Surplus Value: The Social Order Of Party

The purpose of this essay is to analyse Weber’s theory of authority and power in order to establish its role in the modern contemporary world today. Weber, in his most acclaimed writings, discusses his three ideal types of authority being outlined as traditional, charismatic and rational-legal authority. He believes that in order for any political leader or political establishment to hold legitimate authority over its peoples, they must have either one of these types of authority. All of these types of power and authority can be referred to in some way in today’s contemporary world using examples of differing political leaders and systems. However, Weber’s writings were conducted in 1922 and may be considered as out-dated, and not as relevant as they were at his time of writing. Also, many dispute that Weber’s types of authority were perhaps not entirely relatable and Martin Spencer, like many other critics of Weber’s work in fact argue that there should have been four types of authority. Hence why these issues must be discussed in order to conclude whether Weber’s ideal types of authority are representative of political leaders and governments, and whether or not they can be associated with the contemporary world we live in today.

Weber claims that economic interest is at the forefront of class status as well as social power. Weber goes onto note that in past time periods, mainly the Middle Ages, economic interest was monopolized causing the gap between the rich and poor to be vast (p. 106). The organization of people around specific situations, or class struggles, in fact strengthens class structures, mainly because they reinforce the boundaries. However, he feels that this does not make a class a community since the assumption that people in similar class situations must share similar ideals and beliefs is over-simplifying a complex situation.

Surplus: physical excess of goods produced over the goods which have to go back into the production process in the next period; for economic system to reproduce itself, surplus must be reinvested into productive activity.

"To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions, and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending on the will of any other man.”

Currently in the United States the system in which the government works has allowed there to be a two-party dominance with the Democrat party and the Republican party. Both parties had a large following in previous years. In the book, Governing States and Localities by Kevin B. Smith and Alan Greenblatt they introduce reasons like the elimination of party machines and the mobility of the American people has lead for one party dominance in most states to decline. For example, before party machines were very much involved in controlling minority communities in voting for their people however this did not last long where eventually there was a reform in the system that stopped these party machines from growing. Additionally, we have seen that

An interactive system of democratic-republican constitutionalism that preserves our freedoms and promotes our moral and material progress is what is needed in our political party platform. The ideal party combines the policies of all the four pre-existing political party, from sweeping financial reform that provides economic security for families, a broader strategic rebalancing of American foreign policy and the investment of clean air technologies. These policies allow a more efficient running government that would appeal to the people and allow a more prosperous future.

Two Party System: A two party system is when in a government, two main political parties dominate the politics. In an election, one party is usually referred to as the majority party, where the other is the minority party.

The Commonplace Party is a non-religious party that believes in a secular government. Our policies are simple; we don’t care about any other policies besides those that we represent. We believe that we correctly institute the most important ideology throughout this document and anything besides that of which we state, is unnecessary and can be disputed among citizens individually. So, in other words, American citizens can fend for themselves beyond this document.

Surplus value is created when the exchange value of a product equals more than the sum of the cost of labor and materials put into it. It is the focus of capitalism because it appears to be creating value.

Surplus Value - The idea that in a capitalist economy, the workers capacity to produce a commodity does not add up to the revenue that it will be sold as.

Western governments have undoubtedly committed crimes, she said, but it would be a mistake to reject what is good in those countries because of their historical flaws. “Bourgeois values aren’t just for white people,” she had said. “The irony is: Bourgeois values can help minorities get ahead.”

Through analyzing the written works of Max Weber’s Types of Legitimate Domination and Bureaucracy to C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination, the writings of the comparative authors reveal the domination of power in a socially constructed society and the way that individuals are influenced by the constructed hierarchy of power. Through sociological analysis, these concepts can be applied to the ways individuals are continuously influenced through socially constructed institutions in a society where individuals constantly interact with one another. As Mills and Weber apply sociological analysis to the context of their observations, they are able to observe the growing positive and negative influences that ultimately shape the

Weber disagreed to a certain extent. He believed that there needed to different tasks accomplished by these individuals making up the social structure but in turn it would lead to capitalism and the destruction of a society.

Weber does not feel that the power of a class is a very important issue. Weber feels that classes are only important, within the struggle for power, when they state they are part of their class in their actions. Classes, along with status groups, are just passive members in society. Only if a political party solely represents the class, then it becomes active. This unimportance of classes shows Weber's feelings that the economic issues within capitalism do not effect authority or the struggle for power.

In his essay, Legitimate Order and Types of Authority, Max Weber discusses the idea of legitimacy: a public respect for and acceptance of power that is based on tradition, rationality, or charismatic traits of the leader. Further, Weber comments on the efficacy of deviance to curb these types of legitimacy, “For so