 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research

The Persian Whitman: Beyond a Literary Reception, by Behnam M. Fomeshi,Leiden University Press, 2019.(Book Review)

Mostafa Abedinifard (Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia)

Behnam M. Fomeshi’s The Persian Whitman: filled with laudatory statements on Whitman’s Beyond a Literary Reception is a welcome “democracy,” whereas I think readers would have contribution to the fields of comparative literature benefited from a more nuanced perspective on as well as Persian and American literary studies. Whitman’s vision of democracy. For instance, Using a new historicist methodology, and according to Fomeshi, Whitman drawing on theories and concepts from several disciplines, Fomeshi delves into the cultural and believed in democracy not just as a sociopolitical contexts around the reception of political phenomenon but also a cultural Walt Whitman in Iran to show that the reception one. He overlooked any hierarchies and –be it translational, critical, or creative– has been social boundaries; that led to the inclusion more than “literary.” While impacting literary of all Americans regardless of sex, colour, modernism in Iran, particularly by contributing ethnicity and social class. He created a to the emergence of New Poetry, Iranians’ little America in his poetry through covering all ethnic groups of his country. (32) reception of Whitman, Fomeshi argues, has also served sociopolitical and ideological purposes. Not all readers are so sure. Some attention Throughout the book, Fomeshi shows adequate to critical attitudes towards Whitman’s more mastery over both sides of his comparison and complicated “democracy,” as seen in previous over his primary and secondary sources, while and ongoing research on the poet’s views of also showcasing overall insightful instances of African and Native Americans, would have been socio-historically informed and contextualized helpful. As George Hutchinson and David Drews close readings. state, “Whitman’s attitudes to people of African The Persian Whitman, excluding the descent must be distinguished from his attitudes Introduction and Conclusion, comprises nine toward slavery” (567). They remind us, chapters. In the Introduction, Fomeshi provides an accessible overview of the emergence of Whitman has commonly been perceived American literature through translations in Iran. as one of the few white American writers He makes it clear that while arguing for the who transcended the racial attitudes of his influence the reception of Whitman has had on time, a great prophet celebrating ethnic and Persian literary modernism in Iran, he mainly racial diversity and embodying egalitarian aims to render “the Persian Whitman Iranians ideals. He has been adopted as a poetic construe and construct rather than the American father by poets of Native American, Asian, Whitman’s travel to Iran” (6). African, European, and Chicano descent. In Chapter 1, “Whitman’s Life and Works,” Nonetheless, the truth is that Whitman Fomeshi relies on numerous secondary in person largely, though confusedly and sources on Whitman to provide an accessible idiosyncratically, internalized typical white overview of his life and poetic career. Chapter racial attitudes of his time, place, and 2, “From Democratic Politics to Democratic class. (567) [1] Poetics,” celebrates Whitman’s political and cultural democracy, tracing it in his poetry and In Chapter 3, “Democracy and Nationalism sociopolitical views. The emergent “democracy” Intertwined,” after arguing for the intermingling in America during Whitman’s time, Fomeshi of American nationalism and American argues, encouraged the poet to create a new, democracy, Fomeshi argues for the existence “democratic” poetics and poetry. The chapter is of “literary democracy” in 19th-century American 90 M. Abedinifard: The Persian Whitman (Book Review)

nationalism, focusing on an extended discussion national(ist) literature. of chapters from Alexis de Tocqueville’s In Chapter 5, Fomeshi attends to the “Critical Democracy in America (1840). According to Reception of Whitman” in Iran, foregrounding Fomeshi, American nationalism –its defying and the first critical debate on the poet in Persian exiting the British rule– as well as America’s by the father of New Poetry in Iran, i.e., Nima yearning for democracy required a literary/ Yushij. Published in a music journal, Nima’s poetic counterpart, a “democratic national debate on Whitman was more intended to justify poetry,” which manifested in Whitman’s Leaves the necessity Nima saw for the emergence of a of Grass. In this chapter, too, Fomeshi could “modern poetic movement” (97) in Iran as well have avoided uncritically reproducing colonial as to respond to other Iranian poets and critics narratives of democracy and nationalism in who opposed Nima’s views on Persian poetry America by inserting alternative narratives or –rather than to introduce Whitman or American marginalized knowledges. ‘Whose nation and poetry to Iranians. In this chapter, too, Fomeshi whose democracy?’ one could ask. [2] advances a strong and readable argument. In Chapter 4, “A Persian Translation of Chapter 6, “Creative Reception of Whitman,” Whitman,” Fomeshi takes us to the Constitutional argues for Whitman’s having influenced Parvin era Iran, to historically contextualize the first Etesami (1907-1941) through the former’s Persian translation, by Yusof Etesami (1874- poem “A Noiseless Patient Spider.” Etesami’s 1938), of Whitman –an excerpt of a poem creative involvement with Whitman in her own which the translator titles “The Great City.” poem “God’s Weaver,” Fomeshi contends, Fomeshi masterfully places the translation resulted in the creation of a symbolic “spider” in within a discussion of the Iranian Constitutional Iranian poetry, also finding its way to fiction and Revolution and the role of Persian translations cinema. While this alleged influence is never from other (mainly European) languages actually proved by irrefutable evidence, some in advancing Iranian modernity. While the informed and plausible insinuations are offered reading of the previous chapters could tire as circumstantial evidence. Moreover, while some readers already familiar with the topic, Fomeshi introduces Whitman’s “spider” as one this chapter contains fascinating and shrewdly among many “new poetic characters” employed historicized close readings and comparisons by an Iranian literary figure to “modernise of Etesami’s translation of Whitman with the Persian poetry” (113), he does not discuss or original. Fomeshi compellingly shows how cite any other such “characters.” Whitman was first introduced to Iranians via In Chapter 7, “Political Reception of Whitman,” an ideologically charged translation. Through Fomeshi demonstrates that primarily through deliberate translational choices, he proves, a leftist Tudeh Party’s founder, Ehsan Tabari’s Etesami indigenized Whitman’s “individual” (1917-1989) writings on, and translations on, poem, re-writing it as one that spoke to Nima and Whitman, the leftist movement in collective, “nation-building” purposes in Iran. Iran not only connected both poets but also In Etesami’s translated/re-written version, “The played an important role in orienting Iranians’ Great City” promoted the “democratic ideas of interpretations of both Whitman and of (Nima’s) human rights, freedom and equality, hygiene New Poetry in Iran. Missing in this chapter is a and healthy citizens” (87-88). Fomeshi then more analytical discussion of the relationship shows how later, in 1940s, when reprinted under between Tabari and Nima, which, as Nima’s Reza Shah, Etesami’s translation of “The Great lengthy response letter to Tabari (only partially City” would serve a different purpose, i.e., that discussed by Fomeshi) suggests, may not of “lament[ing] the loss of the city’s history, have been as smooth as Fomeshi claims. [3] memory and sense of identity” (88) due to the Moreover, while Fomeshi concludes that among Shah’s modernization project. In advancing the other things, Tabarī’s connection with Nima argument in thic and the next chapters, Fomeshi “resulted in the leftist revolutionary reading of illustrates how “world literature” is sometimes the two modernist poets in Modern Iran in the ironically chosen to be received, and serve, as decades to come” (130), this remains only an forum for inter-american research Vol. 13.3 (Nov. 2020) 88-91 91

unwarranted conclusion in the chapter. rewarding– way to study literature. Indeed, Chapter 8, “A Persian Translation of Whitman’s in the face of a dangerously increasing, de- Image,” jumps forward in time to scrutinize historicized, text-and-only-text-based cultural Whitman’s “image,” both literal and figurative, and literary analyses among many Iran-based in contemporary Iran. Closely reading and critics, Fomeshi’s monograph offers an excellent contextualizing the front cover images of two model of historically contextualized readings of Persian book translations of Whitman’s poetry, texts –readings of which one desires to see more Fomeshi demonstrates that the translators particularly in Iranian/Persian literary studies. portray him as a mystical poet –a simultaneously bodied and disembodied wise poet-prophet. Endnotes Fomeshi’s argument could have been further refined, as an unresolved tension remains in the [1] For another critical, yet balanced, view of Whitman’s racial attitudes, see Porter. reasons found in his chapter for the translators’ said depiction of Whitman: post-1979 Revolution [2] For recent critical engagements with Whitman by black cultural policies (e.g., Islamic Republic’s scholars and poets, including debates that problematize Whitman’s conception of democracy, see Wilson. censorship apparatus as well as its tendency to politically neutralize potentially dissentious [3] For a reprinted version of the letter, online, see Amirsj literary voices) on the one hand, and an alleged Hakimi’s “Do-L” blog entry of April 26th, 2010. post-2009 tendency towards mysticism in Iran on the other. Works Cited Finally, Chapter 9, “A Post-2009 Reception of Whitman,” argues that in contemporary Iran, Folsom, Ed. “Native Americans (Indians).” The Routledge Whitman has been used as a safe haven to write Encyclopedia of Walt Whitman, edited by J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, 1st ed., back to the Islamic Republic’s oppressive acts Routledge, 1998, pp. 449–51. and policies. In doing so, Whitman is deployed Hakimi, Amirsj. Do-L. Blog, 26 Apr. 2010, Web. Accessed as a catalyst within an intertwined ideological 10 Jun. 2020. endeavor by Iranian authors, translators, and/ Hutchinson, George, and David Drews. “Racial or publishers, in order to voice the unspeakable. Attitudes.” The Routledge Encyclopedia of Walt A main aim of Fomeshi’s in this chapter is to Whitman, edited by J.R. LeMaster and Donald demonstrate that “[c]ontemporary Iran is not a D. Kummings, 1st ed., Routledge, 1998, pp. 567– 70. monolithic, univocal, homogeneous theocracy as often depicted in the Western media. Although Porter, Lavelle. “Should Walt Whitman Be #Cancelled? Black America Talks Back to ‘The Good Gray Poet’ many discourses are being suppressed in the at 200.” JSTOR Daily, 17 Apr. 2019, Web. Accessed country particularly in the post-1979 period, it 10 Jun. 2020. still provides a plurivocal site of opposing voices” Wilson, Ivy, ed. Whitman Noir: Black America and the Good (159). Gray Poet. U of Iowa P, 2014. Many a time while reading the book, I thought it could have enjoyed a more thorough copy Author’s biography editing at the structural level, as it contains numerous unnecessary repetitions of ideas in Mostafa Abedinifard is an assistant Professor most chapters. Also, as previously mentioned, I of Persian Literary Culture and Civilization. He wish Fomeshi had been attentive to decolonial is a literary and cultural critic and historian, with perspectives on modernity, particularly because a special focus on Persian literature and the he wishes more and more Iranians to welcome Iranian culture and cinema, within his broader Whitman as a harbinger of “democracy” (171). interests in comparative and world literature. Overall, however, The Persian Whitman was an enjoyable and enlightening read, not least due to Fomeshi’s enthusiastic interest in a new historicist methodology, an arduous and thus lesser practiced –yet often immensely