The Power Of Obedience In Max Weber's Legal-Rational Authority

Weber mentions that “Domination was defined above as the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands will be obeyed by a given group of persons…Domination in this sense may be based on the most diverse motives of compliance” (Weber:112). To explain, Weber believes that this legitimate domination can be habitually following orders from leaders such as the Narrator following company policies and, most importantly, his manager while at work. Weber says this behavior originates from the “uncritical, unresisting masses” (Weber:113); or humans who simply consent to all authority without thought or care. On the other hand, Weber also says that legitimate domination can be in the form of calculated ulterior motives for following someone’s orders. For example, Project Mayhem follow the orders of Tyler Durden with the expectation that their efforts will be noticed and they will advance in

A longstanding debate in human history is what to do with power and what is the best way to rule. Who should have power, how should one rule, and what its purpose should government serve have always been questions at the fore in civilization, and more than once have sparked controversy and conflict. The essential elements of rule have placed the human need for order and structure against the human desire for freedom, and compromising between the two has never been easy. It is a question that is still considered and argued to this day. However, the argument has not rested solely with military powers or politicians, but philosophers as well. Two prominent voices in this debate are Plato and Machiavelli, both

Discretion-as-license—discretion is the opposite of standard expectations. It’s the privilege to go against the rules, disobey your superiors, be less than optimal or perfect all the time, all without degenerating the rules or eroding the trust between you, your superiors, or the public. License involves a sense of accountability that does not have to be formally recognized or structural.

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.

Authority is the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. In society it has been something you are taught as toddler to respect authority, your elders. There are plenty of rules that as children we follow because it has been enforced in our minds that those are the rules and we must follow them. The rules do not tend to be questioned until someone disobeys them and did not think their actions were wrong. It is then that we being to question authority and resist the majority rule. No matter how unfair the laws of the governments might seem, it does not change the fact that people in society obey them. Henry Thoreau, Stanley Milgram and Martin Luther King have all considered the reasons as to why we obey authority and what the struggles of resisting majority rule may be. As a society there has come times that people themselves disobey the law and even in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the people being to resist authority. Authority may play a major role in society but when people being to come to a realization of the rules that are unjust, they being to resist and protest against them.

Authority cannot exist without obedience. Society is built on this small, but important concept. Without authority and its required obedience, there would only be anarchy and chaos. But how much is too much, or too little? There is a fine line between following blindly and irrational refusal to obey those in a meaningful position of authority. Obedience to authority is a real and powerful force that should be understood and respected in order to handle each situation in the best possible manner.

In Weber’s article he claims that there are specific types of domination, which stress the importance of establishing “legitimacy” as a leader, within a group of people. He supports this opening claim in his introduction paragraph, in which he defines the authority of domination “classified” by the “kind of claim” demanded (2). He ultimately supports his by breaking down the types of legitimacy in domination in three distinct categories: Legal authority, traditional authority, and charismatic authority (3). He supports his argument through theoretical examples in which he assumes the reader has a background in. The assumptions include: knowledge of basic authoritative environments such as work setting or school that are applied to his

He made us aware on how so many individuals knowingly participated in the atrocious acts of violence against humanity and without much hesitance. He provided us the formula and a clear explanation on Max Weber views and how it was all possible for the bureaucratic domination of Germany, and the consequences of such power. Max Weber “was convinced that political domination would rest with whoever controlled the bureaucratic apparatus because of its indisputable superiority as an instrument for the organization of human action”. (Rubenstein, 23) Nazi Germany mastered the use of power and the management principles, this can be observed in Hitler’s organization of the concentration camps. Hitler replaced the existence camps with a more impersonal, systematized terror” camps. (Rubenstein, 24) Hitler and Nazi Germany established order in the camps, by applying bureaucracy principles. They established specialization, providing a meaning of set task and responsibilities each office and individual will handle and follow, making their job simpler and more efficient in following directions. They appointed individuals to ensure the written rules and regulations installed were being followed. This assured that individuals knew their responsibilities and made it easier for their assigned task to be completed. This also created recordkeeping of the rules, procedures and disciplinary actions.

Weber's discussion of authority relations also provides insight into what is happening in the modern world. Weber distinguished three main types of authority: Traditional authority, Rational-legal authority and Charismatic authority.

The word bureaucracy derived from “bureau” and “cracy”. The word “bureau” means office or desk and “cracy”means power or rule. Thus bureaucracy means desk government.

For weber power is determined as something that when imposed, then a person has to follow it. For Weber domination is the probability that persons will obey commands. Weber mentioned power as being ‘ sociologically amorphous’. (Roth and Wittich, 1968) The probability of a command being accepted mainly relates to the surroundings of domination. An example of this is that, a supervisor could expect his colleague to obey his sayings but when they meet outside the business then the supervisor is unlikely to have such an expectation (Watson, 2003).

While he highlights a lot of positives, he also saw a lot of issues within bureaucracy. Webers’ bureaucracy is a bottom line model that values calculable decision making over all else. Within this model are the people, or parts, that can be replaced if they cause a decrease in productivity. The issue becomes that the rationalized view of bureaucratic systems is unable to see individuals and respond to individual needs. There is a format and if someone does not fit in, or if they begin to fall behind, there is no understanding or support. His argument is that the bureaucratization of our world has made it depersonalized.

The concept of power has been a topic of interest of many sociologists as they seek to define the term. Ensuring that the exercise of power is legitimate is a key integral to the concept of power in present day. However, although the power is seen as legitimate, it also has to be exercised appropriately as; ‘power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ (Dalberg-Acton, 1907: 504). Max Weber and Hannah Arendt are two sociologists whose ideology of what the concept of power is, are at the opposite ends of a pole. It is different in the fact that both theories approach different aspects of power. Weber’s account of power is more associated with everyday understanding and use of power, whereas Arendt’s account of power focuses more on power as a tool when speaking and acting in concert (Goverde H. & Lentner H, 2000).

“Truth is anything society deems it to be” is considerable right when our society believes that the only method of determining the “truth” is through laws and ideologies, which have been administered by the upper class Europeans. Our laws have been constructed to support the interest of the majority population, which supports their interest rather, then the general citizens. That being said, who created the legislation and administers laws, and who has the resources and inclination to challenge these laws? (Branch, 129). This question will be answered through the theories of Max Weber and Karl Marx who will be compared in regards to the construction of the legal knowledge, how law has become the truth in societies with the help of the

Rational legal authority is the authority is the authority leaders attain on the basis of various rules which have been legally established. This type of authority can be identified in the modern society. Obedience is not given to any leader or tradition, but to legally passed laws. Examples of this form of authority can be found in the modern state as well, city governments, private and public corporations, Indian judiciary,