Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 8 Connections between formal rationality and patriarchal-patrimonial domination
over and through men
139
2. The Ständestaat as a compromise between patrimonial, feudal and city power
The European 'Ständestaat' as a permanent compromise between patrimonial rulers and
feudal and burgher Estates¹ was in itself a symptom of the weakness of the patrimonial
rulers. Feudalism and city autonomy both had originated in a lack of central military and
administrative power, and feudalism had weakened it even further.
Weber writes that he puts the term 'Ständestaat' between inverted comma's,² since
according to him it is no 'state' in the modern sense; it is only a form of
'Gemeinschaftshandeln', 'consensual action'³. Only in the long run will this
'Gemeinschaftshandeln' be transformed into a 'Vergesellschaftung'
4
:
'*It is this very *"Vergesellschaftung" which associates itself with the prince or turns privileged persons into
'Estates', and thus develops a permanent political structure from the mere "*Einverständnishandeln"
5
of the
various power-holders and the *treating from case to case.'
The reason for this process can be found, according to Weber, in the need to adapt the
inflexible system of fiefs and privileges to 'extraordinary or new administrative requirements'.
Weber develops a rather complex argument when he wants to decide whether this need was
economically or politically determined; he tries to separate economic factors - the money
economy as it developed in the cities - from political, especially military, ones. In his view the
most important of the politico-military factors is the growing competition between patrimonial
nation-states, which 'involved especially the raising of considerable amounts of money all at
once.'
6
Therefore he is able to represent the revival and subsequent transformation of
patrimonialism as an relatively autonomous political process.
Weber does pose the important question 'why the fully developed Ständestaat as well as the
fully developed bureaucracy grew only on European soil', but only to promise to return to it
later on.
7
He introduces the problem by discussing some of the paradoxes which he has
discovered in the reactions of the Estates to the development of the princely bureaucracy,
'which was destined, in turn, to dissolve the Ständestaat'; in his view this bureaucracy did not
develop only to promote the power interests of the ruler, but also in answer to demands -
1
'Feudalism is oriented not only to characteristic patrimonial features such as tradition, privilege, customal
('Weistum') and precedent, but also to *t r e a t i n g from case to case ('p a k t i e r e n von Fall zu Fall'; ES
translates 'temporary alliances', which does not express the element of compromise, concession, of the German
word 'paktieren'; 'Pakt' means 'treaty'), between the diverse power-holders, as was typical of and, in fact, the
essence of the p o l i t y o f E s t a t e s
("S t ä n d e s t a a t") in the Occident.' ES p. 1086, WG p. 636.
2
in contrast to the translators, see Introduction p. CVII.
3
for some reason here translated with the non-technical term 'interaction'.
4
WG p. 637, translated 'association', ES p. 1087
5
translated by 'agreed-upon action'.
6
'These needs were to a large extent economically determined, even though externally this was not rue in the
majority of cases. Most of the time the economic influence was indirect: The extraordinary needs centered on the
political, especially the military administration. The changing economic structure, in particular the advancing
money economy, exerted its influence by making it possible, and hence mandatory in view of the struggle and
competition with other polities, to satisfy these needs in a manner superior to the normal means of stereotyped
feudal-patrimonial administration; this involved especially the raising of considerable amounts of money all at
once.' ES p. 1086, WG p. 637.
7
See Ch. 1,10.
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