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Home , Economy and Society, Max Weber

WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF : A SYSTEMATIZATION*

RANDALL COLLINS University of Virginia

American Sociological Review 1980, Vol. 45 (December):925-942

A systematic formulation is given of Weber’s theory of the origins of large-scale capitalism, based upon the lectures given just before his death. This last theory is predominantly institutional, unlike the emphasis upon religious ideas and motivations in his early Protestant Ethic thesis, and unlike his analyses of the world . Weber’s institutional theory involves a sequence of causal conditions. The outcome of the sequence is capitalism characterized by the entrepreneurial of , rationalized technology, free labor, and unrestrained markets. Intermediate conditions are a calculable legal system and an economic ethic combining universal commercialization with the moderate pursuit of repetitive gains. These conditions are fostered by the bureaucratic and by legal citizenship, and more remotely by a complex of administrative, military, and religious factors. The overall pattern is one in which numerous elements must be balanced in continuous conflict if economic development is to take place. Weber derived much of this scheme in explicit confrontation with . His conflict theory criticizes as well as deepens and extends a number of Marxian themes, including a theory of international capitalism which both criticizes and complements Wallerstein’s theory of the world system.

Max Weber had many intellectual inter- scholars have treated it as Weber’s dis- ests, and there has been considerable de- tinctive contribution, or Weber’s distinc- bate over the question of what constitutes tive fallacy, on the origins of capitalism the central theme of his life . Besides (e.g., Tawney, 1938; McClelland, 1961; treating the origins of capitalism, Weber Samuelsson, 1961; Cohen, 1980). Debate dealt extensively with the nature of mod- about the validity of this part of Weber’s ernity and of (Tenbruck, 1975; theory has tended to obscure the more Kalberg, 1979; 1980; Seidman, 1980), and fundamental historical and institutional with , methodology, and various substantive areas of . Amid all the theory which he presented in his later attention which has been paid to these works. concerns, one of Weber’s most significant The so-called “Weber thesis,” as thus contributions has been largely ignored. isolated, has been taken to be essentially This is his mature theory of the develop- idealist. Weber (1930:90) defines his pur- ment of capitalism, found in his last work pose in The Protestant Ethic as “a contri- (1961), General . bution to the manner in which ideas be- This is ironic because Weber’s (1930) come effective forces in history.” He first major work, The Protestant Ethic and (1930:183) polemically remarks against the the Spirit of Capitalism, has long been the Marxists that he does not intend to replace most famous of all. The argument that the a one-sided with its opposite, Calvinist doctrine of gave but his correcting of the balance sheet in the psychological impetus for rationalized, this work concentrates largely on ideal entrepreneurial capitalism is only a ’ factors. The germ of Weber’s institutional fragment of Weber s full theory. But many theory of capitalism can also be found in The Protestant Ethic (1930:58, 76).1 But it * Direct all correspondence to: ; remained an undeveloped backdrop for his Department of Sociology; University of Virginia; main focus on the role of religious ideas. Charlottesville, VA 22903. The same may be said about his (1951; I am indebted to Vatro Murvar and other partici- 1952; 1958b) comparative studies of pants at the Symposium at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, March, 1978, and to Samuel W. Kaplan, Stephen Kalberg, , 1 Walter Goldfrank, Norbert Wiley, and Whitney Pope, The list of institutional characteristics given on for their suggestions on an earlier version of this pp. 21-25 of the English-language edition of The argument. Protestant Ethic (1930), however, are not in the 1904- 5 original, but are from an introduction written in 1920 (1930:ix-x).

925 926 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW the . These broadened con- One important change in the General siderably the amount of material on , Economic History is that Weber pays a economic, and political conditions, but the good deal more attention to Marxian main theme still stressed that diver-gent themes than previously. This is a signifi- ideas made an autonomous contribution to cant difference from the anti-Marxist the of world-transforming comments scattered through The Protes- capitalism in the Christian West rather tant Ethic (e.g., pp. 55-56, 61, 90-91, than elsewhere in the world.2 Thus, 183). In the General Economic History, Parsons (1963; 1967) treats these works as Weber reduces the ideal factor to a rela- extending the early Weber thesis from tively small place in his overall scheme. to Christianity in general, During this same period, to be sure, describing an evolution of religious ideas Weber was preparing a new introduction and their accompanying motivational and footnotes for the reissue of The Prot- propensities from ancient up estant Ethic among his collected religious through the secularized achievement writings, in which he defended his original of the modern United States. thesis about . But his claims for From these works, and from (1968) Part its importance in the overall scheme of II of Economy and , it is possible to things were not large, and the well- pull out an extensive picture of institu- rounded model which he presents in Gen- tional factors which Weber includes in his eral Economic History does not even overall theory of capitalism. But Economy mention the doctrine of predestination. and Society is organized encyclopedically, Instead, what we find is a predominantly by analytically defined topics, and does not institutional theory, in which religious or- pull together the theory as a whole. There ganization plays a key role in the rise of is only one place in Weber’s works where modern capitalism but especially in con- he brings together the full theory of junction with particular forms of political capitalism as a historical dynamic. This is organization. in the General Economic History, and, In what follows, I will attempt to state especially, in the 70-page section systematically Weber’s mature theory of comprising Part IV of that work. These capitalism, as it appears in the General lectures, delivered in the winter and spring Economic History, bolstered where ap- of 1919-20, before Weber’s death that propriate by the building blocks presented summer, are Weber’s last word on the in . This argument subject of capitalism. They are also the involves a series of causes, which we will most neglected of his works; General trace backward, from the most recent to Economic History is the only one of the most remote. This model, I would Weber’s major works that remains out of suggest, is the most comprehensive gen- print today, both in English and in Ger- eral theory of the origins of capitalism that man. is yet available. It continues to stand up well in comparison with recent theories, 2 Cf. the closing words of The of China: including Wallerstein’s (1974) historical “To be sure the basic characteristics of the ‘men- theory of the capitalist world-system. tality,’ in this case practical attitudes towards the Weber himself was primarily concerned world, were deeply co-determined by political and economic destinies. Yet, in view of their autonomous with the sensitizing concepts necessary , one can hardly fail to ascribe to these attitudes for an interpretation of the unique pattern effects strongly counteractive to capitalist of history and, in his methodological development” (1951:249), and of The Religion of writings, he disavowed statements in the India: “However, for the plebeian strata no ethic of form of general causal principles (cf. everyday life derived from its rationally formed mis- ’ sionary . The appearance of such in the Burger, 1976). Nevertheless, Weber s Occident, however-above all, in the -with the typologies contain implicit generalizations extensive consequences borne with it, was conditioned about the effects of institutional ar- by highly particular historical constellations without rangements upon each other, and state- which, despite differences of natural conditions, development there could easily have taken the course ments of cause-and-effect abound in his typical of Asia, particularly of India” (19586:343). substantive writings. There is nothing to prevent us from stating his historical pic- WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 927 ture of changing institutional forms in a within the realm of religious solutions to more abstract and generalized manner the problem of suffering. than Weber did himself. It is clear that Weber himself used the Weber’s model continues to offer a more term “” in a number of different sophisticated basis for a theory of senses.3 But for his institutional theory of capitalism than any of the rival theories of capitalist development, there is only one today. I put forward this formalization of sense that need concern us. The “rational Weber’s mature theory, not merely as an capitalistic establishment,” says Weber appreciation of one of the classic works of (1961:207), “is one with capital ac- the past, but to make clear the high-water counting, that is, an establishment which mark of about determines its income yielding power by capitalism. Weber’s last theory is not the calculation according to the methods of last word on the subject of the rise of modern bookkeeping and the striking of a capitalism, but if we are to surpass it, it is balance.” The key term is calculability; it the high point from which we ought to occurs over and over again in those pages. build. What is distinctive about modern, large- scale, “rational” capitalism-in contrast to THE COMPONENTS OF RATIONALIZED earlier, partial forms-is that it is methodical and predictable, reducing all CAPITALISM areas of production and distribution as Capitalism, says Weber (1961:207-8, much as possible to a routine. This is also 260) is the provision of human needs by Weber’s criterion for calling the method of enterprise, which is to say, the most “rational” form of organization.4 by private seeking . It is exchange carried out for positive gain, 3 In Part I of Economy and Society (written 1918- rather than forced contributions or 20), Weber distinguishes formal and substantive traditionally fixed gifts or trades. Like all of rationality of economic action (1968:85-6). In “The Weber’s categories, capitalism is an an- Social of the World Religions” (written alytical concept; capitalism can be found as 1913), Weber (1946:293-4) defines three different part of many historical economies, as far types of rationalism: (1) a systematic world view based on precise, abstract concepts; (2) practical back as ancient Babylon. It became the means-ends calculations; (3) a systematic method, indispensable form for the provision of including that of or prayer. In The Protestant everyday wants only in Western Europe Ethic (1904-5), Weber (1930:76-78) at-tacks the around the middle of the nineteenth cen- notion that the spirit of capitalism is “part of the tury. For this large-scale and economically development of rationalism as a whole,” and says he is interested in “the origin of precisely the irrational predominant capitalism, the key is the element which lies in this, as in every conception of a “rational permanent enterprise” char- calling.” Kalberg (1980) points out that under one or acterized by “rational capital accounting.” another of Weber’s types of rationality, every action, The concept of “rationality” which ap- even the most superstitious, might be called pears so often in Weber’s works has been “rational.” Kalberg argues that only one type of rationality is relevant for the methodical conduct of the subject of much debate. Marxist critics affairs. of capitalism, as well as critics of bu- 4 It is plain that Weber (1968:85-6) is referring to reaucracy, have attacked Weber’s alleged what in Economy and Society he calls “formal” ra- glorification of these social forms (e.g., tionality, efficiency based on quantitative calculation Hirst, 1976). On the other hand, Parsons of means, rather than “substantive” rationality, the adequacy of actions for meeting ultimate values. (1947), in his long introduction to the defi- Such values could be criteria of economic welfare, nitional section of Economy and Society, whether maximal production, quality of life, or a gives “rationalization” both an idealist and socialist economic distribution, or they could be an evolutionary bent, as the master trend ethical or religious values. Weber makes it clear that formal and substantive rationality can diverge of world history, involving an inevitable widely, especially in his late political writings about upgrading of human cognitive and the dangers of bureaucracy (1946:77-128; organizational capacities. Tenbruck (1975) 1968:1393-1415). Weber himself tended to defend claims the key to Weber’s works is an inner the formal rationality of modern capitalism as coin- logic of rational development found ciding to a fair degree with substantive rationality in meeting the of maximizing the economic wel- fare of the population at large (1968:108-9). It goes 928 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

For a capitalist economy to have a high say, noneconomic restrictions on the degree of predictability, it must have cer- movement of goods or of any of the fac- tain characteristics. The logic of Weber’s tors of production .must be minimized. argument is first to describe these char- Such restrictions include class monopolies acteristics; then to show the obstacles to upon particular items of consumption them that were prevalent in virtually all (such as sumptuary laws regulating dress), of world history until recent or upon ownership or work (such as pro- centuries in the West; and, finally, by the hibitions on townspeople owning land, or method of comparative analysis, to show on knights or peasants carrying on trade; the social conditions responsible for their more extensively, caste systems in gen- emergence. eral). Other obstacles under this heading According to his argument, the compo- include transportation difficulties, war- nents of “rationalized” capitalism are as fare, and robbery-which make long- follows: distance trading hazardous and unreliable. There must be private appropriation of Finally, there must be calculable , all the means of production, and their both in adjudication and in public admin- concentration under the control of entre- istration. Laws must be couched in gen- preneurs. Land, buildings, machinery, and eral terms applicable to all persons, and materials must all be assembled under a administered in such a way as to make the common , so that decisions enforcement of economic contracts and about their acquisition and use can be cal- highly predictable. Such a legal culated with maximal efficiency. All these system is implicated in most of the above factors must be subject to sale as private characteristics of rational capitalism: the goods on an open market. This develop- extension of rights over ment reaches its maximal scope when all the factors of production; the subdivision such property rights are represented by and easy transferability of such rights commercial instruments, especially shares through financial instruments and banking in ownership which are themselves operations; formal for laborers; negotiable in a . and legally protected markets. Within this enterprise, capital account- The picture that Weber gives us, then, is ing is optimized by a technology which is of the institutional foundations of the “reduced to calculation to the largest market as viewed by neoclassical eco- possible degree” (1961:208). It is in this nomics. He sees the market as providing sense that mechanization is most signifi- the maximal amount of calculability for cant for the organization of large-scale the individual entrepreneur. Goods, labor, capitalism. and capital flow continuously to the areas Labor must be free to move about to any of maximal return; at the same time, com- work in response to conditions of demand. petition in all markets reduces costs to Weber notes that this is a formal and legal their minimum. Thus, serve to freedom, and that it goes along with the summarize all the necessary information economic compulsion of workers to sell about the optimal allocation of resources their labor on the market. Capitalism is for maximizing profit; on this basis, entre- impossible without a propertyless stratum preneurs can most reliably make calcula- selling its services “under the compulsion tions for long-term production of large of the whip of hunger” (1961:209), for amounts of goods. “To sum up,” says only this completes a mass market system Weber (1961:209), “it must be possible to for the factors of production which makes conduct the provision for needs exclu- it possible to clearly calculate the costs of sively on the basis of market opportunities products in advance. and the calculation of net income.” Trading in the market must not be lim- It is, of course, the model of the laissez- ited by irrational restrictions. That is to faire capitalist economy that Weber wishes to ground. At the extreme, this is an unrealistic view of any economy that has ever existed. Weber treats it as an without saying that this is an empirical, not an ana- and, hence, in a fuller exposi- lytical judgment. WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 929 tion would doubtless have been prepared to at a reasonable cost. Thus, mechanization see it as only partially realized even in the depends on the prior emergence of all the great capitalist takeoff period of the institutional factors described above. nineteenth century. But it is worth noting Weber does not elaborate a systematic that a critique of Weber along these lines theory of technological innovation, but it could certainly not be a classical Marxian would be possible to construct one along one. The central dynamic of capitalism in these lines. He does note that all the cru- Marx’s theory, in fact, depends even more cial inventions of the period of industrial immediately than Weber’s on the unre- takeoff were the result of deliberate efforts stricted competitiveness of the open market to cheapen the costs of production for all factors of production (cf. Sweezy, (1961:225-6, 231). These efforts took 1942). And Weber and Marx agree in place because previous conditions had claiming that the initial break-through to an intensified the capitalist pursuit of profits. industrial society had to occur in the form The same argument could be made, al- of capitalism. Thus, al-though Weber may though Weber did not make it, in regard to have a personal bias toward the neoclassical the search for methods to improve ag- , both as analytical model ricultural production that took place in the and as political preference, this would give seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The no grounds for a critique of the adequacy of “green ” which preceded (and his explanation of this phase of world made possible) the history. Even for a later period, Weber is was not a process of mechanization (ag- hardly dogmatic. As we shall see, he ricultural mechanization took place only in recognizes the possibility of the late nineteenth century) but was, more emerging, once capitalism has matured- simply, the application of capitalist although he does not admire the prospect- methods of cost accounting to hitherto and he even gives some indications of the traditional agriculture. Thus, it is the shift forces that might produce it. Like German to the calculating practices of the and Austrian non-Marxist economists of his capitalist market economy which makes generation, Weber includes socialism within technological innovation itself predictable, his analytical scheme. rather than, as previously, an accidental Weber’s model of the modern economy is factor in economic life (1961:231).5 particularly striking with regard to the concept of the “industrial revolution.” For it THE CAUSAL CHAIN is not mechanization per se that is the key to the economic transformation, despite the far- What are the social preconditions for the reaching consequences of shifts from emergence of capitalism as thus de- agrarian to inanimate-energybased scribed? technologies (cf. Lenski, 1966). In Weber’s Note, first of all, that economic life, even scheme, technology is essentially a in the most prosperous of agrarian dependent variable. The key economic societies, generally lacked most of these characteristic of mechanization is that it is traits. Property systems frequently tied feasible only with mass production (Weber, land ownership to aristocratic status, while 1961:129, 247). The costs of even simpler commercial occupations were often machines such as steam-powered looms would make them worthless with-out a large- 5 Weber does mention “rational science and in scale consumers’ market for cloth, as well connection with it a rational technology” (1961:232) as one of the features of the West important for as a large-scale producers’ market in wool modern capitalism. On the other hand he says: “It is or cotton. Similar considerations apply a true that most of the inventions of the 18th century fortiori to machinery on the scale of a steel were not made in a scientific manner. . . . The con- rolling mill. But large-scale production is nection of industry with modern science, especially the systematic work of the laboratories, beginning impossible without a high degree of with Justus von Liebig [i.e., Circa 1830], enabled predictability that markets will exist for the industry to become what it is today and so brought products, and that all the factors of capitalism to its full development.” On the balance, I think science comes out as a secondary factor in the production will be forthcoming model. 930 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW prohibited to certain groups and in the Stone Age. In ancient Babylon, for monopolized by others. The labor force example, trade was such as to disintegrate was generally unfree-being either slaves “primitive economic fixity” to a consid- or tied to the land as serfs. Technologies erable degree (1961:232). On the other of mass production hardly existed. The hand, politically determined agrarian market was generally limited either to economies show how “specialization local areas or to long-distance trade in takes place without exchange” (1961:103). luxuries, due to numerous near- Nor is the pursuit of profit per se the cru- confiscatory tax barriers, unreliable and cial motive for mass capitalism; the varying coinage, warfare, robbery, and “ruthlessness” and “unscrupulousness” of poor transportation. And legal systems, the traditional foreign trader was inca- even in literate states, tended to be char- pable of transforming the economy at acterized by patrimonial or magical- large (1961:232). Nor can population religious procedures, by differential appli- growth have been the cause of Western cation to different social groups and by capitalism, for the same trend occurred in different localities, and by the practices of China without the same result seeking private gain. Reliable fi- (1961:258-9). Neither, finally, can the nancial transactions, including the opera- revolution of the sixteenth century, tion of a banking system relatively free due to the influx of precious metals from from political interference and plundering, the Americas, have been decisive (see the were particularly handicapped by these later discussion on Wallerstein).6 conditions. The features that Weber finds unique to The social preconditions for large-scale the West constitute a causal chain.7 I have capitalism, then, involved the destruction represented this schematically in Figure 1. of the obstacles to the free movement or The characteristics of rational capitalism economic transfer of labor, land, and itself are the entrepreneurial organization goods. Other preconditions were the cre- of capital, rational technology, free labor, ation of the institutional supports for large- unrestricted markets, and calculable law. scale markets, especially the appropriate These make up a complex: the markets for systems of property, law, and finance. goods, labor, and capital all mesh around These are not the only preconditions of entrepreneurial property using mass pro- capitalism, but, specifically, Weber is duction technology; the operation of all of seeking the organizational forms that these factors together creates further made capitalism a world-transforming pressures to both rationalize technology force in the West but not elsewhere. By a and expand each factor market-while yet series of comparisons, Weber shows that a distributing wealth in such a way as to number of other factors that have been further the demand. The legal system is advanced to account for the Western both an ongoing prop for all of these fea- takeoff cannot have been crucial. Against tures and a causal link backward to their Sombart, he points out that standardized mass production for war cannot have been 6 Weber (1961:260) also mentions geographical decisive for, although a good deal of this conditions as more favorable to capitalism in Europe existed in Europe in the seventeenth cen- than in China or India, due to transportation advan- tury, and thereafter, it also existed in the tages in the former via the Mediterranean sea and the interconnecting rivers. But he goes on (p. 261) to Mogul Empire and in China without giving discount this, in that no capitalism arose in Mediter- an impetus to capitalism (1961:229). ranean antiquity, when civilization was predominantly Similarly, the enormous expenditures for coastal, whereas early modern capitalism in Europe was born in the of the interior. court luxury found in both Orient and Oc- 7 Weber does not clearly describe a chain, and cident were incapable of generating a sometimes he lumps characteristics of rational mass market (1961:229-30). Against the capitalism with its preconditions. Although some of simpler arguments of , which these preconditions continue into the operation of modern capitalism, a logical chain of explanation, I attribute the industrial division of labor to believe, requires something like the separation I have the extension of trade, Weber points out given. It should be understood that Weber gives a that trade can be found everywhere, even highly condensed summary in these lectures. WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 931

social preconditions. At this intermediate ethic because it prevented the commer- causal level there is a second crucial factor cialization of economic life, the external which, like the law, is essentially cultural, ethic because it made trading relations too although not in the sense of disembodied episodic and distrustful. The lifting of this ideas, but, rather, in the sense of beliefs barrier and the overcoming of this ethical expressed in institutionalized behavior. dualism were crucial for the development This is the “lifting of the barrier ... of any extensive capitalism. Only this between internal and external ” could make loans available regularly and (1961:232). In virtually all premodern societies promote the buying and selling of all ser- there are two sharply divergent sets of vices and commodities for moderate gain. ethical beliefs and practices. Within a so- Through innumerable daily repetitions, cial group, economic transactions are such small (but regular) profits could add strictly controlled by rules of fairness, up to much more massive economic status, and : in tribal societies, by transactions than could either the ritualized exchanges with prescribed kin; custom-bound or the predatory economic in India, by rules of caste; in medieval ethics of traditional societies. Europe, by required contributions on the What, then, produced the calculable manor or to the great church properties. legal system of saleable private property The prohibition on usury reflected this and free labor and the universal ethic of internal ethic, requiring an ethic of charity the pursuit of moderate economic profit? and the avoidance of calculation of gain The next links in the causal chain are from loans within the community (cf. Nel- 8 political and religious. The bureaucratic son, 1949). In regard to outsiders, how- state is a crucial background determinant ever, economic ethics were at the opposite for all legal and institutional underpin- extreme: cheating, price gouging, and loans nings of capitalism. Moreover, its legal at exorbitant interest were the rule. Both forms of ethic were obstacles to rational, system must be based on a concept of large-scale capitalism: the internal universal citizenship, which requires yet further political preconditions. The reli- gious factor operates both as a direct in- 8 Hence the role of “guest peoples” such as the Jews and the Caursines in Christian Europe, or the fluence on the creation of an economic Christians in Islamic societies, or the Parsees in ethic and as a final level of causality impli- India, as groups of tolerated outsiders who were cated in the rise of the rational-legal state available for making loans, which otherwise would not be forthcoming within the controlled internal and of legal citizenship. economy (1961:267). The state is the factor most often over- looked in Weber’s theory of capitalism. Yet it is the factor to which he gave the 932 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW most attention; in Economy and Society, he The sources of the bureaucratic state are, devoted eight chapters of 519 pages to it, to a degree, quite familiar. In the widely as opposed to one chapter of 236 pages to reprinted section on bureaucracy from religion, with yet another chapter-the Economy and Society (1968:956-1005), neglected but very important chap. XIV of Weber outlines the prerequisites: literate Part II-to the relations between politics administrators, a technology of long- and religion. In the General Economic distance transportation and communication, History, he gives the state the two penul- writing and record-keeping materials, timate chapters, religion the final chapter. monetary coinage. The extent to which For Weber, this political material was not these could be put into effect, however, an extraneous interest but, instead, the key depended on a number of other factors. to all of the institutional structures of Geographical conditions such as easy rational capitalism. Only the West devel- transportation in river valleys, or favorable oped the highly bureaucratized state, based situations for state-controlled irrigation on specialized professional administrators (1961:237), fostered bureaucratic and on a law made and applied by full-time centralization, as did intense military professional for a populace among adjacent heartlands. characterized by rights of citizenship. It is Types of weapons which are centrally this bureaucratic-legal state that broke (rather than individually supplied) also down and , favor bureaucratization. If such conditions freeing land and labor for the capitalist make central control easy, however, market. It is this state that pacified large bureaucratization need not proceed very territories, eliminated internal market deeply, and the society may be ruled by a barriers, standardized taxation and thin stratum of officials above a local currencies. It is this state that provided the structure which remains patrimonial. In basis for a reliable system of banking, China, for example, this superficial bu- investment, property, and con-tracts, reaucratization constituted a long-term through a rationally calculable and obstacle to capitalism, as it froze the universally applied system of law courts. economy under the patrimonial control of One may even argue that the bureaucratic local clans. state was the proximate cause of the im- The most thorough bureaucratization, as pulse to rationalization, generally-above well as that uniquely favorable to all, via the late seventeenth- and capitalism, is that which incorporates a eighteenth-century spirit of enlightened formalistic legal code based on citizen- absolutism, which set the stage for the ship. Citizenship meant, first of all, mem- industrial revolution. bership in a ; by extension, member- There are three causal questions about ship in a state and hence holder of political the rational/legal state. Why did it rise to rights within it. This was an alien concept predominance? Where did its structural throughout most of history. In the pat- characteristics come from? How did its rimonial state, political office was a form legal system take the special form of con- of private property or personal delegation, ceiving of its subjects as holding the rights and even in most premodern quasi- of citizenship? bureaucratic states the populace at large The first question is easily answered. was only subject to the state, not holders of The bureaucratic state rose to predomi- rights within it. The latter condition arose nance because it is the most efficient means only in the West. In both Mediterranean of pacifying a large territory. It is effective antiquity and the European , externally in that it can supply a larger cities came under the control of military, with better weapons, than can brotherhoods of warriors banded together nonbureaucratic states; and it is effective, for mutual protection. Such cities had their internally, as it tends to be relatively safe own laws and courts, administered against disintegration by civil war or political coup.9 foreign wars. But historical instances of these have 9 The main exception is that can occur after the military breakdown of the state itself due to occurred mainly in states which have been only par- tially bureaucratized. (See Skocpol, 1979.) WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 933 by the citizens themselves, all of whom East, the traditional held stood under it in relation of formal monopolies over communion with the equality. Such citizenship rights remained gods, whereas in Western antiquity it was historically significant after the original the officials of who themselves civic forms changed or disappeared. The performed the rites (1961:238). In the one formal rights and legal procedures origi- case, the boundaries of religious com- nally applied only to a local elite, but munion reinforced preexisting group di- when cities were incorporated into large- visions; in the other, religious boundaries scale bureaucratic states, they provided the basis for a much more widely inclusive were an explicit political tool by which system of adjudication. This was the case civic alliances could be established and when Rome, originally one of these enlarged. It is at this point that the two military-fraternity cities, became an em- main lines of Weber’s chain of causality pire and, again, in the Middle Ages, when converge. cities in alliance with kings lost their inde- We have been tracing the causal links pendence but contributed their legal behind the emergence of the rational/legal structures to the larger states.10 state, which is one of the two great inter- Nearing the end of our chain of mediate conditions of the emergence of an causality, we ask: What factors enabled open market economy. The other great this distinctive type of city to arise in the intermediate condition (noted earlier) is an West? Weber gives two conditions: one economic ethic which breaks the barrier military, the other religious. between internal and external economies. The military condition is that in the Now we see that the religious factors that West the city consisted of “an organiza- produced the citizenship revolution and tion of those economically competent to those that produced the economic ethic are bear arms, to equip and train themselves” essentially the same. (1961:237). This was the case in the for- mative period of the ancient Greek and Our last question, then, is: What brought Italian cities and, again, in the medieval about this religious transformation? Weber cities with their disciplined infantries gives a series of reasons, each intensifying fielded by the guilds. In both cases, the the effects of the last (1961:238). Ethical power of the cities bolstered their prophecy within was military power and, hence, democratiza- important, even though it did not break tion and concomitant legal citizenship. In down ritual barriers between Jews and the Orient and in ancient Egypt, on the Gentiles, because it established a tradition contrary, the military princes with their of hostility to magic, the main ethos within armies were older than the cities and, which barriers flourished. The hence, legally independent cities did not transformation of Christianity from a arise; Weber attributed this pattern to the Jewish into a proselytizing universal impetus to early centralization given by religion gave this tradition widespread irrigation. currency, while the pentecostal spirit of The second condition is that in the East, Christian proselytization set aside the magical prevented the organization ritual barriers among clans and tribes, of military alliances among strangers and, which still characterized the ancient hence, did not allow formation of inde- pendent cities. In India, for example, the Hellenistic cities to some degree. The ritual exclusion of castes had this effect. Judeo-Christian innovations are not the More generally, in Asia and the Middle whole story, however; the earlier de- velopment of Greek religion into the civic had already done much to make uni- 10 Contractual forms of feudalism also contributed somewhat to legal citizenship. Weber neglected this in versalistic legal membership possible. the General Economic History, but considered it in The religious factors, as we have seen, Economy and Society (1968:1101). The earlier entwine with political ones, and their in- preconditions (military and religious) for contractual feudalism and for independent cities, however, are fluence in the direction of legal citizenship essentially the same. and upon an economic ethic have fluc- tuated historically. There is no steady nor inevitable trend toward increasing ra- tionalization of these spheres, but West- 934 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW ern history does contain a series of abolished the monasteries. The most ad- episodes which happen to have built up vanced section of the economy would, these effects at particular points in time so henceforth, be secular. Moreover, the that, eventually, a whole new economic highest ethics of a religious life could no dynamic was unleashed. On the political longer be confined to monks but had to side, the Christian cities of the Middle apply to ordinary citizens living in the Ages, drawing upon the institutional world. Calvinism and the other voluntary legacies of the ancient world, were able to were the most intense version of this establish religiously sworn confraternities motivation, not because of the idea of which reestablished a legal system based on Predestination (which no longer receives citizenship. A second political factor was any mention in Weber’s last text) but only fostered by religion: the Christian church because they required a specific religious provided the literate administrators, the calling for admission into their ranks, educational system, and the example of its rather than automatic and compulsory own bureaucratic organization as bases membership in the politically more con- upon which the bureaucratic states of the servative churches. Weber’s (1961: 269- West could emerge. And, on the strictly 70) last word on the subject of motivational side, the development of Protestantism was simply this: European Christianity gave a decisive The development of the concept of the call- ethical push toward rationalized capitalism. ing quickly gave to the modern entrepreneur Here, at last, we seem to touch base with a fabulously clear conscience-and also in- Weber’s original Protestant Ethic thesis. dustrious workers; he gave to his employees But in the mature Weber, the thesis is as the wages of their ascetic devotion to the calling and of co-operation in his ruthless greatly transformed. Protestantism is only exploitation of them through capitalism the the last intensification of one of the chains prospect of eternal , which in an age of factors leading to rational capitalism. when ecclesiastical discipline took control of Moreover, its effect now is conceived to be the whole of life to an extent inconceivable largely negative, in the sense that it to us now, represented a reality quite dif- removes one of the last institutional ferent from any it has today. The Catholic obstacles diverting the motivational and Lutheran churches also recognized and impetus of Christianity away from practiced ecclesiastical discipline. But in the Protestant ascetic communities admission to economic rationalization. For, in the Lord’s Supper was conditioned on ethi- medieval Christianity, the methodical, cal fitness, which again was identified with disciplined organization of life was honor, while into the content of epitomized by the monastic com- one’s no one inquired. Such a powerful, munities.11 Although the monasteries unconsciously refined organization for the contributed to economic development by production of capitalistic individuals has rationalizing agriculture and promoting never existed in any other church or religion. their own industries, Weber generally saw them as obstacles to the full capitalist de- WEBER’S GENERAL THEORY OF HISTORY velopment of the secular economy. As long Is there an overall pattern in Weber’s as the strongest religious motivation was argument? It is not a picture of a linear siphoned off for essentially other-worldly trend toward ever-increasing rationality. ends, capitalism in general could not take Nor is it an evolutionary model of natural off (1961:267-9). Hence, the Re-formation selection, in the sense of random selection was most significant because it of the more advanced forms, accumulating 11 Weber did not live to write his planned volume through a series of stages. For Weber's on medieval Christianity. If he had, I believe he constant theme is that the pattern of would have found that the High Middle Ages were the most significant institutional turning point of all on relations among the various factors is the road to the capitalist takeoff. His commitment to crucial in determining their effect upon the vestiges of his Protestantism argument may have economic rationalization. Any one factor kept him from recognizing this earlier. I will deal occurring by itself tends to have opposite with this point in a subsequent article, “The Weberian Revolution of the High Middle Ages.” effects, overall, to those which it has in combination with the other factors. WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 935

For example, self-supplied military co- Weber saw the rise of large-scale alitions produce civic and capitalism, then, as the result of a series of legal systems which are favorable to combinations of conditions which had to capitalism. But if the self-armed civic occur together. This makes world history groups are too strong, the result is a series look like the result of configurations of of guild monopolies which stifle capitalism events so rare as to appear accidental. by overcontrolling markets. Cities, on the Weber’s position might well be charac- other hand, have to be balanced by the terized as historicist, in the sense of seeing bureaucratic state. But when the state is history as a concatenation of unique too strong by itself, it, too, tends to stifle events and unrepeatable complexities. capitalism. This can happen by bolstering Once a crucial conjuncture occurs, its re- the immobility of labor (as in the case of sults transform everything else-and not “the second serfdom” produced in Russia just locally but also in the larger world of and eastern Europe as absolutist states competing states. This was true of the developed in the seventeenth and great charismatic revelations of the world eighteenth centuries); or by directly con- religions, which shut off China, India, or trolling the division of labor by forced the West from alternative lines of devel- contributions instead of allowing a market opment as well as determined the ways to develop. In the areas of the world that states upon these territories would where bureaucratization was relatively interact with the rest of the world. Simi- easy, as in ancient Egypt or China, or the larly, the full-scale capitalist breakthrough Byzantine Empire, the unrestrained power itself was a once-only event, radiating of the state stereotyped economic life and outward to transform all other did not allow the dynamics of capitalism and societies. Hence, the original to unfold. conditions necessary for the emergence of The same is true of the religious vari- capitalism were not necessary for its con- ables. The creation of the great world reli- tinuation. The original religious ethic gions, with their universalism and their could fade, once the calculability of mas- specialized priesthoods, was crucial for sive economic transactions had become a the possibility of breaking the ritual bar- matter of routine. Hence, late- riers among localized groups, with all the industrializing states need not follow the consequences this might have for sub- route of classic capitalism. In the ad- sequent developments. But, in the absence vanced societies, the skeleton of the eco- of other factors, this could actually bolster nomic structure might even be taken over the obstacles to capitalism. This happened by socialism. in India, where the develop-ment of Weber’s account of the rise of fostered the caste system; the capitalism, then, is in a sense not a theory universalistic religion set an external seal at all, in that it is not a set of universal upon the lineup of particularistic groups generalizations about economic change. that happened to exist at the time. Even in Nevertheless, on a more abstract level, Christianity, where moral prophecy had a Weber is at least implicitly proposing such a much more barrier-breaking and world- theory. On one level, he may be read as a transforming effect, the Church (in the collection of separate hypotheses about period when it was predominant) created specific processes and their effects.13 The another obstacle against its capitalist foregoing caveat about the necessary bal- implications. This was the period of the ance among factors may be incorporated High Middle Ages in Europe, when by specifying that the causal variables monasticism proliferated and, thus, must operate at a given strength-that is, channeled all the energy of religious by turning them into quantitative gener- motivation into a specialized role and alizations specified to a given range of away from the economic concerns of variation. ordinary life.12 13 12 One clearly formulated proposition, for exam- This was also the time when the church took the ple, is that armies based on coalitions of self-supplied offensive against incipient capitalism, in the form of pronouncements against usury (Weber, 1968:584-6). individuals produce citizenship rights. (For a series of such propositions, see Collins, 1975:356-64.) 936 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

On a second level, one may say that the tion implicit in Weber’s theory applicable fundamental generalizations in Weber’s to economic history after the initial rise of theory of capitalism concern the crucial capitalism, it is this: The possibility for the role of balances and tensions between op- follower-societies of the non-Western posing elements. “All in all,” says Weber world to acquire the dynamism of indus- in a little-known passage (1968:1192-3), trial capitalism depends on there being a “the specific roots of Occidental culture balance among class forces, and among must be sought in the tension and peculiar competing political forces and cultural balance, on the one hand, between office forces as well. In the highly industrialized and monasticism, and on the other societies also, the continuation of between the contractual character of the capitalism depends on continuation of the feudal state and the autonomous bu- same conflicts. The victory of any one side reaucratic hierarchy.”14 No one element would spell the doom of the system. In must predominate if rationalization is to this respect, as in others, Weber’s theory increase. More concretely, since each is a conflict theory indeed. “element” is composed of real people struggling for precedence, the creation of a AN ASSESSMENT: WEBER’S calculable, open-market economy depends CONFRONTATION WITH MARXISM upon a continuous balance of power among How valid is Weber’s theory? To fully differently organized groups. The formal answer this question would require exten- of the law depends upon sive comparative analyses and a good deal balances among competing citizens and of explication of principles on different among competing jurisdictions. The levels of abstraction. These tasks are nondualistic economic ethic of moderated beyond the scope of any one paper. What I avarice depends upon a compromise be- can present is a confrontation between tween the claims of in-group charity and Weber’s theory and the one rival theory of the vicious circle of out-group rapacious- capitalism which claims a comparable ness. The capitalist economy depends on this degree of historical and theoretical balance. The open-market system is a comprehensiveness, Marxism. This is situation of institutionalized strife. Its es- especially appropriate because Weber sence is struggle, in an expanded version of himself devoted a great deal of attention in the Marxian sense, but with the qualifi- the General Economic History to the cation that this could go on continuously, points at which his analysis impinges on and indeed must, if the system is to sur- Marxist theories. vive.15 Hence, if there is any generaliza- The book begins and ends on Marxian themes. The first chapter deals with the 14 In other words, the main features of the West question of primitive agrarian . depend on a tension between the routinization of Characteristically, Weber finds it to be religious charisma in the church and the participatory only one variant of primitive agriculture; communities of monks, and on a tension between the where it does exist, it is usually the result democratizing tendencies of self-supplied armies and of fiscal organization imposed from above the centralized bureaucratic state. These give us Weber’s two great intermediate factors, a (1961:21-36). The closing words of the nondualistic religious ethic and calculable law, re- book speak of the threat of working class spectively. revolution which appears once capitalism 15 matures and work discipline loses its reli- .... the formal rationality of money calculation is dependent on certain quite specific substantive gious legitimation (1961:270). In between, conditions. Those which are of a particular there are numerous references to Marx- sociological importance for present purposes are the following: (1) Market struggle of economic units which are at least relatively autonomous. Money prices are the product of conflicts of inter- est and of compromises; they thus result from of man against man. “Money” is, rather, primarily a power constellations. Money is not a mere “voucher weapon in this struggle, and prices are expressions for unspecified utilities,” which could be altered at of the struggle; they are instruments of calculation will without any fundamental effect on the only as estimated quantifications of relative character of the price system as a struggle chances in this struggle of interests (Weber, 1968:107-8). WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 937 ism, far more than in any other of Weber’s was concerned to meet the Marxian chal- works. His attitude is critically respectful, lenge on its own grounds, leaving out as in his comment on the Engels-Bebel nothing that must be conceded, but also theory of the origins of the : “al- turning up whatever factors the Marxists though it is untenable in detail it forms, left out. Moreover, the German Marxists taken as a whole, a valuable contribution to had suddenly become stronger with the the solution of the problem. Here again is end of the World War and the downfall of the old exemplified that an ingenious the German monarchy. Weber delivered error is more fruitful for science than stupid accuracy.” (1961:40)16 his lectures in just after the short- Weber’s intellectual maturity coincides lived Communist commune of 1919, and with a period of high-level debate in Ger- his lecture room contained many radical many and Austria between Marxian and students. It is not surprising that Weber non-Marxian economists. In the years was so much more explicitly concerned between 1885 and 1920 appeared Engels’s with Marxism in his last work than in the editions of the later volumes of Capital, he published while the as well as the principal works of Kautsky, war was going on. Hilferding, and Luxemburg. On the other Weber had one great advantage over the side, Sombart, Bortkiewitz, and Tugan- Marxists. The discipline of historical Baranowski provided what they consid- scholarship reached its maturity around ered to be revisions in the spirit of Marx- the end of the nineteenth century. Not ian economics, while Böhm-Bawerk only had political and military history (1898) and Schumpeter (1954) launched reached a high degree of comprehensive- explicit, efforts to shore up the weaknesses ness and accuracy, but so had the history of vis-à-vis of law, religion, and economic institutions Marxism, and attacked the technical not only for Europe and the ancient weaknesses of Marxian theory.17 This pe- riod was in many ways the high-water Mediterranean but for the Orient as well. mark in for an atmos- The historical researches of the twentieth phere of balanced debate is beneficial for century have not brought to light any intellectual advance. Weber in particular great body of facts about the past that has radically changed our view of world history since Weber’s day. Weber was 16 Weber goes on to say, “A criticism of the theory perhaps the first great master of the major leads to consideration first of the evolution of pros- institutional facts of world history. By titution, in which connection, it goes without saying, contrast, Marx, pursuing his assiduous no ethical evaluation is involved.” There follows (1961:40-53) a brilliant outline of a theory of the researches in the 1840s and 50s, had much organization of the family as one set of variants on narrower materials at his disposal sexual property relations, in which material (Hobsbawm 1964:20-7). The histories of transactions and appropriations are fundamentally involved. Later versions of this line of theory are India, China, Japan, or had scarcely found in Levi-Strauss (1968), and in Collins begun to be available; the permeation of (1975:228-59). the ancient Greco-Roman world by reli- 17 Thus, Böhm-Bawerk (1898) and Schumpeter gious institutions was only beginning to be (1954) developed a previously missing link in analyzed; and the complex civilization of classical and neoclassical economics, a theory of the European High Middle Ages was hid- capitalist profits. This they based on time-lags in the den beneath what Marx considered the competitive process and resulting time-preference ” among investment returns, displacing the Marxian “feudal rubbish of the Ancien Regime of theory of profit based on the exploitation of labor. the eighteenth century. Marx wrote before Böhm-Bawerk also made an analysis of socialist the great coming-of-age of historical economies. He regarded these as possible politically (as did Schumpeter and Weber), but denied that pro- scholarship; Weber, just as it reached its duction would be organized differently than in peak. Weber thus represents for us the capitalism. Socialism could affect only the distribu- first and in many ways still the only effort tion of capitalist profits among the populace. For the to make a truly informed comparative economic thought of this period, see Schumpeter (1954:800-20, 843-55, 877-85) and Sweezy analysis of major historical developments. (1942:190-213). It should be borne in mind that Marx and most of his followers have devoted their attention primarily to showing the 938 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW dynamics of capitalism, not to the precon- The uniqueness of Marx’s discussion is in ditions for its emergence. Weber’s con- two factors: primitive accumulation, and cerns were almost entirely the reverse. revolution. About the latter, Marx had Hence, it is possible that the two analyses surprisingly little to say beyond the could be complementary, Marx’s taking up dramatic imagery of revolution breaking where Weber’s leaves off. Only in the the bonds imposed by the property system 1970s have there been efforts comparable upon the growing engines of production to Weber’s from within the Marxian tradi- (Marx, 1959: 43-4). Primitive accumula- tion, notably that of Wallerstein (1974). tion takes up nearly the whole of his his- Interestingly enough, Weber anticipated torical discussion. It means the accumu- Wallerstein’s major points in the General lation of enough raw materials, tools, and Economic History. On the other side, food for laborers to live on before sub- Wallerstein’s revision of Marxism is in sequent production was completed; hence, many ways a movement toward a more it is the quantitative prerequisite for any Weberian mode of analysis, stressing the takeoff into expanded economic importance of external relations among production. Such accumulation took place states. historically in two ways. One was by the The classical Marxian model of the pre- expropriation of peasants from their land, conditions for capitalism covers only a which simultaneously concentrated few points (Marx, 1967: I, 336-70, 713- wealth in the hands of the capitalists who 64; II, 323-37, 593-613; 1973: 459-514). received the lands and required the ex- Some of these are a subset of Weber’s propriated masses to sell their labor on the model, while two of them are distinctive to market. The other means of primitive ac- Marx. Weber and Marx both stressed that cumulation was by usury and merchants’ capitalism requires a pool of formally free capital. Marx downplayed the importance but economically property-less labor; the of monetary factors by themselves, as they sale of all factors of production on the operated only in the realm of circulation market; and the concentration of all factors and did nothing to productive relations; in the hands of capitalist entrepreneurs. but he did assert that the growth of money Marx did not see the importance of the capital furthered the dissolution of the calculable aspect of technology; at times, feudal economy once it was already under he seemed to make the sheer productive way (1967:III, 596-7). power of technology the central moving Of these two factors, Weber says al-most force in economic changes, while at nothing explicitly about primitive others, he downplayed this as part of a accumulation. However, the entire earlier larger -much in the way sections of the General Economic History Weber did. Unlike Weber, Marx gave no (1961:21-203) deal with the various forms causal importance at all to calculable law, of appropriation of material and financial nor did he see the earlier links in Weber’s means, which have made up, among other causal chain: economic ethics, citizenship, things, the capitalism that has been om- bureaucratization, and their antecedents.18 nipresent throughout history, although not in a rationalized form. The idea that there 18 Marx (1973:459-514) gave a very general outline of early forms of property as based on family and must be a specific accumulation of surplus tribal membership, and he recognized that the ancient for the purpose of a capitalist takeoff, I cities were military coalitions. He missed the central suspect, is one that Weber would reject. organizing role of religion in these developments, and failed to see the crucial effect of the revolutions The assumption ought to be subjected to within the ancient cities upon the uniquely Western proof. After all, agrarian societies already legal tradition. For Marx, the rise of cities simply have the most extreme concentration of meant the growing separation of town and country, an wealth at the top of the social hierarchy of instance of dialectical antithesis, and of the progress of the division of labor (1967:I, 352). For the period any type of society in world history immediately preceding the capitalist takeoff, Marx (Lenski, 1966); the industrial takeoff need noted that the state had hastened the transition from only have been fueled by a shift in the use feudalism to capitalism by creating public finance and conquering foreign

markets. These effects Marx subsumed under his concept of “primitive accumulation.” WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 939 of this wealth, not by a further extraction of the 16th century. During this period, process. As Weber understood, and as wages remained approximately constant. subsequent research has shown, The gap between prices and wages con- capitalists do not have to rise “from stituted a vast extraction of surplus which below,” having amassed their own wealth; could be invested in expanding capitalist it has been far more typical for the enterprises (Wallerstein, 1974:77-84).21 aristocracy themselves to go into This is Wallerstein’s version of the primi- capitalist production (Stone, 1965; Moore, tive accumulation factor. 19 1966). Wallerstein’s (1974:348) second condi- Weber is somewhat more sympathetic to tion also emerges from the international the importance of revolutions. Perhaps the final conditions for the capitalist takeoff in situation. “[C]apitalism as an economic England were the revolutions of 1640 and system is based on the fact that economic 1688. These put the state under the control factors operate within an arena larger than of political groups favorable to capitalism, that which any political entity can totally thus fulfilling the condition of keeping control. This gives capitalists a freedom of markets and finances free of “irrational” maneuver that is structurally based.” He and predatory state policies. Of more (1974:355) goes on to say that the different fundamental institutional consequence states must be of different strengths, so were the revolutions within the cities of that not all states “would be in the position ancient Greece and of medieval Italy. The latter, Weber lists among “the five great of blocking the effective operation of revolutions that decided the destiny of the transnational economic entities whose occident” (1951:62).20 For it was the locus were in another state.” Capitalists in uprising of the plebeians which re-placed effect must have opportunities to shift the charismatic law of the older patrician their grounds among varied political cli- class with the universalistic and “rationally mates to wherever the situation is most instituted” law upon which so much of the favorable. institutional development of capitalism Weber (1961:259) was generally aware was to depend (Weber, 1968:1312-3, of both conditions. Regarding the effects 1325). In effect, this was a revolution in a of gold and silver influx, however, he was system of property, but not in the gross largely unfavorable. sense of a replacement of one form of appropriation with another. For Weber, a It is certainly true that in a given situation an system of property is a complex of daily increase in the supply of precious metals may actions-above all, the making of transfers give rise to price revolutions, such as that which took place after 1530 in Europe, and and contracts and the adjudication of when other favorable conditions are present, disputes. Hence, political revolutions are as when a certain form of labor organization most crucial where they set the pattern for is in the process of development, the progress ongoing legal actions in a highly may be stimulated by the fact that large calculable form, with all the consequences stocks of cash come into the hands of certain noted above. groups. But the case of India proves that such Wallerstein’s (1974) theory, as devel- an importation of metal will not alone bring oped in volume I, emphasizes two condi- about capitalism. In India in the period of the tions in the origins of capitalism. One is Roman power, an enormous mass of precious the influx of bullion from the European metal-some twenty-five million sestertii colonies, which caused the price inflation annually-came in exchange for domestic goods, but this inflow gave rise to commercial capitalism only to a slight ex-tent. The greater part of this precious metal 19 Weber also anticipated Barrington Moore’s disappeared into the hoards of the rajahs in- (1966) theory of the political consequences of dif- ferent property modes in the commercialization of agriculture (1961:81-94). 21 To this, Wallerstein adds the argument that 20 The others were “the Netherland revolution of surplus is further extracted by coerced labor on the the sixteenth century, the English revolution of the periphery, to be consumed in the core, where how- seventeenth century, and the American and French ever (somewhat contrary to the point about the price revolutions of the eighteenth century.” revolution) labor is well enough paid to constitute a potential consumers’ market for capitalist produc- tion. 940 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

stead of being converted into cash and applied in the in the modern sense of the word. the establishment of enterprises of a rational Hence it is the closed national state which capitalistic character. This fact proves that it afforded to capitalism its chance for development- depends entirely upon the nature of the labor and as long as the national state does not give system what tendency will result from an inflow of place to a world empire capitalism will also precious metal. endure. In another passage, Weber (1961:231) Here the coincidence with Wallerstein does say that the price revolution of the is remarkable. Weber does not emphasize sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the contours of Wallerstein’s world sys- “provided a powerful lever for the speci- tem, with its tiers of core, semiperiphery, fically capitalistic tendencies of seeking and periphery, but Weber does show the profit through cheapening production and ” central importance of mobile capital lowering the price. This came about for among militarily competing states, and he industrial (but not agricultural) products, gives a more specific analysis than Wal- because the quickened economic tempo lerstein of the mechanism by which this is put on pressures toward further ration- transformed into an advantage for alizing economic relations and inventing capitalism. cheaper technologies of production. In general, there is considerable con- Weber thus gives the influx of precious vergence, as well as complementarity, metals a place as a contributory factor, between Weber’s last theory of the origins though apparently not an indispensable of capitalism, and the mature Marxian one, within the framework of economic theory which is only now emerging. institutions which had already appeared in 22 Weber largely rejects Marxian theories of Europe at the time. primitive accumulation, or at least rele- Weber (1961:249) largely agrees, how- gates them to minor factors. On the other ever, with Wallerstein’s argument about side, Wallerstein, as well as modern the international character of capitalism. Marxism in general, has moved the state Modern cities, he points out, into the center of the analysis. Weber had came under the power of competing national states already gone much further in that direc- in a condition of perpetual struggle for power in tion, so that the main Weberian criticism or war. This competitive struggle created of the Marxian tradition, even in its pres- the largest opportunities for modern Western ent form, is that it does not yet recognize capitalism. The separate states had to compete for mobile capital, which dictated to them the the set of institutional forms, especially as conditions under which it would assist them to grounded in the legal system, upon which power. Out of this alliance of the state with capital, capitalism has rested. dictated by necessity, arose the national citizen For Weber, the state and the legal sys- class, tem are by no means a superstructure of ideas determining the material organiza- 22 Weber’s (1961:223) comment on the economic tion of society. Rather, his theory of the benefits of the colonies is even more negative. This accumulation of wealth brought about development of the state is to a consider- through colonial trade has been of little able extent an analogy to the Marxian significance for the development of modern theory of the economy. The key factor is capitalism-a fact which must be emphasized in the form of appropriation of the material opposition to . It is true that the colonial trade made possible the accumulation of conditions of domination. We have seen wealth to an enormous extent, but this did not the significance of the organization of further the specifically occidental form of the or- weapons for Weber’s chain of causes of ganization of labor, since colonial trade itself rested on the principle of exploitation and not that of capitalism. In this connection, Weber securing an income through market operations. (1961:237) remarks: Furthermore, we know that in Bengal for example, the English garrison cost five times as much as the Whether the military organization is based on money value of all goods carried thither. It follows the principle of self-equipment or on that of that the markets for domestic industry furnished by military equipment by an overlord who the colonies under the conditions of the time were furnishes horses, arms and provisions, is a relatively unimportant, and that the main profit distinction quite as fundamental for social was derived from the transport business. history as the question whether the means of economic production are the property of the WEBER’S LAST THEORY OF CAPITALISM: A SYSTEMATIZATION 941

worker or of a capitalistic entrepreneur .. . [T]he sumers’) goods (1961:217). To decide who army equipped by the war lord, and the is right on these points requires further separation of the soldier from the paraphernalia of consideration than can be given here. war, [is] in a way analogous to the separation of the worker from the means of production... . CONCLUSION Similarly, state bureaucracy depends upon a set of material conditions, and Weber’s last theory is still today the upon the separation of the administrator only comprehensive theory of the origins from treating the office and its incomes as of capitalism. It is virtually alone in ac- private property (1968:980-3). Weber di- counting for the emergence of the full verges from the Marxian analogy by being range of institutional and motivational a more thoroughgoing conflict theorist. As conditions for large-scale, world- we have seen, and as the quotation given transforming capitalism. Even so, it is in- above on the international basis of complete. It needs to be supplemented bya capitalism bears out, for Weber the con- theory of the operation of mature ditions of rationalized organization, in capitalism, and of its possible demise. political and economic spheres alike, de- And even on the home territory of pend upon a continuous open struggle.23 Weber’s theory, there remain to be carried The main disagreements between Marx out the comprehensive tests that would and Weber have less to do with the origins provide adequate proof. But sociological of capitalism than with its future. Weber science, like any other, advances by thought that capitalism could endure in- successive approximations. The theory expressed in Weber’s General Economic definitely as an economic system, al- History constitutes a base line from which though political factors could bring it subsequent investigations should depart. down. As we have seen, he thought that the disappearance of religious legitimation in mature capitalism opened the way for workers to express their discontents in the REFERENCES form of a for so- Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von cialism. Ironically, it is the rationalized 1898 and the Close of his System. world view promoted by the underlying London: T.F. Unwin. Burger, Thomas conditions of capitalism that gave birth to 1976 Max Weber’s Theory of Concept Formation. rational socialism, a doctrine that pro- Durham, : Duke University claims that the itself, rather Press. than the gods, is to blame for economic Cohen, Jere 1980 “Rational capitalism in Renaissance Italy.” distress; and that having been deliberately American Journal of Sociology 85:1340-55. instituted, that order is capable of being Cohen, Jere, Lawrence E. Hazelrigg, and Whitney consciously changed (1961:217-8). For Pope Weber, however, economic crises may be 1975 “De-Parsonizing Weber: a critique of Par- sons’ interpretation of Weber’s sociology.” endemic to modern capitalism, but they American Sociological Review 40:229-41. are not caused by a fundamental con- Collins, Randall tradiction in it, nor is there any necessary 1975 Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory tendency for them to worsen toward an Science. New York: Academic. ultimate breakdown. He attributes crises Hirst, Paul Q. 1976 Evolution and Social Categories. London: to overspeculation and the resulting over- Allen and Unwin. production of producers’ (but not con- Hobsbawn, E. J. 1964 “Introduction.” Pp. 9-65 in Karl Marx, Pre-

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