The Unknown Max Weber

Paul Honigsheim, Alan Sica

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780765809537
• eBook ISBN: 9781351302227
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Paul Honigsheim is unique. One of the select few who regularly participated in the Weber-Kreis in Heidelberg during the 1910s, Honigsheim's special place within Weber's world adds a degree of credibility to his writings matched by few others. In the late 1940s Honigsheim published four essays from what might be called Weber's "lost decade," the period during which Weber established his reputation in Germany as the most versatile and brilliant of the younger social scientists. Together in one volume for the first time, these essays reveal portions of Weber's work previously unavailable in English.

In the opening essay, "Max Weber as Rural Sociologist," Honigsheim treats Weber's essays on Russia, Poland, and other works in economic history. He offers a point of departure for those wishing to probe Weber's celebrated and misconstrued distaste for traditional Slavic social structure. In "Max Weber as Applied Anthropologist," Honigsheim examines Weber's commitment to the study of race, ethnicity, and nationalism as mediated by ethnic attachments, social policy formation, handicraft economies, and what he calls "Ethno-Politics." "Max Weber as Historian of Agriculture and Rural Life" is a masterpiece of exegesis and comparative inquiry. The final essay, "Max Weber: His Religious and Ethical Background and Development," acts as a minor corrective and addendum to Marianne Weber's biography. The book concludes with Honigsheim's reminiscences of the Weber circle.

Interest in the work and person of Max Weber grows with each year. From his writings the reader may glean the finer shades and contours of thoughts that arise from private exchanges between Honigsheim and Max Weber. This volume will interest a broad spectrum of social scientists.

Part 1
The Unknown Max Weber

1
Max Weber as Rural Sociologist: In Commemoration of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of His Death

The United States will be obliged to participate in a decisive way in the rehabilitation of chaotic Europe in general, and of its rural life in particular. This task is inextricably connected with the political problems related to the penetration of the Soviets and their collective farms into central and southeastern Europe. In this connection at least three types of rural organizations came into consideration: (1) Feudalism was and still is in existence in Germany, east of the Elbe, in Poland and in the Rumanian lowland, and was found in its extremist form until recently, as feoffment in trust (Fideikommis). This latter term denotes a relatively large estate, being the property of a privileged family and, therefore, not able to be brought up for sale, even if the owning family is indebted. (2) The rural collectivity existed in the past as zadruga in Serbia and as mir in Russia and at the present time as artel in the Soviet Republics. (3) The independent peasant’s farm existed and exists to a greater or less extent in same parts of Eastern Europe, including Germany.

In the United States neither feudalism nor collective farms existed except in the South and in a few remote sectarian groups. Accordingly it may be difficult for Americans to appraise these European phenomena. Under such circumstances it may be of importance to know the viewpoint of Max Weber in regard to these problems, for he was one of the most outstanding among the German sociologists, economists, and politicians of the era before, during, and after World War I. Max Weber was very familiar with the United States, its economic and sociological viewpoint, through his studies and travels, and was, therefore, able to compare the Old and New Worlds. Both his friends and enemies agree in considering him a man of vast knowledge, keen methodological perception, incorruptible objectivity, and genuine sense of justice. While he was known in Europe as much for his rural sociological interests as for his researches in historical and theoretical fields, in the USA he is known almost exclusively, not as a rural sociologist, but as a methodologist and pioneer in the field of the sociology of religion. He will be considered in this paper primarily as a rural sociologist. A few preliminary words on his personality and background may be in order at this point. ¹

Rural Sociology 11:3 (Sept., 1946), 207-218.

Max Weber was successively a lawyer, a teacher of Roman and commercial law, and a professor of economics in Freiburg and Heidelberg. Because he was overworked and ill during fifteen years while in Heidelberg, he neither taught nor appeared publicly. Later he re-entered politics during World War I and after the peace treaties for a short time before his death he was professor of sociology in Munich. The basic element of his spiritual life was a religiously founded ethical categorical imperative, which drove him to two duties: (1) to investigate scientific topics objectively, that is, by eliminating personal bias and judgments of value within the historico-economico-sociological sphere,² and (2) to make individual decisions and remain loyal to his convictions in the spheres of religion, ethics, and politics.³

As a politician Max Weber shifted from moderate liberalism to a more radical democratic conviction which was not of a laissez-faire character, but which, on the contrary, led him to work within the influential “verein für Sozialpolitik” for state-supported social policies. Oriented by his studies in the comparative history of rural life and institutions⁴ he debated four rural political problems, three of which involved eastern Germany: (1) the social situation of seigniors and dependents; (2) feoffment in trust; (3) Polish minorities; and (4) the structure of rural Russia before and after the collapse of Czarism. The discussion on the following pages is developed around these four topics.

I. The social position of seigniors and dependents is to Max Weber a special case of the sociological phenomenon known as “feudalism.” This is a pattern of social life, closely connected with one of Weber’s three types of leadership, that is, the traditional one. Here the leader is obeyed, neither because he is supposed to be a unique individual, nor because there exists a written law in an institutionalized society, making him a bureaucrat, but rather because of tradition.⁵ Max Weber investigates and describes the sociological phenomena arising out of this traditionalistic feudalism, such as the special concept of honor and luxury, the denial of the calculating and capitalistic mentality, and the refusal to be involved in trade.⁶ But independent of this general sociologico-classificatory interest, he had the special and practical interest in and aversion to the power of the Prussian “Junkers.” This situation he describes and judges as follows.

The feudal owners of large rural estates were the regular political leaders in the majority of rural societies in the past. In England⁷ they have continued to the present time and in eastern Germany until recently.⁸ Here actually the leading social class was scattered over the entire land; their castles and estates were centers of power and they themselves were political autocrats, economically self-satisfied, with little knowledge in economics and without much interest in business. Their subordinates ⁹ were not only domestic servants and valets in the manors of the seigniors, but were either permanent or transient rural workers, the latter being hired from surrounding villages. The former were not unmarried, but had families, and were obliged, if their families had too few workers, to hire themselves a substitute called Scharwerker; all these were largely paid in kind, which made them believe that they had the same economic interests as their employers. They accepted this traditional situation without any opposition owing to the indoctrination they had received for many generations.

Changes have occurred during recent decades¹⁰ due to the higher standard of living of the bourgeois class in the cities. Especially now it was necessary for the Junkers to maintain their social supremacy and to attempt to raise their own standard; but the manor, thus managed was not capable of maintaining the living standard of a noble family. The sons had to become officers in the army or members of very exclusive, and expensive student associations, and the daughters, in order to be married according to their rank, were supposed to have a big dowry. Thus the Junkers were obliged to became entrepreneurs with an increasingly “bourgeois” mentality and accordingly changed their attitude toward their subordinates.¹¹ The importance of perquisites decreased, while cash payments and the number of persons receiving them increased. The dependents also began to prefer this method although it was less secure but ottered greater independence. They also began to develop antagonism toward the proprietor, even an inclination to class struggle and some of them emigrated to the cities to become factory workers. Last, but not least, the nobles felt themselves compelled to change the interrelationship between political power and economic status. Formerly they had based their political power on their unshaken and undisputed economic status; now they found it necessary to maintain their seriously threatened economic status through political power. The result was that they became an economic group which turned into a pressure group using political resources for economic class purposes. This was done by enacting new state laws favoring the maintenance of the economic productivity of their estates especially by requiring laws protecting the feoffment in trust.

II. The feoffment in trust, according to Weber, although it had already been known in ancient Indies, was re-originated in Byzantium, where land, to avoid its confiscation by the Emperor, was transferred to the Church under the agreement that nine-tenths of the land rent be paid to the family. From the Greek-Roman Empire this institution shifted to the Mohammedans, with them to Christian Spain and from there to England and other Christian countries, including Prussia.¹² Here, under the pressure of the Junkers, the government published in 1903 the draft of a new bill concerning feoffment. Immediately after its publication Max Weber, who had already shown an interest in the problem¹³ and continued later to maintain his interest in this field,¹⁴ collected material and published his criticism, protest, and his own program. He describes the situation as having existed hitherto as follows:¹⁵

Land which has relatively high and riskless rent, has a tendency to be incorporated into feoffments. This arose in considerable part because those capitalists who had all the money they wanted but desired security, desired to invest money in such land, in that way obtaining nobility from the monarch, and gaining the opportunity of living on the standard of a highly esteemed “rentier.” This possibility would even increase if through tariffs protecting the grain production, the land-rent of grain-producing land could be maintained and even increased.¹⁶

The draft of the new bill provided¹⁷ for the possibility of the establishment of new feoffments with the king’s permission and pretended to protect and strengthen by such measures the interest in family and home. In opposition to this, Weber asserts¹⁸ that it is the intention of the government to combine protectionism with feoffments, thus to maintain, and to create artificially big estates, giving to the capitalistic bourgeoisie class the opportunity of becoming nobles, thus making them conservatives dependent upon the supporters of the monarchy, and allies of the declining eastern nobility. He opposes the new bill for this reason and believes—as he will also repeat later¹⁹—that the effects of existing feoffment are the following²⁰: capital which Germany should use in trade, is removed out of the world’s trade and industry; peasants are driven from good to bad land; rural workers settle down definitively on or near to the feoffment’s land, become again bound to the soil, and in reality dependent upon the landlord, as happened in the feudal era; rural workers not willing to accept such a situation, are induced to emigrate, and the owners themselves to hire foreign seasonal workers.

Under such circumstances, Weber had always opposed²¹ every measure calculated to hinder rural workers from moving to the city or to return them back to their former rural districts, or to have them settle as small part-time farmers on or near the large estates. He concedes²² feoffments for only a small percentage of soil used mostly for forestry but insists that all the other feoffments, which already exist, or the establishment of which may be asked for, should be eliminated. As a transitory measure he requires²³ expropriation with compensation of the untenable large estates by the state, the conversion of this land in demesnes, the assignment on leave of the latter to crown-land-lessees, and the protection of the workers hired by and dependent upon these tenants with a contract which should be signed by both the state and the lessees.

The government became enraged at this sharp opposition and criticism by the Heidelberg professor but felt itself impelled to withdraw the draft of the bill. Thus actually Weber was successful, but only to some extent, for neither his claim for abolition of feoftment nor the positive part of his program became realized, and the Polish minority problem in rural eastern Germany also remained, the other aspect of the feoffment question.

III. The Polish minority in rural Eastern Germany originated thus: By the partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century, some of the Poles had become subjects and later citizens of Prussia and Germany respectively. Previously, feudalism in Poland had been even stronger than in Prussia and the latter had to some extent protected the Polish lower rural classes from the nobility which caused the Polish masses for some decades of the nineteenth century to acquiesce to Prussian domination. With an increasing tendency toward Prussification and with a simultaneous development toward Russificiation, Polish Catholic propaganda arose against Prussian Protestantism and against Russian Greek-Orthodoxy, thus making the antagonism between the nations more acute. This manifested itself, among other things, in the Prussian laws, which restricted sharply the use of the Polish language in the Eastern provinces.

Max Weber had always strictly opposed anti-Polish language laws,²⁴ acknowledging at the same time the loyalty of the Poles in Upper Silesia,²⁵ but from the very beginning of his public appearance he likewise opposed the increasing Polonization of the East. Because of this and other reasons, he blamed the Junkers and the conservative party. His accusation ran somewhat as follows: they give themselves an air of nationalism but actually sacrifice national good for their own socioeconomic interests. These Junkers use hired Polish seasonal workers coming front Russian-Polish districts because of the cheapness of the labor and the absence of any obligation to furnish welfare assistance in time of need. Last, but not least, the feoffment in trust as they are, and most of all as they would be, if the bill mentioned in the previous section became law, would increase, for reasons mentioned above, the amount of seasonal workers, especially those of Polish descent. Only Poles²⁷ would be willing to settle on or near the large estates of the manor holders in the completely dependent form described above. Therefore Weber’s twofold challenge:²⁸ forbid the entrance of Polish seasonal workers, coming from Polish-Russia into Eastern-Germany and abolish the feoffments, especially for advancing Polish immigration. Apparently the national point of view plays a role in Weber’s thinking but it is not the most important. This emphasis upon the national viewpoint comes to light here because he considered it his duty to labor where God or destiny had put him; and one of these values according to him is the nation. This national point of view was not the only one which led Weber to the anti-feoffment campaign, but rather it was his religiously founded deep sympathy for the lower classes.

This feeling may help us to explain Weber’s interest in the changes of Russian rural structure before and after the collapse of Czarism, which is regarded as his latest rural sociological interest.

IV. The rural structure of Russia had always attracted Max Weber’s attention. Even more than that, he had always been affected by the collectivity feeling of the Russian peasant, by the Greek-Orthodox Saint and the passive sufferer in the fictions of Dostoevsky, and by Tolstoy’s attempt to teach and to live a life conforming to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. Weber did not believe in the possibility of regulating state and politics according to those principles. On the contrary, he had emphasized more than anyone else the essentially tragic role of the politician because the latter was responsible for the future of his group or country. Thus, he could not act exclusively according to his own individual ethical conscience without taking the future into consideration; rather he had to act in regard to his responsibility and take upon himself the burden of becoming, ethically speaking, guilty and, religiously speaking, a sinner. Max Weber had been deeply touched by the problem and by Tolstoy’s attempt to solve it in a way, different from his own. He had even planned to go beyond the occasional remarks and to write a book on this Russian disciple of the Sermon on the Mount.²⁹Under such circumstances, one can hardly wonder that Russian rural life meant so much to him, not only after the great changes occurring during World War I, but even before. He had a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Paul Honigsheim and Max Weber’s Lost Decade
• Foreword to On Max Weber (1962)
• Part 1: The Unknown Max Weber
• Part 2: On Max Weber
• Name Index
• Subject Index