Modern social theory

Hobbes
First one to state that we are all born equal. And what comes from this equality is fighting (since we are equal e.g. in strength). Thus, for him equality is the reason, not the solution, for social conflaict → that's we we are in a constant state of everyone again everyone One of the laws of nature is our self-interest: we are obliged not to harm ourself Civiliazation only possible through repdression of drives Hobbes was deeply conservative, status-quo promoting Though he was very much in favor of absolutism, he also considered the the sovereign could be an assembly of men The sovereign also has to provide certain things (not just survival of the people) and if he does not, you can also withdraw your loyalty What Hobbes learned from Galileo: resoluti compositi -you start with deduction (initial hypothesis), then go over to observations and from them induce the conclusion/revise your hypothesis. Hobbes is very close to utilitarianism and Smith

Leviathan published at 1651. Major themes in the book:
 * Social contract
 * Human nature: man will deliberate between appetite/drives and aversion/fears. Voluntary action is the negotiator/mediator between the two, we have a free will. Secondly, human nature strives for power/to dominate others
 * Find the right sovereign. Sovereign also has duties, not only rights.

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. Besides his six marriages and many extramarital affairs, as well as his effort to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon which lead to conflict with the Pope, Henry is known for his subsequent and consequential role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. His disagreements with the Pope led to his separation of the Church of England from papal authority, with himself, as king, as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Because his principal dispute was with papal authority, rather than with doctrinal matters, he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings despite his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry oversaw the legal union of England and Wales with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. He is also well known for a long personal rivalry with both Francis I of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with whom he frequently warred.

Domestically, Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution, ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings to England. Besides asserting the sovereign's supremacy over the Church of England, thus initiating the English Reformation, he greatly expanded royal power. Charges of treason and heresy were commonly used to quash dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial, by means of bills of attainder. He achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. An extravagant spender, he used the proceeds from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament to convert money formerly paid to Rome into royal revenue. Despite the influx of money from these sources, Henry was continually on the verge of financial ruin due to his personal extravagance as well as his numerous costly continental wars.

Locke
Born in 1642 in Summerset The early Locke was authoritarian and traditionalist 1670 an easy on tolerance/dissent At that time the wigs were the democratic party equivalent and the torrey were the republicans We are all born equal and free Advocates popular sovereignty In an absolute monarchy you can appeal against other members of the crown but not against the king. You can no sue the government So we should seek a system of law that makes it possible to sue the government instead of one in which you can only sue your neighbors -we should not be so foolish as to not protect us also against the lions (the authorities) We can be subjected to authority only by consent The separation of powers: legislative, executive and federative (defense against outside enemy, in principle it's only Congress which can declare war)

Marx

 * Marx wants to make us conscious of classes we live in in this society. He wants to create class conscience to, in the long run, promote the end of class exploitation (which is what communism is: no class exploitation - and not just the elimination of all inequality, there is still rich and poor in communism)
 * Divide the world into two parts: the class part and the non-class part (nature, laws, technology, culture, classical market economics). Marx asks how the class part connects to the non-class part: how class exploitation connects to culture, to politics etc. And each of the two causally affects the other: dialectics. For example, what causes class exploitation (how does the market, culture, freedom & democracy etc help to cause class exploitation?)
 * And how can you validate this theory of society and class exploitation?
 * Use the three epistemologies: empiricism, rationalism and historical dialectics
 * Marx asks Idealism: everything stems from ideas; the material world comes from ideas; ideas explain human behavior
 * Materialism: explain the ideas from the material conditions; understand an individual’s position in the class structure and economic interests, and you will understand why he thinks the way he does (originally from Feuerbach)
 * Naturalism: the spiritual world is a reflection of humans
 * We are the subjects reflecting on the objective circumstances of our lives, we try to conquer the objective circumstances of our lives and we have achieved this, alienation is overcome, when our consciousness is adequate to our circumstances and when we are the master of the objective circumstances
 * The price we pay for modernity (or modern industrial urban life) is the division/separation between subject and object
 * The peasant was still bound to the earth
 * The unique feature of alienation is thus the separation of the two
 * We are free to do what we want to do but within our freedom we are alienated and forced to do stuff because of the objective circumstances we created ourselves
 * Alienation = the homeless mind in the world. We do not feel at home in this world, searching for home
 * Modernity produces isolated bourgeois individuals. Marx: We have to engage each other in social interaction/communal activity again
 * Feuerbach: we project our alienation by creating God and our task is to unmask self-estrangement/alienation in its unholy form (i.e. in everyday life)
 * "Theory becomes a material force as soon as it gets a grip on the masses. Theories is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem”
 * Historically speaking, classes have had various constituent bases (i.e. legitimizations): the slave-owner was militarily/by force constituted, the landlord was legally constituted and by customs, and the capitalist is economically constituted
 * The dominant ideas of any period are the ideas of the dominant class. If you tell me what your position in the economic system is, then I * understand what your economic interests are! You are thinking and behaving according to your economic interests!
 * The sensuous human experience is reduced to the economy
 * Who are the agents of history? For Marx it's the proletariat
 * Mode of production is a combination of technology and the relations of production. Initially, Marx thought that the division of labor explains the relations of production. Later, however, he comes to view the property relations as the crucial element in the relations of production: the producer is dispossessed of the means of production
 * Materialism: first there is the sensuous human experience (for Marx, of the economic/material reality), and from this stem the ideas
 * Are property relations still the major antagonist force in society
 * For Smith: all value is created by labor (i.e. the labor theory of value), but this value has to be divided up between the three elements of production: labor, capital, rent
 * For Marx, human nature was social and only through capitalism’s competitiveness did this vanish

Weber

 * Domination for Weber: We internalize the very principles of our own submission
 * Power and domination instead of economics or sexuality
 * The history of mankind is evolution but evolution has its downside: our bodies may not be tortured any longer but our souls are
 * Power is legitimated domination
 * History is not different modes of production but different types of domination
 * You cannot deduce ideas and culture solely from economic matters. Humans are not motivated by only economic interests but also by tradition and values
 * History cannot be described as subsequent modes of production, what changes is the nature of power, the different types of motivation. What changes historically is what claims those in power make to legitimate their domination (for you to obey and internalize your submission)
 * What is unique about capitalism: greed is turned into an imprerative. Marx, on the other hand, did not offer any explanation of why capitalists accumulate capital in the first place/what their motivation is for the original accumulation of capital (he only assumed it to be theft)
 * The essence of capitalism is rationalism and calculation (rational economic calculation and cost-benefit-bookkeeping)
 * Only naive historical materialism assumes that ideas originate as reflection of economic situations. The spirit of capitalism was there before the capitalist order. You had to invent rational calculation before you could have capital accumulation
 * Rationalization as the elimination of magic (i.e. the belief that we have power over God and that we can follow some prescribed rules to influence God). Rationalization of the world meant that you could understand the world (where rain comes from etc.) and calculate it
 * Calvin eradicated magic as well:whether you will be saved or not is decided upon your birth (predestination), there is nothing you can do about it (i.e. no buying yourself out of hell)
 * Weber did not say that capitalism developed out of Calvinism. Only that there was an independent development in the theological movement of the time that stripped religious life off its magic element. And if this development had not happened, capitalist institutions would not have been able to develop. The material change happened in one line of evolution and the theological one in an other line, but there is am elective affinity (Wahlverwandschaft) between the two. In the China of 1200 everyone was ready for capitalism but Confucianism and Taoism did not give the ideological framing for capitalism. Weber rejected simple causal relationship between materiaand ideal conditions. The loss of magic, the rationalization, the teaching of predestination!
 * Does existence determine consciousness (matetialist) or does consciousness determine existence (idealist)


 * Weber's theory of domination:
 * What motivates us when we interact with each other?
 * We can act instrumental-rationally/Zweckrationalität: the ends and the means are all taken into account and weighted/utility-maximization;
 * We can act value-rationally: this value is so important to me that I don't care how much it costs (and maybe how bad it seems in a cost-benefit-analysis); e.g. prioritzing "human life" over its instrumentality ("it would be crazy to have a child now, but I cherish the value of life so much/so big a value-commitment that I don't care - i.e. that I am willing to sacrifice my economic interests and maybe even my life for this);
 * We can act led by our emotions/affectual orientation: impulsive/ uncontrolled emotions are irrational but other emotions (love etc) are very rational
 * We can act led by tradition/religion: e.g. arranged marriage; tradition guides action ("I do it because I am a Jew/a reborn Christian and that's what you do as a Jew/Christian”)
 * Rationality means that you substitute unthinking acceptance of a situation with deliberate decision
 * Rational vs non-rational vs irrational
 * The interaction type with one and the same person can change over time
 * Interpretative/empathizing sociology/verstehende Soziologie: don't pass value judgements over people but try to understand why they act how they do
 * Power is the probability that a social actor in a social relation can carry out his will despite resistance
 * However, this happens rarely in reality. What happens is domination: the probability that a command will be obeyed. This is legitimated power (explaining why you benefit from my command/making the subject internalize the power by claiming to have rational arguments why you should obey me)
 * Every domination necessarily contains an element of voluntary compliance on the subjects part
 * What is legitimacy: being able to develop a mythology about why this is useful for you/why you have a self-interest in this - I.e. all legitimacy contains an element of myth (of why you should obey)
 * Those in power make you internalize a set of principles that lead you to conclude to obey (e.g. "no alternative")


 * Weber's three types of authority:
 * Legal-rational: based on the rule of law and those who devised them also have to obey (however, who devised the law? Can very well be a constitutional monarchy) and administered by a bureaucratic system
 * Traditional: appeal to an old set of sacred rules; father, imam
 * Charismatic: being perceived/attributed as having exceptional quality (e.g. offering hope in a hopeful situation)

disciples don't salaries etc but do this voluntarily because of their strong belief
 * Weber on charisma:
 * Charisma as some superhuman or at least extraordinary capacity of the person. That is, a superhuman capacity attributed to the leader
 * This charisma happens in the relationship between the leader and the followers. The leader seems to be endowed with supernatural abilities and qualities which qualify him to be called charismatic
 * The person is considered as extraordinary and treated as endowed with these abilities. It is in the eye of the beholder
 * Charismatic leaders are being made by the followers
 * The sources of charisma rest in the recognition, it's in the interaction where charisma is created
 * Followers are seen as disciples and the leaders creates excitement in the followers, thereby creating a community among them
 * The leader is able to create movement in the crowd
 * But if the proof of succeelude the leader for the too long, the charisma is likely to be withdrawn. If the leader is not able to deliver the miracles that he promised, he will become a private, ordinary person - his charismatic appraisal withdrawn
 * Thus, the charismatic leader always has to promise to solve your crisis; he has to show that he will be able to solve the problems; he has to promise hope & change; he promises to empower people ("Yes we can")
 * The leader comes up with promises for the things people are looking for
 * The leader often creates a common enemy, finds a scapegoat (e.g. the Jews in Nazi Germany)
 * The followers are at least equally if not more important to charisma than the leader. They often bound together by emotional ties and are vergemeinschaftet (a family/ a spiritual community) - the leader creates the community around himself - "we belong together"
 * Followers experience personal devotion, and often come from some desperate situations, looking for a savior
 * Charismatic leaders in a legal-rational system face great difficulties
 * Charismatic leaders gain power in unpredictable environments, in which the economy etc can not do the job and provide stability - especially capitalist business want stability (and thus prefer legal-rational system, best not democratic because democracy is unpredictable/elections every four years). A free market economy loves a rule of law with a kind of authoritarian leader
 * Charisma is a revolutionary force and it is always in traditional systems where charisma flourishes (because it promises deliver change)
 * Charisma is change from within
 * Charisma changes the value system, leaders persuade you to have a different kind of value system (e.g. Martin Luther King convincing to have a different perspective towards race and gender)
 * Charisma is the opposite of traditional that's-how-we-do-it
 * How to find the following charismatic leader? → Through search (e.g. find the next the Dalai Lama) and with the help of experts or not; revelation (i.e. some people have access to the divine to be told who is the next) is for example done by the media who, like an oracle, know who the next big thing is; designation by the original leader-but th original leaders are oftentimes scared that the next leader will want to take over too quickly; designated by a qualified staffers (e.g. how the pope is elected); hereditary charisma (e.g. North Korea); office charisma (incumbent of the office is supposed to have charisma) - we attribute charisma to the incumbent and expect them to have a vision


 * Weber on class:
 * Two dimensions of social stratification: Stand (status) and class (income)
 * On which basis is power exercised? On the basis of class privileges or on status (i.e. types of authority) --> class stratosphere corresponds to legal-rational authority, status stratification corresponds on traditional authority
 * Modernity (in Weber’s macro-theory) means a transition from status-based social stratification to class-based stratification
 * However, even today there are still traditional authorities in our legal-rational stratification: we are all equal in front of the law, but how we end up still depends very much on status (prejudices etc still operate)
 * Power is still very often exercised on the basis of status (professors must know the facts, right?!)
 * Classes are not constituted by property relations, but are instead determined on the market. Wealth, in traditional societies, is a consequence of status rather than a determinant of class
 * Today, it is your property and behavior on the marketplace which make you enter a class. In aristocracy it was a legal/political act (by the king) to enter a class -and only then you became wealthy. Status privileges remained even if you suddenly became poor - you remained a noble (exempt from taxes)
 * Today, it's your performance on the marketplace that determines your class
 * Your position is determined by your position on the labor market and on the capital market
 * Classes don't necessarily formal community but incidentally act the same way out of a common interest. Classes are constituted through actions
 * How, through which processes, have classes become less antagonistic