sociological theory - Weber

The Iron Cage is a phrase that has had canonical status as the essence of Weber’s view on the process of bureaucratic rationalization and his vision of modernity itself. Write an essay on canon formation in sociology based on the controversy created by the claim that this phrase mis-translates and distorts Weber’s intended meaning.

Introduction

Sociology is one of the very few disciplines in social science that takes keen interest in the writings of a small group of supposed founding fathers. It has been controversially agreed that the founding fathers of sociology are Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber who created sociology in response to dramatic changes in European society: the industrial revolution, class conflict, secularization, alienation and the modern state. (Pg 1511) Not only are their texts read and reread through time but also the same text is interpreted through the lens of diverse standpoints. This comprises a canon i.e. a privileged set of text whose interpretation and reinterpretation defines a field (Connell, Pg 1512).

Development of Canons in Sociology

‘Canon’ in English originally meant a rule or edict of the Church. "Classical theory" is a package that not only exaggerates the importance of a few great men but in the same gesture excludes or discredits the noncanonical (Connell, Pg 1545). The process of canon formation lasted a generation and was the work of many hands that involved the creation of a canonical point of view and the selection of particular founding fathers. The classical texts addressing the problems of order, sciences of action and so on were reinforced by theorists wishing to establish a problem as a central issue, which in turn ensured particular fields as a canonical view. Furthermore, through the pedagogy of classics, the canon became part of the higher education in sociology allowing sociologists from even the most remote parts of the world to identify themselves in the categories of the canon.

Nevertheless, there is the need to critically comprehend canons given the circumstances in which it emerged. Canons came to light post the elapse of evolutionism in the conceptual vacuum. Noting the hegemonic patterns inscribed in canons, it is important to consider not only which writers are included and excluded, but also which problems. Touted of having an interest in eugenics, the discourse of imperialism was deleted from the canon of sociology including the issues of progress, racial hierarchies, gender and population, which were core issues for evolutionary sociology. Therefore, canons put forward the need to have an inclusive way of doing theory, learning about the full range of intellectuals who produced "theories of society" - the feminists, anarchists, and colonials who were otherwise erased from the canonical story and hence recover the global context that Victorian sociology, in its own way, addressed.

All in all the function of classical canons has also been widely criticized. It serves as nothing more than a symbol providing "rituals of solidarity" for the profession of sociology. Furthermore, there is wide dispute amongst the sociologists of the classical period themselves regarding the story of origin i.e. who should be considered as the founding father of the discipline. (Connell1513)

The Iron Cage as a Canon

In Max Weber’s book of essays, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905) he looks at the matter-of-fact form of value ‘rational’ thinking and living endorsed by Protestantism to justify the advent of capitalism. In his analysis, he derives a teleological explanation of the two ideas – abound economic success and ascetic religious belief. Indeed, in many parts of the world great material achievements had resulted from the work of monastic orders dedicated to a life of the spirit; the idea of ‘calling’ and of giving over of one’s self to work in a ‘calling’. The ascetic Protestant sects were noted for their economic success in the early phase of modern capitalism.

Protestantism in the book is considered only to the extent that it played as a ‘harbinger’ of purely rationalistic views of life. And the Spirit of capitalism is one component part in the larger and overarching development of rationalism as a whole.

Benjamin Franklin, in his ethics for organization of life by Spirit of Capitalism suggested various notions of money; time is money, credit is money, money is prolific and so on. Referring to the notion that time is valuable and money is wasted when a person's time is not used productively, he promulgated ‘Time is money’, he that can earn ten Shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle one half of that Day, though he spends but six Pence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has already spent or rather thrown away five Shillings besides. Remember that credit is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it. Remember that money is of a prolific generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five Shillings turned is six: Turned again it is seven and three Pence; and so on until it becomes a hundred Pound. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown destroys all it might have produced, even scores of Pounds. Remember that six Pounds a year is but a Groat a day. For this little sum (which may be daily wasted either in time or expense unperceived) a man of credit may on his own security have the constant possession and use of a hundred Pounds. So much in stock briskly turned by an industrious man, produces great advantage. While capitalism existed in places like China and India, and in the Middle Ages, it did not have this spirit.

Nevertheless, the complexity of this issue is apparent in the summum bonum (supreme good) of this ethic: namely the acquisition of money, and more and more money, takes place here simultaneously with the strictest avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of it. The pursuit of riches is fully stripped off all pleasurable. Accordingly, this striving becomes understood completely as an end in itself to such an extent that it appears as fully outside the normal course of affairs and simply irrational at least when viewed from the perspective of ‘happiness’ or ‘utility’ of the single individual. While on one hand it calculates earnings and their maximum potential, on the other hand it has a dispassionate self-control and moderation, all of which increases productive capacity to an unusual degree. The foundation for perceiving work as an end in itself, or a ‘calling’ as modern capitalism requires is developed in most propitious manner. And the prospect for shattering the leisurely rhythm of economic traditionalism as a consequence of a religious education and socialization is at its highest.

Weber first analyzed the implications of the doctrine of predestination; this analysis is a good example of his more general studies of religious doctrines. He deduced that an unfathomable divine decision concerning the fate of men in the hereafter would produce great anxiety among a people intensely concerned with the salvation of their souls, and he assumed that this anxiety was at its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Only the pastoral interpretations of the theological doctrines could allay this anxiety. Calvin taught that everyone must face the ultimate uncertainty of his fate; nevertheless, ministers encouraged their congregations to engage in a zealous and self-denying round of daily activities, mindful that God had put the resources of his created world at the disposal of men who on the day of judgment would be responsible to him for the single-minded, work oriented use of all their powers in his service. True believers responded with an “inner-worldly asceticism,” as Weber called it, which enabled them to quiet their consciences by rationally transforming the world in which God had placed them. Weber’s analysis showed that Puritan wealth was an unintended consequence of the anxieties aroused by the doctrine of predestination. Because members of the Calvinist congregation accepted the interpretations of that doctrine offered by the Puritan divines, they led frugal, active lives that resulted in the accumulation of wealth.

Luther divulges further in the concept of ‘calling’ or Beruf in German, which denotes that one’s task is given by God. He points out that the notion of calling was comparatively new, as it was not visible in the Middle Ages or in late Hellenistic antiquity. A product of Reformation, ‘calling’ put forth the concept of the fulfillment of duty in vocational calling as the highest expression of moral activity. It expresses the central dogma of all Protestant denominations, as opposed to Catholicism’s division of ethical commandments into praecepta (that which is commanded) and consilia (that which is advised). It suggests the single means of living in a manner pleasing to God is by appropriating oneself in this-worldly work that involved the fulfillment of duties, all of which derived from the social and occupational positions of each person. He sees this-worldly work in a vocation as an expression of brotherly love as every person has to work for others in an economy with division of labor. He adds that this is the only way to please God and that the fulfillment is God’s will; therefore every permissible calling is of absolutely equal validity before God.

John Calvin went further and advocated Calvinism as the theory that propelled the Spirit of Capitalism. Calvinism's most distinctive dogma is the doctrine of predestination. Believing that God preordains which people are saved and which are damned; the Calvinist outlook says that, God becomes "a transcendental being, beyond the reach of human understanding, who with His quite incomprehensible decrees has decided the fate of every individual and regulated the tiniest details of the cosmos from eternity." Weber argues that Calvinism must have had a profound psychological impact, "a feeling of unprecedented inner loneliness of the single individual." In what was the most important thing in his life, eternal salvation, each person had to follow his path alone, to meet a destiny already determined for him. No one could help him, and there was no salvation through the Church and the sacraments. However, perhaps in an attempt to seek solace, it was considered an absolute duty to consider oneself to be one of the saved, and to see doubts as temptations of evil and secondly, worldly activity was encouraged as the best means of gaining that self-confidence. Good works were not a means to salvation, but was a sign of having been chosen. And in this way, being tools of God’s divine will and by pursuing one’s ascetic ideals inside a this-worldly vocational calling, asceticism was prevented from flowing out of everyday lives of the people.

Weber then attempts to clarify the ways in which the Puritan idea of the calling and asceticism influenced the development of the capitalistic way of life. First, asceticism opposed the spontaneous enjoyment of life and its opportunities. Such enjoyment leads people away from work in a calling and religion. Weber argues, "That powerful tendency toward uniformity of life, which today so immensely aids the capitalistic interest in the standardization of production, had its ideal foundations in the repudiation of all idolatry of the flesh." Furthermore, the Puritans rejected any spending of money on entertainment that didn't "serve God's glory." They felt a duty to hold and increase their possessions. It was ascetic Protestantism that gave this attitude its ethical foundation. It had the psychological effect of freeing the acquisition if goods from traditionalist ethics' inhibitions. Asceticism also condemned dishonesty and impulsive greed. The pursuit of wealth in itself was bad, but attaining it as the result of one's labor was a sign of God's blessing.

Thus, the Puritan outlook favored the development of rational bourgeois economic life, and "stood at the cradle of the modern economic man." It is true that once attained, wealth had a secularizing effect. In fact, we see that the full economic effects of these religious movements actually came after the peak of religious enthusiasm. "The religious roots died out slowly, giving way to utilitarian worldliness." However, these religious roots left its more secular successor an "amazingly good" conscience about acquiring money, as long as it was done legally. The religious asceticism also gave the businessmen industrious workers, and assured him that inequality was part of God's design. Thus, one of the major elements of the spirit of modern capitalism, rational conduct based on the idea of a calling, was "born" from the spirit of Christian asceticism. The same values exist in both, with the spirit of capitalism simply lacking the religious basis.

Weber observes, "The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so." Asceticism helped build the "tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order." People born today have their lives determined by this mechanism. Their care for external goods has become "an iron cage." Material goods have gained an unparalleled control over the individual. The spirit of religious asceticism "has escaped from the cage," but capitalism no longer needs its support. The "idea of duty in one's calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs." People even stop trying to justify it at all.

De-constructing the Canon

Here we deconstruct the sociological canons and show its artifactual character, how it is a collective product of various influences that ultimately shaped the translated work of Talcott Parsons. It is important to note that Max Weber spoke from the perspective of an educated elite of the middle class. He was not concerned with the masses but with the society’s modes of selecting the best or the worst. Also, belonging to the same category of the haves was Talcott Parsons, the son of the then president. Considering how the seal of an author or the absence of it reveals the manner in which discourse is not just being created but articulated on the basis of social relationships, Foucault illustrates its various functions and the need to critically analyze a work. An author’s name, as Foucault puts it, has a role performing a ‘classificatory function’ having a mode of existence and circulation (Foucault , 148); indeed, similar to genre, it creates the ability to group together a number of works and ‘define them, differentiate them from, and contrast them to others.’ Furthermore, readers of a text find themselves biased towards a literary work when reading the author’s name or a systematic ensemble giving it a stamp of legitimacy. Even more, there is a tendency to attribute the author as the ‘sole creator of meaning’ disregarding outside influences, unintentional meaning and for example, audience, as creators of meaning. Therefore there is the need to develop a skeptical nature - Who is the real author? Have we proof of his authenticity and originality? What has he revealed in his most profound self in his language? What are the modes of existence of this discourse? Where does it come from; how is it circulated; who controls it? What placements are determined for possible subjects? Who can fulfill these diverse functions of the subject. (Foucault , 138)

Unlike widely perceived, the author of the canonical topic of ‘iron cage’ is Talcott Parsons, the metaphor ‘shell as hard as steel’, a direct translation of Weber’s work in the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is more complex and modern than Parson’s alternative. The two terms are now juxtaposed and explained how in the processes of translations, the intended meaning of the author is distorted.

The Puritan wanted to work in a calling and the asceticism in everyday life built the modern economic order bound to technical and machine production. The doctrine put forth that ‘care for external goods should lie on the shoulders of the ‘saint like a light cloak which can be thrown aside any moment’ but fate decreed that cloak should become an iron cage’. For the choice of the words, Parsons has pointed out two different reasons – first, he selected the term ‘Iron Cage’ as he thought it was most appropriate to the puritan background of Weber’s own personal engagement in the Protestant Ethic problem. Second, when enquired later in his life Parsons cited ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ as influencing his choice of word (Baehr, pg 158)

The chief problem with ‘iron cage’ is that it is hermeneutically superficial and fails to capture the nuance of Weber’s argument. While Weber used the term ‘steel’ as an emblematic of modernity i.e. reconstitution of the human subject under bureaucratic capitalism, it was wrongly translated by Talcott Parsons as ‘iron cage’. Cage is not appropriate a term as Weber was trying to refer to the cloak that can be thrown effortlessly aside and cage is not something to be worn, it is something in which one is trapped (Baehr, pg 163).

Furthermore, Weber focused on steel and not on iron. Iron Age is associated with industrial revolution and modernity. Like steel, iron evokes hardness and unbending resolution but steel unlike iron is an invention rather than an ‘element’. The steel, an alloy of iron, is a product of human fabrication – hard and potentially flexible, iron on the other hand is a natural element or an ore. Hence as a metal that is associated in the European context with modernity, fabrication, ductility and malleability, steel appears to have much more in common with rational bourgeois capitalism than the iron of which it is a refinement. Just as steel involves the transformation of iron by the mixing of carbon and other elements, so capitalism involves the transformation of labor power into commodities. As Siegfried Giedion observed the stretching of human capacities and the stretching of the properties of steel derive from the same roots. (Baehr, pg 162)

Metaphorically as well the two terms differ in explaining the preciseness of the modern human beings trapped in a socioeconomic structure of their own making. Unlike a ‘cage’ that is something imposed, a ‘shell’ is part and parcel of our existence as it connotes casing, housing, dwelling and so on. Our own shell in which we live and breathe is our shelter and allows certain choices, movements and directions that are our own. While a cage deprives one of liberty but leaves the powers intact, a shell hints at organic reconstitution of the being concerned and is a part of the organism that cannot be dispensed with. Furthermore, David Chalcraft puts forth how a shell suggests a living space both for the individual who must carry it around and a macro environment (the universal world order of capitalism) within which individual experience is lived out (Baehr, pg 164). Indeed, for Weber steel shell is a symbol of passivity, transformation of a Puritan hero into mass mediocrity.

Moreover, the figure of speech ‘iron cage’ works only in part because cages can be filed down or opened; images contradicting Weber’s idea of indefinite captivity where the new being that modernity is creating absolutely cannot escape from ‘rational’ bureaucratic forms of organization as the entire organization of providing even the most basic needs in the life then depends on his performance of duties (BaehrPg 165).

Baehr further draws parallel between the Last Man of Bunyan from Zarathustra and juxtaposes it with Weber’s new beings of modernity to depict how the intended meaning of Weber is incongruent with the translated meaning of Parsons. ‘Cage’ as a translation is inappropriate because the despairing Man of Bunyan’s creation, and the inane specialist of Weber’s are asymmetrical figures. While The Bunyan’s Man must confront an eternity of misery and hopelessness whereas Weber’s view of future, dominated by the Last Man, is hedonist motivated by the quest for materialistic consumption and is confident of his superiority (Baehr Pg 160) Indeed, the word ‘cage’ clearly does not comply with Weber’s notions as the people in a cage suggests punishment for committing an act or for believing to have committed an act i.e. experience associated with suffering and anguish.

Indeed, Parsons’s ‘Iron Cage’ is at best a figurative rendition of the original German. Weber was not inspired by the Puritan texts unlike how Tiryakian believed and did not have Pilgrim Progress in his mind when he wrote the Protestant Ethic. In fact his views on modernity is similar to views developed previously by Gorthe and Nietzsche with which he was intimately familiar. Tiryakian believed that because Weber had recovered from a debilitating mental breakdown only a few years before the researched and wrote The Protestant Ethic, he must have identified with the man of the Pilgrim Progress who embarks on a spiritual journey away from the City of Destruction towards the Celestial City. On a cultural / political level the city of Destruction was Germany, a modern industrial society and he had to symbolically leave to save himself.

Turner also pointed out how Weber’s notion of ‘freedom’ was similar to that of Calvinists’ and Bunyan’s ascetic notions of freedom understood as an inner quality. However, Weber had other poignant images in mind and did not intend to invoke the idea of unfreedom in the metaphor (Kent, Pg 301). Unlike how Parsons interpreted, it was the works of Goethe’s Faust and Nietzschan’s Zarathustra was of major source of influence to Weber. The Last men would be ‘specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart’ and Parsons fails to convey this, he also omitted the quotation marks, removing emphasis from the quote in Zarathustra. Indeed, just as Weber saw modern bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, and the middle classes as "the last men" so too did he see the Puritans, especially Puritan businessmen, as Ubermensch. Weber even claimed in The Protestant Ethic that "economic super- men' who like the present captains of industry, have stood beyond good and evil, have always existed", but once again Parsons failed to include Weber's original quotation marks in the translation (Kent, Pg 303).

Within The Protestant Ethic, Weber spoke about Goethe in terms that resonate with Nietzsche's Ubermensch concept, and each of Weber's uses of Goethe is directly connected to Calvinism or Puritanis. Weber's discussion, for example, of the role played by 'good works" within Calvinistic theology demonstrates how intimate was the association between Puritans and Goethe in his mind: (For the Calvinist, good works) are the technical means, not of purchasing salvation, but of getting rid of the fear of damnation. In this sense they are occasionally referred to as directly necessary for salvation, or the possession of salvation is made essential by them. In practice this means that God helps those who help themselves. Thus the Calvinist, as it is sometimes put, creates his own salvation, or as would be more correct, the conviction of it (Kent Pg 305). Indeed, the direct references to Goethe and his writings indicate the extent to which Weber's interpretation of Puritan asceticism was influenced by this imposing figure in Germany's intellectual tradition (Kent Pg 306).

Furthermore, straying from the intricate complexities of Weber’s work Parsons in the ‘Author’s Introduction’ to ‘The Protestant Ethic’ ignores the logical, propositional structure of the essay ‘problematic’ and recasts it in a way that is idiosyncratic and personalized in complexion. Furthermore, Parsons’s hostility towards behaviorist psychology leads him to downplay radically Weber’s emphasis on psychological antriebe (drives, implulses) (Baehr pg 156).

Lastly, Baehr puts forth how Weber’s primary concern has been misidentified. What exercised Weber the most was the possibility of modern capitalism producing in abundance the Last Men of Nietzsche’s withering depiction i.e. pity for higher man. Unlike what the canonical view puts forth, condemnation of capitalism or a prophecy of the decline of the West was never a part of Weber’s agenda. What Weber feared was not private capitalism but its renter parasite. Not individualism but the accustoms Gehause of bureaucratic regimentation. Not democracy but rule governed conformity. Not administration but bureaucratic stultification of all sectors and spaces of life – made worse by protective welfare state orientation, depriving individuals of responsibility, initiative and the willingness to take risks. (Baehr Pg 166)

Lastly even after abolishing private capitalism, Weber suggested that the steel shell would not break into pieces as the state bureaucracy would then rule alone unimpeded by its private counterparts. There would be no countervailing power to which they could appeal or with which they could align.

Hence by deconstructing the canon and showing its artifactual character of the ‘Iron Cage’, the question puts forth the structure of sociological thought as a whole. It suggests the need to examine the history of sociology as a collective product, the shared concerns, assumptions, and practices making up the discipline at various times (Connell, pg 1515). Various factors like historical circumstance, particular academic entrepreneurs or departments, affinity with current trends in the profession, contribute to overlook the complexity of influences behind the choice of particular fields. Such exclusions in conical views can only be constructed as part of the discipline's self-knowledge to progress and present an inclusive subaltern viewpoint as well.

Reference:

1.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons, Allen & Unwin, London, 1930. 2.

Baehr, Peter. “The ‘iron cage’ and the ‘shell as hard as steel’…”, in History and Theory, v.40, n.2, May 2001, pp. 153-169. 3.

Kent, Stephen A. “Weber, Goethe and the Nietzschean allusion: Capturing the source of the ‘iron cage’ metaphor”, in Sociological Analysis, v, 44, n.4, Winter 1983, pp. 297-319. 4.

Connell, R.W. “Why is classical theory classical?”, in American Journal of Sociology, v.102, n.6, May 1997, pp. 1511-57. 5.

Foucault, M. “What is an author?”, in D.F. Bouchard (ed), Language, Counter-Memory and Practice: Selected Essays, Cornell Univ Press, 1977, pp. 113-38.