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
140
resulting from 'the general economic and cultural development' - for new administrative
services and agencies from the Estates themselves.
8
Yet he does not solve the problem which he created when he separated economic and
political developments, since he does not construct a concept to connect them again; we are
therefore left which a paradoxical influence of 'economic and cultural development' which
would have induced the Estates to fortify the powers which would eventually destroy them.
When it comes to answering the central question of why patrimonialism developed into
modern bureaucracy, Weber only refers to 'the nature of the new administrative tasks', which
'exerted a pressure toward creating permanent agencies, fixed jurisdictions and procedural
as well as professional qualification'.
9
He does not analyze this 'nature' any further.
Before I will discuss the new agencies, I will first deal with the economic aspects of the
revival of patriarchal patrimonialism: the economic relations of the patrimonial rulers to
respectively the city bourgeoisie and the new industrial entrepreneurs.
3. The development of capitalism: mercantilism and industrialization
In their zeal to exploit the economic potential of the cities the patrimonial rulers carried on
the urban administrative and economic policies. Only gradually were the city communes
transformed into the administrative districts they had been in Carolingian times.
10
Trade and
crafts in the city still received preferential treatment; quality production was still protected in
the guild manner. Mercantilist economic policy, with its stimulation of foreign trade, was
partly copied from urban long-distance trade policies.
11
The economic policy of the patrimonial rulers consisted of granting monopolies, not only in
trade but also in craft and industry, to 'members and favorites of the royal family, courtiers,
military men and officials grown rich, great speculators and adventurous inventors of
"systems" of political economy (-), outside of England often also Jews'
12
. With the help of a
well-functioning patrimonial apparatus of officials, 'all kinds of fiscal enterprises and
monopolies' could be organized.
13
The establishment of royal manufactures 'was an attempt
to transfer to modern industries patrimonial capitalism, which had existed everywhere in
Antiquity and the Middle Ages of East and West, with only a few interruptions.'
14
These
8
'This process must not be understood too mechanically as if the ruler endeavored everywhere, for the sake of
expanding his own sphere of power, to destroy the competing power of the Estates by developing the
bureaucracy. Unquestionably and quite naturally, this was very often one major determinant, but not always the
really crucial one. Quite frequently the Estates demanded from the ruler that he satisfy the requests of interested
persons for new administrative services and that he render these through the establishment of a suitable agency;
these continuously emerging demands were the result of the general economic and cultural development and
thus due to objective developmental factors.' ES p. 1087, WG p. 637.
9
'The ruler's compliance was tantamount to a spread of officialdom and hence normally to an increase of his
power; at first this led to a renaissance of patrimonialism, which remained dominant in Continental Europe up to
the French Revolution, but the longer patrimonialism lasted, the more it approached pure bureaucratism.'
10
ES p. 1322, WG p. 788.
11
ES p. 1329, WG p. 792.
12
ES p. 1098, WG p. 645.
13
ES p. 1097, WG p. 644; large state monopolies and enterprises existed also in Egypt, the late Roman empire
and in the Near and Far East; the occidental cities also participated in risky industrial and trading enterprises,
often suffering great losses.
14
ES p. 1098, WG p. 645.
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