Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 7 The city: new fraternities of patriarchs
125
According to Weber the large capitalistic household of medieval cities is dissolved by
increasing calculation, 'Rechenhaftigkeit', its members having interest-bearing 'capital
shares "in" the house and wealth', accounts and pocket money.
'Thus, a rational association takes the place of the "natural" participation in the household's
social action with its advantages and obligations. The individual is born into the household,
but even as a child he is already a potential business partner of the rationally managed
enterprise.'
The individualization process takes place even when the unity of the household remains
outwardly intact, which is often the case, paradoxically, in those large and rich households
which try to keep the sources of position and prestige in the family. The liberty of the
individual in a household where profit is attributed to common property is smaller than where
profit is attributed to common work
77
. Especially the possession of land, when this is
becoming scarce, contributes to the stability of family and lineage
78
.
Thus the largest enterprises in the rich cities of Northern Italy were also the largest
households, because of the growing importance of capital, which allowed no division into
small parts.
79
This type of household however did not remain unchanged, since in the course of time
separate capitalist enterprises developed from it. According to Weber the result of this
development was a uniquely Occidental transformation of domestic authority and household:
'the old identity of household, workshop and office fell apart'; 'the household ceased to exist
as a necessary basis of rational business association.'
80
Weber sees 'a precise parallel' between the development of the household and that of
bureaucracy: in his view 'vocation' is separated from private life and office from household.
He goes on to formulate his general rationalization theory:
'The capitalist enterprise, created by the household which eventually retreats from it, thus is
related from the very beginning to the "bureau" and the now obvious bureaucratization of the
private economy.'
Once the separation between household and enterprise has been completed
81
- in the
Middle Ages capital interests still held the large entrepreneurial household together - the
77
ES p. 378, WG p. 228.
78
'The man without any landed property or with only little of it is also without lineage group.'
79
In describing this paradox Weber dealt a small blow to stage-development theories: 'In this case, the capitalist
economy, a "later" stage in terms of a theory of development starting with undifferentiated social action,
determines a theoretically "earlier" structure in which the household members are more tightly bound to the
household and subjected to household authority.'
80
'The entire economic arrangements of such large household were periodically regulated by
c o n t r a c t. Whereas, originally, the personal funds and the business organization were regulated by the same
set of rules, the situation gradually changed. Continuous capitalist acquisition became a special vocation
performed in a increasingly separate enterprise.' 'Henceforth, the partner was not necessarily - or typically - a
house member. Consequently, business assets had to be separated from the private property of the partners.
Similarly, a distinction began to be made between the business employees and the domestic servants. Above all,
the commercial debts had to be distinguished from the private debts of the partners, and joint responsibility had
to be limited to the former, which were identified as such by being contracted under the "firm", the business
name', ES p. 378/9, WG p. 229.
81
It is not the spatial separation of the household from the workshop which is decisive, but the establishment of a
special, 'commercial', law; this law was created in the occidental Middle Ages, not yet in Antiquity. Ibid. See also
ES p. 977, WG p. 564: 'In fact, all legal institutions specific to modern capitalism are alien to Roman law and are
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