Liberalism and nationalism in the thought of Max Weber

This art icle was downloaded by: [ Universit y College London] On: 20 May 2013, At : 14: 24 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK History of European Ideas Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions for aut hors and subscript ion informat ion: ht t p:/ / www.t andfonline.com/ loi/ rhei20 Liberalism and nationalism in the thought of Max Weber Richard Bellamy To cite this article: Richard Bellamy (1992): Liberalism and nat ionalism in t he t hought of Max Weber, Hist ory of European Ideas, 14:4, 499-507 To link to this article: ht t p:/ / dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/ 0191-6599(92)90182-C PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Full t erm s and condit ions of use: ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm sand- condit ions This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes. 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Mayer has argued that ‘Weber was thoroughly.. .at home in \the realm of German “Realpolitik” ’ and was the teacher of ‘a new Machiavellism of the steel age’.’ Ralf Dahrendorf went so far as to state that ‘Weber was more “nationalistic” than Bismark’.2 Even Wolfgang Mommsen, who has done so much to criticise these sorts of interpretations of Weber, maintains that he valued democracy and political liberty only as means for the promotion of Germany’s economic and political ends.’ This paper aims to show that a re-reading of Weber’s writings on this topic produces a more complex understanding of the relationship between liberalism and nationalism, both generally and in the specific case of Weber’s own thoughL4 Weber’s writings on nationalism divide into roughly two phases, reflecting different periods of his intellectual development and changing circumstances in Germany’s domestic and foreign affairs. The first phase relates primarily to the period 1892-7, during which Weber advocated a policy of liberal imperialism. The second phase, starting roughly in 1905, follows on from the dashing of his hopes for the formation of a new party of bourgeois freedom on the basis of his imperialist proposals. A reappraisal of the economic, social and political consequences of national expansion, coupled with an appreciation of the need for national diversity and competition for the maintenance of liberal values, produced a more sophisticated and pluralist theory. As a result, Weber came to be much more critical of Germany’s official aims during the First World War than the traditional picture of him as a Machiavellian advocate of power politics would lead one to expect. Both phases are discussed in turn below. It will be shown that despite the changing emphasis of Weber’s theorisation of nationalism between the 1890s and the First World War, a fundamental continuity ran through his writings. This unity followed from what Mommsen has termed his universal-historical standpoint. 5 Weber regarded western civilisation to be undergoing a general process of rationalisation and bureaucratisation which was placing liberal values at risk. Individuality could only be preserved within a pluralist economic and political structure which counteracted those tendencies of the industrial world which moved us towards the dull uniformity of a totally *This paper was presented at the Plenary Session of the second conference of the ISSEI on European Nationalism: toward 1992, at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, 3-8 September, 1990. TDepartment of Politics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9JT, Scotland, U.K. 499 Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 500 Richard Bellamy bureaucratised society. Both within and between states this required the maintenance of competition between different groups and individuals for their various ideal and material interests. Rivalry between nation states formed the counterpart to the struggle between classes, entrepreneurs and political parties in the domestic sphere. The contest between world powers, he believed, not only prevented their internal stultification, it hindered the possibility of any one of them becoming hegemonic over the rest. Thus, a plurality of competing states ensured liberal pluralism was preserved within states. The first phase is best represented by his famous inaugural lecture at Freiburg of 1895 on The National State and German Economic Policy.6 Weber’s discussion started off with an analysis of the rural labour question in eastern Prussia. Briefly, Weber argued that international competition had threatened the economic viability of the Junker estates. In order to survive, the landowners had been forced to adopt new techniques and crops and employ more entrepreneurial methods. As a result, the rural economy had shifted from a patriarchal to a capitalist type of organisation. The agricultural worker had undergone a corresponding change in status, from being a contractually bound worker who lived on the estate, to the role of a ‘potato-eating’ proletarian who entered into service without a contract for varying lengths of time. The old patriarchal relationship between lord and vassal had led the superseded categories of labourers to identify their interests with those of the estate. Many of them lived in tied cottages and shared in the product of the harvest. The casual labourers, in contrast, worked for wages and so became the economic opponents of their employers. Class struggle thereby entered the countryside. Competition also existed amongst the workers themselves, favouring those whose expectations and living standards were lower. In consequence, the more enterprising German labourers were emigrating to the west and being replaced by Polish immigrants who could be hired on a seasonal basis. Weber drew a number of conclusions from his findings. First, they revealed that political economy did not provide a set of objective criteria by which all economic programmes might be judged. The problems of the production and distribution of commodities were not technical issues alone. How we resolved them had implications for the ‘quality of the human beings’ particular solutions fostered. The belief, promulgated by classical political economy, that economic growth could be seen as an end in itself, increasing human happiness by creating more wealth, ignored the ineradicability of the ‘economic struggle for existence’. Weber’s argument developed one of the central insights of the German historical school. Traditional liberal economics had maintained that laissez-faire would dissolve interstate conflict by tying different countries together through the market by bonds of mutual advantage. The very title of Smith’s famous work, the Wealth of Nations, had emphasised the internationalism of this doctrine. The Nationalokonomie of the historical school, in contrast, argued that laissez-faire had merely shifted the competition between different groups onto a new terrain, and that the tensions which arose from it were no less political than more traditional forms of rivalry. Far from creating domestic and foreign peace, laissez-faire manifested itself in class struggle within states and trade wars between them, both of which had profound effects on the social life of a nation which a government ignored at its peril. Weber noted that economic Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 Liberalism, Nationalism and Max Weber 501 development intensified rather than eradicated this conflict, with finite resources meaning one group’s gain was another’s loss. As the East German situation illustrated, the outcome of a purely economic competition might well be to favour inferior types of cultural life. Economic policies, therefore, always had political consequences which no state could disregard. Letting the market decide and government intervention were both forms of regulation arising from political decisions. The merits of different economic strategies had to be weighed in terms of the human values those in power wished to uphold. The second, and related, topic addressed by Weber concerned the implications of his study for the position of the Junkers. The manors of the East had been the source not just of the economic but also the political power of the Junkers. The substitution of capitalist relations for patriarchal ones had undermined their influence over their workers and weakened their position in the wider economy, with agriculture forced into a subordinate economic role to the urban manufacturing centres. For such an economically declining class to remain politically dominant was ‘dangerous, and in the long term incompatible with the interests of the nation’. The ‘economic nationalist’s’ sole criterion for judging the leadership qualities of the various classes, Weber opined, was ‘their political maturity, i.e. their understanding of the lasting economic interests of the nation’s power and their ability to place these interests above all other considerations if the situation demands’. Whatever their past merits, the Junkers no longer had the capacity to lead in this way. Caught ‘in the throes of an economic deathstruggle’, they would inevitably abuse whatever political power they possessed in a vain attempt to secure their faltering social position. The situation in the East typified this danger. For the Junkers’ need for cheap labour had led them to oppose the national interest for a secure frontier and the upholding of German culture by employing Polish immigrants rather than the indigenous workers. Their desire for protective grain tariffs reflected a similar sacrifice of national goals to those of their class. Sadly, the Junkers remained the politically most important group within German society. Weber traced most of the failings of Germany’s foreign and economic policies to their continued sway. Unfortunately, the bourgeoisie, to whom economic predominance had passed, remained politically immature. They acted as if all their goals had been achieved with the unification of Germany, rather than regarding national unity as the starting point for the promotion of German greatness. This ‘unhistorical’ mood stemmed from their ‘unpolitical past’. Unable to unite the country themselves, they had seen Bismarck’s success as proof of their political incompetence and had been content to live in his shadow. Bismarck’s ‘Caesar-like’ qualities had accustomed them to having a strong leader in charge. They lacked any political education in consequence, yearning instead for a ‘new Caesar’ to fill the breach left by the great statesman and to mediate between the monarch and the masses for them. German workers manifested a similar disjunction between their increasing economic importance and their lack of political ability. They suffered in particular from the absence of a ‘labour aristocracy’ which could act as the ‘repository of its political sense’. Their petit bourgeois leaders had no conception of Germany’s national greatness, and the class as a whole lacked the political training obtained by their English counterparts through a prolonged organised Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 502 Richard Bellamy fight for their own interests. Weber was particularly worried that the development of modern industrial techniques was deskilling the majority of workers and producing a mindless mass who would follow the populist dictates of revolutionary or authoritarian demagogues-a matter which became the subject of other surveys by the Verein. Thus ‘an immense labour of political education’ had to be undertaken of both the bourgeoisie and the workers if they were to undertake their role as guardians of the ‘power-interests of the nation’. Weber’s affirmation of the national interest as the overriding aim of German political and economic policy has earned him the undeserved reputation of advocating merebfachtpolitik. However, Weber had nothing but disdain for that type of “satisfied” German for whom it was impossible not to support whatever was “presently successful” with a breast inflated by Realpolitik’.’ In his opinion, the ‘power policy’ of contemporary Germany ‘was not worthy of the name’. As he noted, German diplomacy was ‘almost exclusively in the hands of noblemen’ and mirrored ‘their political sympathies and antipathies’.* He associated its shortcomings with the baleful effects of Junker domination and his own view of national power politics cannot be understood apart from his critique of their hegemony of German life. He was particularly worried by the tendency of successful manufacturers and merchants to buy into the aristocracy by acquiring eastern estates and wished to close off this channel of social mobility. This feudalisation of the German bourgeoisie had been aided by the conservativism of Lutheranism and the traditionalism of the German educational system, both of which fostered a unique propensity for hierarchy amongst the German middle classes. The result had been an unholy alliance between industrial capitalism and the patriarchal social values of the landowning classes. Although the bourgeoisie remained largely excluded from political office by the Junkers, their acquiesence in this arrangement depended in part on the support of the state for their economic goals-notably protective tariffs on manufactured goods and a defence of the rights of employers to hire and fire at will. However, Weber believed these measures also testified to the extent the German industrialists had absorbed the Junker ethos. He feared that the bourgeoisie’s transformation into a ‘second-class aristocracy’ was sapping their ability to engage in entrepreneurial activity and would lead to the stagnation of the German economy. The coalition with the Junkers had also resulted in the adoption of a reactionary social policy and system of industrial relations which divided the bourgeoisie from the working classes. The obstruction of the political progress of this latter group had been one of the most pernicious consequences of the bourgeoisie’s fateful choice. Weber believed that Bismarck had deliberately manceuvred the bourgeoisie into the conservative camp by introducing universal sufferage before they had had a chance to organise themselves politically. Their fear that they would be incapable of withstanding the working classes in a democratic system had naturally grown with time and had strengthened their attachment to the authoritarian practices of the contemporary German state. The isolation of the working classes and their exclusion from the political sphere had in turn only served to radicalise and distance the proletariat from the capitalist system, throwing them into the arms of the Social Democrats. This increased the worries of the bourgeoisie and moved them ever further in a Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 Liberalism, Nationalism and Max Weber 503 conservative direction. Weber sought to break this vicious circle, which only benefitted the revolutionaries within the SPD and the Junkers. He advocated a reorientation of German politics centred on a new alliance between bourgeoisie and proletariat. A liberal imperialist policy of economic expansion provided the keystone of his political strategy. His proposals were inspired by the policies of Joseph Chamberlain and what he took to be the British experience. He maintained that the British working class had been won to the state through involvement in its commercial success as a world power. He argued that modern economic developments had produced class divisions which were splitting German society apart. The ‘social unification of the nation’ depended upon the German bourgeoisie having the political will to create a national culture capable of transcending class interests. They had to break with the Junkers and absorb the working class into a liberal political system founded upon an expanding industrial economy. Weber thought that the legitimate economic demands of the working classes could be met only through an imperialist policy. He accepted the theory of Ricardian political economy which held that there were finite limits to the productive surplus that could be extracted from a given supply of natural resources. At a certain level of productivity, industrial expansion required territorial expansion. Weber believed this stage had been reached. Only a ‘naive optimism’, he asserted, could fail to see that trade could no longer be extended through peaceful economic competition. The international economy had now reached a point ‘where only power can decide the share each enjoys in the economic conquest of the earth and the extent of economic opportunity available to its population, especially to its working class’.’ In Malthusian manner, he attributed the rising levels of unemployment to over-population. Hence, he affirmed that ‘the expansion of Germany’s power is the only thing that can ensure for [our people] a permanent livelihood at home and the possibility of progressive improvement’.iO Moreover, a stagnating and ultimately subsistence economy would have an authoritarian character. Entrepreneurial initiative would be replaced by the bureaucratic administration of goods to satisfy basic needs. For Weber the liberalising of German domestic politics and a nationalist foreign policy were two sides of the same coin. Mommsen has argued that Weber only advocated the first to the extent that it served the second. Our analysis suggests that in Weber’s mind they were simply inextricably interconnected. Germany could either remain a static, feudal and agrarian state or it could join the modern industrial world. The latter was incompatible with the authoritarian structure of Germany’s present political institutions. The social forces industrialism unleashed could be domesticated only if they were allowed a political and economic voice. This in turn would create pressure for the expansion of German capitalism. The result, he maintained, would be a reinvigoration of German national culture around the work ethic and the entrepreneurial ideal. If anything, Weber’s priorities were the opposite of those ascribed to him by Mommsen, with his advocacy of imperialism merely forming the inevitable consequence of his desire for a liberal political system and a dynamic economy. Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 504 Richard Bellamy Weber suffered a mental breakdown in 1897 which forced him to retire temporarily from active academic and political life. By the time he returned to these themes, he was both more optimistic about the prospects for continued economic growth and more shrewd in his analysis of imperialism. He now recognised that territorial expansion was often carried out simply to enhance the domestic prestige and power of the ruling classes. Moreover, it was more likely to be associated with monopoly capitalism than with a capitalist system based on private enterprise and economic competition. The second form of capitalism tended to be oriented to peaceful exchange. Only the first was in a position to exploit the enhanced profits which accrued from the exploitation of captured territories. This ‘booty-capitalism’ was very different to the entrepreneurial variety Weber had initially associated with imperialist ventures in the 1890s. It arose from the very linking of capitalist‘ interests to an authoritarian state he had sought to prevent. Protectionist measures, monopolist loans and above all public subsidies to heavy industry through arms contracts all falsely enhanced the profitableness of imperialism compared to the gains to be made through peaceful competition with other firms in a free international market. Although superficially the whole population gained from colonial adventures, they withdrew capital from other uses and only really benefitted certain sections of big business. Unfortunately, the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie were easily swayed by emotional influences such as patriotism to ignore their genuine interests in peace. If a victorious war enhanced the cultural prestige of a nation, he conceded that it did not necessarily further the ‘development of culture’. It might just as easily provide a spurious esteem for a debased and impoverished regime such as contemporary Germany’s Thus, Weber came to reverse his earlier position. He now linked imperialism with the ‘rentier capitalism’ he had feared rather than the liberal industrial economy he continued to champion. Not that he was particularly optimistic about the abatement of imperialist ventures-on the contrary, he believed that the universal tendency of capitalism towards increased cartellisation meant that they were likely to become more frequent. He also doubted that socialist systems would be any different. Indeed, since he considered that the opportunities for monopolistic practices became more numerous as the public sector expanded, socialist economies could only enhance the material incentives fuelling imperialism.” Weber’s rethinking of the political and economic causes and consequences of imperialism drew on the experience of Germany’s foreign policy on the eve of the First World War, Reactionary elites had attempted, with a significant lack of success, to divert domestic social unrest with a bellicose and expanionist foreign policy. This disastrous strategy continued during the war. One of the official aims of German policy, for example, was the creation of a central European trade zone dominated by Germany which would render the country autarchic. Weber bravely spoke out against these annexionist plans put about by the German high command, The proposed annexation of Belgium in particular was ‘unbelievable madness’. A war ‘whose main result was that Germany’s boot stoodon everyone’s toes in Europe’ would prove a Pyrrhic victory, perpetuating Germany’s diplomatic isolation and the hostility of her European neighbours.‘* Weber regarded Germany’s chief task to consist in the containment of Russian Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 Liberalism, Nationalism and Max Weber 50.5 imperialism in the East. When investigating the Russian revolution of 1905, Weber had been impressed by the works of the Ukranian federalist Dragomanov. He had insisted on the need for the Russian state to concede a large degree of cultural autonomy to individual nations, such as Poles and Lithuanians, within the Russian block. However, he had also contended that the realities of international power politics were such that relatively small nations could only survive with the protection of a powerful state. He therefore opposed the separatism of extreme nationalists. Weber’s view of Germany’s role in eastern Europe elaborated upon Dragomanov’s position.‘3 Incorporation of Slavic peoples into the Reich would only antagonise fifteen million people and turn them into Germany’s mortal enemies. Rather, Germany’s historic responsibility as a great power lay in securing their independence from Russian aggrandisement: The small nations live around us in the shadow of our power. What would become of the independence of the Scandinavians, the Dutch, the people of Tessin, if Russia, France, England, Italy, did not have to respect our armies? Only the balance of the great powers against one another guarantees the freedom of the small states.14 The cultural interest of Germany did not reside solely in upholding German nationality. As a world power, she had a duty to prevent the division of the world between ‘Russian bureaucracy’ and the ‘conventions of Anglo-Saxon society’ by ensuring the autonomy of a number of nationalities.15 Nothing illustrates the alteration in Weber’s stance better than his changed attitude towards the Poles. His earliest writings had scarcely acknowledged that they were sufficiently civilised to possess a national culture. By 1908, however, he had become their champion, criticising the anti-Polish language clause of the Association Bill which required the use of German at political meetings. In 19 17 he went so far as to argue for the establishment of a Polish national state, albeit under the military protection of Germany.“j It is hard not to be impressed by the contemporary relevance of Weber’s arguments. Many of the questions he addressed have once again become pressing issues. The power role of a united Germany as a buffer between East and West, the demands for national autonomy in the Baltic, and the question of Germany’s eastern border with Poland, to name only the most obvious ones, have all returned to the top of the European agenda. As in Weber’s theorisation of these problems, the manner of their resolution involves a choice between liberal and authoritarian options-although which is which is not always obvious. Weber’s own thinking on these subjects offers a predictably ambiguous legacy. It might be argued that the consequences of his approach were best reflected in the Cold War rather than the present situation. Far from promoting individual liberty and the autonomy of smaller states, the competition between the super powers after the Second World War led to the progressive division of the world into two armed camps. Both sides sought to squash any attempts at independence within their respective spheres of influence and frequently used the military arms race to justify restrictive internal security measures which infringed important civil liberties. However, this view misrepresents Weber’s position. Part of Weber’s case for Germany’s world power role was to prevent just such a division of the world. The openness of the international system depended on the existence of a Richard Bellamy Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 506 number of strong nation states, none of which could dominate the others alone. He hoped this situation would force states to negotiate and compromise with each other. He certainly believed that Germany’s future political influence would reside in her ability to strike alliances rather than in displays of military power. Weber doubted the teleological belief in human moral progress which underlies the Kantian conception of perpetual peace on the basis of universal principles of morality. Human fallibility and an appreciation of the plurality of often incompatible and incommensurable values made human conflict a permanent possibility for Weber. In such circumstances, the subordination of social and political concepts to the level of nation-states or even more localised loyalties is ineliminable. Since the tensions between these divergent if equally valuable attachments and ways of life cannot be mediated within the context of a comprehensive ethical theory, the solution must be a political one. The distribution of power rather than abstract theories ofjustice or rights determines the ability of individuals and groups to pursue their ideals and interests in a disenchanted moral universe. Weber’s understanding of the world was not a comfortable one. However, so long as the clash of cultures, interests and nations remain features of human life his approach will retain its validity. Richard University Bellamy of Edinburgh NOTES Mayer, Max Weber and German Politics: A Study in Political Sociology, 2nd edn (London, 1956), pp. 33, 109, 117, 119. 2. R. Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (New York, 1967) p. 57. 3. W. Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics 1890-1920 (Chicago, 1974), e.g. 1. J.P. pp. 40, 189. 4. This interpretation is indebted to the study of D. Beetham, Max Weberand the Theory 1985). 5. W. Mommsen, ‘Max Weber’s Political Sociology and His Philosophy of World History’, International Social Science Journal, 17 (1965) pp. 23-45 and idem, The Age of Bureaucracy: Perspectives on the PoliticalSociology of Max Weber (Oxford, 1974) Chap. 1. 6. Quotes from this text in the following pages come, with occasional modifications, from the translation in K. Tribe (ed.), Reading Weber, (London, 1989) Chap. 7. 7. Cited, along with a host of similar quotes from different periods, in Mommsen, Max Weber, p. 43 n. 32. 8. M. Weber, ‘Capitalism and Rural Society in Germany’ (1906), in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London, 1970), p. 373. 9. Max Weber’s response to the expansion of the German navy 1987, quoted in Beetham, Max Weber, p. 135. 10. Proceedings of the 1896 Protestant Social Congress, cited in Beetham, Max Weber, p. 134. 11. M. Weber, Economy and Society (California, 1968), pp. 910-21. 12. M. Weber, ‘Bismarcks Aussenpolitik und die Gegenwart’ (1915), in Gesammelte Politische Schrzften, 2nd edn (Tubingen, 1958), pp. 117, 124. of Modern Politics, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Liberalism, Nationalism and Max Weber 507 Downloaded by [University College London] at 14:24 20 May 2013 13. Weber, ‘Bismarks Ausenpolitik’, pp. 125-6. 14. Weber, ‘Deutschland unter den europaischen Weltmachten’ (1916), Politische Schrifen, pp. 170-2. 15. Max Weber, ‘Zwischen Zwei Gesetzen’ (1916), Politische Schrifen, p. 140. 16. Weber, Bismarks Aussenpolitik’, pp. 120-l and idem, ‘Deutschlands Aussere und Preussens Innere Politik’, (1917), Politische Schriften, pp. 173-8.