chapter 14 The Return of the Charismatic ‘Caesar’ to Modern Politics

At the same time as Weber propagates, in 1917/18 and against the authority of the civil servants, a superior selection of leaders within and by means of parliament, he develops the parallel conception of an extra-parliamentary, charismatic-plebiscitary selection of leaders, expanding it ‘in a clearly anti- parliamentary direction’ during the November and the negotia- tions on the Weimar constitution.1 In doing so, he articulates a position that has caused considerable difficulties for subsequent efforts to identify him with the liberal tradition and to set him off against . In all honesty, writes Mommsen, following Nolte’s lead, one ought to remark that the theory of char- ismatic authority contributed its share to ‘making the German people inwardly willing to acclaim a leader [Führer], and thus to acclaim ’.2 In 1927, Robert Michels refers back to Weber’s concept to justify his conversion from a left-wing syndicalist to a follower of Mussolini: there is no fundamental contra- diction between popular sovereignty and dictatorship, because it is the people that gives itself ‘absolute by way of the plebiscite’, and because Caesar presents himself as the ‘incarnation of the popular will [la volonté populaire faite homme]’.3 also invokes the concept of charismatic- plebiscitary authority, in order to replace the parliamentarian selection of leaders, still considered a counterbalance to plebiscitary authority by Weber,

1 Mommsen 1974, p. 199; see also pp. 448–9. 2 Mommsen 1974, p. 437; compare Nolte 1963, p. 11. Mommsen adopts a formulation proposed by Nolte, thereby qualifying his own, heavily criticised formulation from the first edition, according to which Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership contributed to ‘making the German people inwardly willing to acclaim Hitler’s leadership position’ (Mommsen 1959, p. 410). 3 Michels 1927, p. 293. ‘In the case of charismatic leadership, the mass delegates its will to the leader almost in the manner of a natural, voluntary sacrifice, whereas in the case of democ- racy, the will is delegated in such a way as to preserve the appearance that it remains in the hands of the delegators’ (Michels 1927, pp. 290–1; emphasis added). ‘Today, aristocratic currents traverse the masses, and democratic tendencies lead to leadership’ (Michels 1927, p. 294). On the indirect influence exerted on Michels by Weber during Michels’s conversion to , see, inter alia, Röhrich 1972, pp. 143ff, and Mommsen 1988b, pp. 211ff.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004280991_�16 The Return of the Charismatic ‘Caesar’ 151 with the ‘forceful representation’ of a political leadership and administration that is directly borne by the confidence of the masses.4 Here too, the problem cannot be discussed on the surface level of analo- gies and differences, as it touches on a more profound problem concerning the perspective and the arrangement of theoretical concepts. The figure of the charismatic-plebiscitary leader is a nodal point at which Weber’s short-term political proposals intersect both with a basic concept from his of domination and with a sociology of modern . In order to render his analytic toolkit visible, I begin with the concept of charisma, which Weber subjects to a peculiarly narrow interpretation.

14.1 The Verticalist Narrowing of the Concept of Charisma

The term charismata is generally traced back to Saint Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and usually rendered as ‘spiritual gifts’ (e.g. 1 Corinthians 12,6). However, the etymology of the term leads us beyond its religious significance: the underlying Greek word charis, translated as ‘grace’ in English versions of the Bible, refers to ‘everything that causes one joy’,5 the friendly powers or emissions of a living creature, the ‘charm’ of a beautiful person or the ‘con- sciously enacted exchange of gifts and gifts in return’.6 It is in this sense that states, in the Nicomachean Ethics, that the polis coheres by virtue of ‘proportionate reciprocity’.7 ‘And this is the moral of placing the Temple of the Graces [charites] in the public streets; to impress the notion that there may be requital, this being peculiar to charis because a man ought to requite with a good turn the man who has done him a favour’.8 That the Graces are three in number is intended to express the fact that ‘the beneficium goes from hand to hand, returning to the giver when it comes full circle’.9 Thus charis is originally associated with horizontal relations of reciprocity. Under the conditions associated with class constituted in the form of

4 Schmitt 2008, pp. 355–6. Schmitt held that Weber’s ideal of a parliamentarian selection of leaders was, in 1917/18, ‘the sole powerful idea system left for parliamentarianism’, but given the divisions between ’s political parties, ‘this ideal . . . necessarily becomes prob- lematical’ (Schmitt 2008, pp. 362, 356). 5 Benseler 1990. 6 Dörrie 1981, p. 322. 7 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, V8 1132 b34. 8 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1133 a2. 9 Deichgräber 1971, p. 56.