Lecture 6: The Frankfurt School

Max Horkheimer (1895-1973)
Theodor W Adorno (1903-1969)

1. Weber lived to see the collapse of Imperial Germany and defeat in the First World War. This disaster never shattered his faith in bourgeois society. His political testament emphasized the need to nurture charismatic elements in modernity and protect the space for individual initiative resisting the universalizing tendencies of modern bureaucratisation. In philosophical terms Weber follows the late Nietzsche in placing the real emancipatory emphasis in modernity on the individual. At the same time, he resisted Nietzsche radical utopian expectation of future cultural renewal beyond enlightenment. However, the experience of the war caused many European intellectuals to adopt a more radical response to bourgeois society, the capitalist system and its dominant rationalist traditions. Many were horrified by the destruction and senseless slaughter of the War and were driven to pacifism and Marxism especially after the apparent success of the first Communist Revolution by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917. Amongst those who attended Weber’s lecture Politics as a Vocation without much enthusiasm were some of the leading members of the so-called Frankfurt School. These were well-to-do middle class Jewish intellectuals who became heavily influenced by Marxism and its revolutionary critique of capitalism.

2. The Marxist orientated Institute for Social Research was established at Frankfurt University in 1923 funded by a wealthy merchant whose son Felix Weil was sympathetic to revolutionary politics. From 1930 this Institute was headed by Max Horkheimer who gathered around himself a very talented team of philosophers, cultural critics, economists, a psychologist, social and political theorists in an interdisciplinary program aimed at a practically motivated critique of contemporary capitalist society from the standpoint of socialism. Not all members of the Frankfurt School group shared identical views although they managed to work within a common framework. I shall consider only the diagnosis of modernity associated with the two leading figures (Horkheimer and Adorno) of the Institute that emerged towards the end of the 1930’s and during the Second World War. After the National Socialist takeover in Germany in 1933, the Institute moved its headquarters to Paris and then finally to the United States where its members lived as émigrés and observed the social and cultural developments which appeared to prefigure the post war world.

3. The failure of socialist revolution in Western Europe has often been viewed as the key to understanding the Frankfurt School diagnosis of modernity. The very first sentence in Adorno's latter main work Negative Dialectics (1966) reads "Philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on because the moment to realise it was missed" (p3). Socialist revolution, which would have overcome the irrationality of the existing bourgeois world and established a rational world, failed to materialise. This means that all projects to improve the world and ameliorate suffering tied to philosophical projects of molding reality in accordance with the dictates of reason have run aground.  Philosophy remains necessary, but only if it redoubles its efforts to become a radical critique of the existing world. And to achieve this it must abandon the great idealist project to conceptually grasp the world as a whole and restrict itself to self-criticism, to a negative dialectic that brings to light that which resists rationality and point to a world infinitely more complex and heterogeneous than any of its potential concepts. Horkheimer and Adorno were witnesses to the complete victory of fascism in Europe. Already in the early thirties, empirical studies under Fromm had discovered the pervasive presence of the authority personality amongst the German working class. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia had stagnated into a totalitarian form of state oppression. Rosa Luxemburg's fears about the bureaucratisation of the party seemed to be realised. The possibility of a socialist future seemed to be closed for the foreseeable future. These disappointments were compounded by the apparently successful reorganisation and stabilisation of monopoly capitalism under the New Deal in America. The success of the New Deal policies meant that increasingly consumerist American culture was never problematised but now hailed as a truly democratic expression of the popular will. The multiple crisis of the inter-war period in Europe and the world-wide Depression appeared to have been overcome but only at the cost of increased intervention of the state into the economy and the adoption of a greater planning and regulative role.

4. In the face of this historical situation, Horkheimer felt compelled to abandon the Marxian vision of history as an emancipatory process of humanity's increasing domination of nature that had underpinned the School's early interdisciplinary work. From the late 30's, these thinkers overturned the Marxist emancipatory vision of history in favor of one that views history as a process of the self-destruction of reason. I shall return to this idea later. For the moment, I want to concentrate on their diagnosis of the contemporary historical constellation that was formulated in their idea of the totally administered society. This view was built on the conviction that all contemporary economic systems--liberal democratic, fascist and socialist--seemed to be manifesting a frightening convergence in their basic logic and structure, becoming characterised by an omniscient planning and manipulation of all spheres of life. Marxists had previously maintained that the liberal, competitive bourgeois economy was rent by inescapable contradictions. Massive inequalities of wealth and economic dynamism lead to disequilbriums between production and capital valorisation, to unsold commodities and unemployment. At the same time, the self-consciousness of the proletariat was always increasing. According to this classical scenario, the combination of systemic disequilibriums and the increasing political maturity of the workers would finally lead to a revolutionary challenge to the fundamental structure of capitalist society. Frederick Pollock, an economist, provided the economic dimension of the Frankfurt School’s diagnosis. He argued that in the most recent decades bourgeois society had undergone a fundamental structural change. A radically new form of monopoly capitalism had superseded the classical competitive capitalism of the 19th century on which Marx had based his critique. The crux of this argument was that capitalism had entered a new phase in which competition had given way to government intervention and corporate planning. Pollock maintained that this transformation could contain economic contradictions for the indefinite future and therefore he could see no purely economic collapse of the bourgeois system. Pollock based his work on studies of the Soviet experience and on recent developments in Germany. He stressed the contemporary decline of the market as the primary agent of social mediation and the subordination of the profit motive to direct political and social considerations. On the basis of this work, Horkheimer and Adorno felt justified casting aside classical revolutionary optimism and viewing authoritarian state capitalism as the paradigmatic form of modernity. Fascism and other forms of authoritarian and totalitarian state appear as the political form corresponding to the new phase of monopoly capitalism. The liberal age of bourgeois society with its competitive economic relations, democratic political institutions and contractual legal arrangements had masked the domination implicit in the capitalist system. But these liberal forms of freedom were now historical memories. They were increasingly replaced by an overtly authoritarian system. With the advent of the modern totalitarian regimes, the typical liberal dualisms of individual and society, private and public, law and morals, the economy and politics are blurred and even liquidated in the service of direct control and command.

5. The traditional capitalist entrepreneur who controlled the enterprise and lived off the profits no longer controlled the economy. They had been reduced to mere rentiers and removed from a direct management function. However, even this life turned out to be very insecure and succumbed to post-War economic fluctuations. The eventual solution to these problems was increased government intervention to control prices and wages, to encourage technological innovation, to enforce full employment and avoid over accumulation through the expansion of military and defense requirements. This control exercised by the state in league with the large monopolists forestalled the worse excesses of periodic downturns in the economic cycle. Coupled with direction of the new mass media, it opened up the possibility of a new omniscience, control and manipulation of the system. Political cliques could control the state apparatus but still in the interests of the economically most powerful groups. These rackets could now exercise naked power backed by all the forces of modern administration and bureaucracy aided by the subtle yet insidious pressures of the mass media. The authoritarian state becomes the vehicle of a new mode of capitalist organisation. No longer relying on competition and the market, steering functions are now transferred to the centralised administrative activity of the apparatus of domination--governmental agencies, police, army, and media. The result is a new synthesis of monopoly capitalism and totalitarian state which brings together the calculated interests of the major corporations and the planning capacity of the state organs in a technical rationality which dominates all aspects of society and quashes all opposition either by terror or consumerist incorporation. Developments in Europe, the Soviet Union and the United States all seemed to reveal the same tendencies. On this view, modernity comes to represent a new system of total domination characterised by new manifestations of alienation, administrative manipulation, by a uniform subordination and depersonalisation. With its new power (increasing bureaucratic reach) and technological means (radio, TV), the state is able to expand its influence entering and administering every facet of life. Everything that cannot be subordinated to the demands and logic of the new system will be processed, reeducated, dispensed with. Uniformity inevitably replaces individuality. The notion of the "totally administered society" has as its complement "the end of the individual". With such total control and manipulation of all domains of society the previous major forces of social resistance to capitalist domination and totalitarian tendencies are largely defused and seduced into acquiescence.

6. The increasing power and control of the authoritarian society over the individual was facilitated by the diminishing importance of the family in socialising individuals. Horkheimer had already argued in the thirties that the decline of the liberal era of capitalist competition and the replacement of independent bourgeois operators by monopoly concerns and increased government interference impacted on the family as the principal means of capitalist socialisation and character formation. The large institutions of mass society--media, state, parties and schools--began to takeover the socialising role formerly the province of the family. Horkheimer argued that for all its repressive and authoritarian aspects, the old bourgeois family had engendered a private realm of love and security. [Using a Freudian developmental psychology mediated by Erich Fromm, Horkheimer argued that, at least the male children, having overcome the fear induced by the Oedipus complex, gained autonomy, a sense of independence and rationality]. As a result of the faltering position of the bourgeois father, the process of identification was impaired and individuals were compelled to seek beyond the family for the fulfillment of their unconscious identificatory needs--they looked to leaders and broader peer and social groups. They remained passive and susceptible to unconscious fear. Such fearfulness and passivity made them malleable to the repressive demands of the new more integrated and controlled system of domination associated with the totally administered society. The loss of paternal authority following the erosion of economic independence left the child open to a direct socialisation through administrative agencies and powers.

Modernity in Crisis 2017 Essay Questions

Essay Due: Monday 22nd May

 Late essays will be accepted up to Monday 5^th June without excuse, but marks will be deducted according to the Sophi Schedule. Essays will only be accepted till that date if a satisfactory excuse is submitted. The only satisfactory excuses are illness or misadventure. Pressure of other work, or computer equipment failure, does not normally count as misadventure. For further information contact the course-giver. Work must be submitted online through the Blackboard System
Reading
There exists a huge literature to these topics and you may find other useful studies. Secondary reading is not intended to be a substitute for reading the primary texts. Evidence of primary reading is essential. A good answer also presupposes an attempt at critical engagement either with the author or his interpreters or both.

Questions: Chose one question (2, 000 words)

1. Weber speaks of modernity as a new polytheistic age of warring gods. What does he mean and what is his attitude to this predicament? How does this “new polytheism” differ from that of the past? Does he offer us a solution and is it viable?

Readings

Weber, M. 'Politics as a Vocation' and 'Science as a Vocation' From Max Weber Routledge &Kegan Paul, London, 1948
Kalberg, S. Max Weber: Reading and Commentary on Modernity Blackwell, 2005

Scaff, L A. Fleeing The Iron Cage University of California Press, 1989, Ch 3Schecter, D. The Critique of Instrumental Reason Continuum, London, 2010, Ch 1
Habermas, J. Theory of Communicative Action Vol 1 Heinemann, London, 1984 Ch 2
Brubaker, R. The Limits of Rationality Allen & Unwin, London, Chapters1, 3, 4
Turner, C. Modernity and Politics in the Work of Max Weber Routledge, 1992
Bendix, R. & Roth, G. Scholarship and Partisanship University of California Press, Berkeley, 1971, Part A Ch 5
Schluchter, W. The Paradoxes of Modernity Stanford University Press, 1996 Section 1 Truth, Power and Ethics
Eden, R. Political Leadership and Nihilism University Press Florida, 1983 Ch 2, 5, 6
Goldmann, H. Max Weber and Thomas Mann University of California Press, 1988 part 2 Ch 4
Goldmann, H. Politics, Death and the Devil University of California Press, 1992, Ch 2, 3, 6
Kontos, A. ‘The World Disenchanted, and the Return of Gods and Demons’ in The Barbarism of Reason: Max Weber and the Twilight of Enlightenment (Ed) Horowitz, A. & Maley, T, University of Toronto Press, 1994, pp 223/247

2. Explain what Horkheimer and Adorno mean by ‘dialectic of enlightenment’? What is the relationship between this idea and that of the ‘totally administered society’ and what are the consequences for the idea of a critical theory of society today?

Reading

Adorno, T W. & Horkheimer, M. 'The Concept of Enlightenment' and Excursus 1&11 from Dialectic of Enlightenment Stanford University Press, 2002

Jay, M. The Dialectical Imagination Heinemann, London, 1973, Ch 8
Held. D. Introduction to Critical Theory Hutchinson, London, 1980, Ch 5
Honneth, A, The Critique of Power M I T Press, 1991, Ch 2
Dubiel, H. Theory and Politics M I T Press, 1985, pp 69-113

Schecter, D. The Critique of Instrumental Reason Continuum, London, 2010, Ch 3
Wiggerhaus, R. The Frankfurt School M I T Press, 1994 pp 326-350
Rabinbach, A. In the Shadow of Catastrophe: German Intellectuals Between Apocalypse and Enlightenment University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, Part 1, Ch 1, Part 2, Ch 5
Bronner, S E. Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists Blackwell, 1994, Ch 5, 9
Bronner, S.E. Reclaiming the Enlightenment Columbia University Press, 2004. Ch 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9
Habermas, J. Theory of Communicative Action Vol 1 Heinemann, London, 1984, Ch 4 Part 2 pp 366-403

3. Elaborate Foucault's image of the "carceral society"? What is the critical burden of this image? Is his standpoint the same as Adorno and Horkheimer’s? Did Foucault intend this as a diagnosis of the present?

Reading

Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish Allen Lane, London, 1977
Foucault, M. “Society Must be Defended” Lectures at the College De France 1975-1976 Picador, New York, 2003
Klitzman, L D. (Ed) Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture; Interviews and Other Writings 1977/1984 Routledge, 1988

Arato, A. & Cohen, J L. Civil Society and Political Theory M I T Press, 1992, Ch 6
Bernauer, J. Michel Foucault' s Force of Flight Humanities Press, New Jersey, Ch 5
Han, B. Foucault’s Critical Project Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2002, Part 1 Ch 1, Part Veyne, P. Foucault: His Thought, His Character Polity, Oxford, 2010

Oksala, J Foucault on Freedom Cambridge University Press, 2005, Part 2
Dumm, T. Michel Foucault and the Politics of Freedom Sage, 1996, Ch 3, 4
Merquior J G Foucault California University Press, 1985, Ch 7-10
Racevskis, K. Michel Foucault and the Subversion of the Intellect Cornell 1983, Cha 6-10
Honneth, A. Critique of Power MIT Press, 1991, Ch 5,6
Morris, M & Patton, P. (eds) Michel Foucault: Power, Truth, Strategy Feral Publications, Sydney, Part 2, pp109-145
Rajchman, J. Foucault: The Freedom of Philosophy Columbia University Press, 1985

4. Heller speaks of modernity as a "dissatisfied society". What is distinctive about this understanding and to what extent do you think it an adequate account?

Reading

Heller,  A. A Theory of Modernity Blackwell, Oxford, 1999

                     ‘Dissatisfied Society’ The Power of Shame, Routledge & Kegan Paul. London, 1985

 Heller, A& Feher, F. ‘ On Being Satisfied in a Dissatisfied Society 1 &2’ The Postmodern Political Condition Polity Press, 1988, Ch 2&3

Grumley, J. Agnes Heller: A Moralist in the Vortex of History Pluto Press, London, 2005, Ch 8,11,12

Tormey, S. Agnes Heller: Socialism, Autonomy and the Postmodern Manchester University Press, 2001, Ch 4

Tormey, S. ‘Why Does Agnes Heller Matter? Political Action, Social Change and Radical Politics in the Twenty-First Century’ Online

Burnheim L (Ed) The Social Philosophy of Agnes Heller Rodophi. Amsterdam, 1994, Ch 4,6, 9

Terezakis, K. (Ed) Engaging Agnes Heller: A Critical Companion Lexington Books, New York, 2009, Ch 3.

Kammas, A. 'Reconciling Radical Philosophy and Democratic Politics: The Work of 

Agnes Heller and the Budapest School'

Critique

35, 249-74, 2007

Rivero, A. 'Agnes Heller: Politics and Philosophy'

Thesis Eleven

59, 17-28,1999

5. Critically analyze Weber's account of democracy and its potential. Do you think it has much to offer us today?

Readings

Weber, M. ‘Politics as a Vocation’ (in Reader)

Weber, M. Political Writings Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, Ch 2, 4, 6
Weber, M. Economy and Society University of California Press, 1978, Vol 1 Ch 3 and pp 1339-1368, Vol 2 Appendix 2 pp 1381- 1461

Breiner, P. Max Weber and Democratic Politics Cornell University Press, Ch 4, 5, 6.
Mommsen W J Max Weber and German Politics 1890-1920 University of Chicago Press, 1984, Ch 9, 10
Mommsen,W. The Age of Bureaucracy Blackwell, Oxford, 1974, Ch4

Kim, S. H. Max Weber’s Politics of Civil Society Cambridge University Press, 2004

Wrong, D. (Ed) Max Weber Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1970, Ch 11
Eden, R. Political Leadership and Nihilism University Press, Florida, 1983 Ch 2, 5, 6
Horowitz, A. & Maley, T. (EdThe Barbarism of Reason: Max Weber and the Twilight of Enlightenment University of Toronto, 1994 Part 1 Ch 3, 4 Part 2 Ch 5, 6
Beetham, D. Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics Allen & Unwin, London, 1974, Ch 4, 8
Struve, W. Elites Against Democracy: Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany 1890-1933 Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1973, Ch 4

Lecture 5: Critique of Weber and His Critique of Mass Politics

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11. Do we need to accept Weber's interpretation of the dilemma facing modern subjectivity and its task of making modern individal life meaningful after the collapse of tradition and other inter-subjectively binding worldviews like religion? Confronting the modern division of labor and the increasing rationalisation of culture with its increasingly sphere immanent norms and rules, Weber opts for the notion of an individual existential choice.  The subject must form his or her own life meaningfully within a chosen value sphere around a single value i.e. art, science, politics, etc. Weber resists the temptation to make this choice romantic: he speaks of its rigors in a stoic voice. Such commitment is entirely without glamour. It involves the asceticism that comes with prosaic and Sisyphean specialisation. For example, in the domain of science it involves the total commitment of a large slice of life in training and research in pursuit of an elusive goal that may never be attained. Without an inner drive such a choice can turn into a destructive nightmare of self-waste. Achievement in such a life does not generate ultimate satisfaction. Scientific achievement is transitory with inbuilt obsolescence. Rapidly changing horizons of modern knowledge cannot answer the fundamental question about the meaning of life. This question forever remains beyond the sphere of science.

         12. However, despite Weber's efforts to describe such a choice as unglamorous: in the light of its complexities, its prosaic aspects, its ultimate existential dissatisfaction, there remains a compelling romantic element. The very idea of the calling as a sort of redemption (the elevation of the individual to meaning), the scale of the sacrifice and the asceticism of the challenge ensures that only the exceptional and the driven will bear it. Remember Weber's choice of the term “Beruf” (calling) is quite deliberate. He takes over the charismatic connotations of religious vocation into the wider mundane world of science and politics and represents it in absolutist terms: the passion of this total commitment elevates the choice into something that is really meaningful.  Here the exception becomes the rule. Total commitment has its own grandeur. This is a wager of life involving a sort of self-abandonment and self-transcendence that brings this value choice into conflict with other important values, creating meaning.

         13. Is Weber's vision convincing? While the vision of heroic commitment is, perhaps seductive, I want to argue that it is precisely these romantic elements and the residual quasi-religious absolutism of his notion of vocation that narrows options and results in distortion. Let's start with the exclusivity of the choice. Weber interprets the task facing the modern subject as an exclusive choice of a value sphere (science, politics, art, religion, and eroticism). Weber does not consider everyday life as a sphere because we do not choose the everyday but rather inhabit it by necessity: we cannot help but dwell in it. Furthermore, for Weber, the everyday is not an exemplary way of life that creates meaning. Weber prohibits mixing or crossing spheres because of the conflicting character of the norms they presuppose and also because real achievement demands utter dedication in a specialised area. However, for many, the idea that their life be a singular project devoted to the service of a single value sphere seems at odds with a satisfaction and a meaning derived from close intersubjective bonds and acts of friendship, love and care. These also bestow upon an individual feelings of value, esteem, respect and singularity.  There can be little question that Weber valued these bonds. However, he seems to build a wall between them and vocation that could only be humanly crippling for many of us. This seems to be a consequence of his emphasis on the demands of specialisation. In the era of rationalisation, Weber wants to rigorously uphold the notion of specialisation and this proscribes the idea of mixing callings or of mixing the calling with everyday life. As a result, Weber's modern subject become unnecessarily a mono-centred individual who chooses one way of life for good and also denies themselves the possibility of participating in other spheres by a sort of self-imposed rigid specialism and a resulting ethical constraint. Clearly Weber is right that in the modern age of specialisation it is almost impossible for any individual to serve "two deities" with the same devotion. Nevertheless, this is a practical inhibition. There is no good theoretical reason why all individuals should become mono-centred. Clearly it is possible and may well be desirable for many modern individuals to change vocations, to be active in two or more spheres obeying their inner spheric rules and norms depending on interests and talent without chasing for perfection in any single one. Such a solution must be especially attractive to women who typically bear the greater weight of hard choices between specialisation/career and child bearing/rearing. This is clearly an obvious practical and life enriching solution to the problem of choosing between different specialist cultural spheres in a way that is not so absolutely focused on the exemplary personality and the highest level of vocational achievement. 

  

         14. Secondly, we must focus on what I shall call Weber's redemptive subjectivism. After the collapse of traditional worldviews, Weber shifts the task of creating meaning on to the exemplary individual. This is a very heavy load indeed and almost beyond the power of the single individual. Weber overcomes this problem with the notion of "calling": the individual must choose a value-sphere and it is the passionate devotion to that sphere which both elevates the subject beyond mere subjectivity and infuses life with meaning. After the decline of religion, cultural spheres are the closest the individual can come to supra-individual meaning. The residual religiousity of this view is clear. It is marked by what Nietzsche called ascetic ideals. Weber asks the individual to bear an unrealistic weight. On the one hand, Weber's uncalled subject is too much like the weak creature of the Christian tradition. On the other, Weber underplays the role of intersubjective relations in the creation of a meaningful life and, as we have suggested, the way in which a range of social bonds and commitments also richly add to the meaningfulness both of an individual life and to social life more generally.          

         15. To the extent that Weber takes up the problem of meaning on a societal level this finds expression in his political thought on leadership. Modern society is characterized by galloping rationalization and bureaucratisation.  Weber’s response is the call to sustain and nurture charisma. Weber recognises the efficiency of bureaucracy in getting things done smoothly, consistently and expertly in mass complex societies. He notes the way in which the politics of the machine and the specialists of the state in war, finance and law proved their superiority over the regimes of notables and dilettantes time and time again. However, he also believes that the bureaucrats for all their devotion to public service and the chain of command have their own interests, logic and a dulling resistance to creative initiative beyond the system, rules and conventionality. Their discipline depends upon individual creativity and autonomy. As already said, for Weber, charisma is the only available antidote to bureaucratic ossification. Weber believed that with the threat of universal bureaucratisation it was crucial to preserve the maximum amount of social dynamism by maintaining social and political competition wherever possible. This general diagnosis was located in his specific critique of recent German political history.

          16. With rapid economic modernization the aristocratic Junkers were a decaying ruling class that no longer possessed the capacity to further Germany's real national interests. Yet they remained the dominant political force with great influence in the army and bureaucracy. Bismarck's victory represented a historic defeat of the German bourgeoisie and of German liberalism. He had stifled genuine parliamentary politics and this had left Germany without great political leaders. After Bismarck's demise the aristocratic bureaucrats had been able to manipulate a weak and vacillating Kaiser. The only way to make good this lack in Germany was to activate civil society and introduce aggressive parliamentary democracy that would cultivate real charismatic leaders with a calling for politics. This situation reached a crisis point during the war with the eventual revolutionary overthrow of the imperial regime in 1918. Throughout this whole period Weber was an advocate of the real democratisation of Germany. However increasingly he came to focus less on broad economic and political reforms and more on the creation of conditions that would produce leaders with a calling. For example, to counteract the encroachment of bureaucracy in the civil service and the party machine and its impact on the quality of political leadership, Weber advocated the idea of plebicitarian democracy.  According to this model, political leaders supported by the mass party machines would gain their authority and legitimacy directly from the consensus/acclamation of the people rather than being the complete servants of these party bureaucracies. This would provide leaders with real political ability with the leverage to really transform political reality, to change society's direction, to foster new values and avoid the twin dangers of progressive bureaucratisation and leaderless modern mass democracy.

         17. For Weber, modernity had undercut the conditions that had sustained classical liberal democracy. The real meaning of his thesis of the "loss of freedom" was that the classical ideal of "individual self-determination" and the "popular will” was now virtually obsolete. They had lost much of their practical meaning because modern conditions were so much more complex, the weight of the combined objective logics of economic, technological and bureaucratic processes was so great and inescapable, and individuals were inevitably and necessarily interdependent. Weber acknowledges the Tocqueville point about the atomisation of the modern individual in mass democracy and the need to energise a healthy civil society. But, unlike Tocqueville, he thinks it naive to believe the mass individual could have much influence on the corporate entities and complex processes of modern mass politics. In any case, Weber is a radical sceptic when it came to the concept of democratisation. His argument was that the demos itself in the sense of an inarticulate mass never actually governs: all that changes is the methods of the selection of executive leaders and the influence which various circles within the demos are able to exert. Democratisation does not therefore necessarily mean a greater active share of the governed in political authority. In this situation, Weber argued the only realistic alternative was the form of constitutional democracy in which people would be able to choose in a formerly free way the leaders who seemed best able to represent their interests and aspirations and robust civil debate would engender the leaders with real political calling. Rather than allow the faceless bureaucrat without a political calling and without real responsibility de facto political power, Weber preferred the presidential style direct election of political leaders. Those who possessed a real political calling, who were sufficiently charismatic to emotionally bind the masses and convince their supporters of their qualifications to rule, could proceed according to their own discretion as long as they maintained the trust of the masses. If they lost that trust, their political career would be finished.

         18. In Weber's theorization of democracy we perceive almost the inversion of its classical meaning. In their classical sense the ideas of individual self-determination and popular will represented a process of legitimisation and policy formulation from the bottom up, from the electors to their candidates by a sort of delegation. Weber clearly believed that this model was no longer viable. While he retains the idea of the formerly free election of leaders and a dynamic civil society, he believes that modern politics is a complex arena for specialists-- for those with a calling for politics. If the great threat of universal rationalisation and bureaucratisation are to be met and held at bay, modern society requires leadership and charisma. Modern politics, itself subject to the inroads of bureaucratisation-- the increasing importance of the party machine and the public service, of specialists in various aspects of public business like finance, law, diplomacy--can sustain it own vitality only if openings are preserved and facilitated for charismatic leadership. Yet here again Weber asks the individual in the shape of charismatic leadership to achieve almost the impossible. If bureaucratisation is to effectively be resisted the struggle must be taken up on a wider front than mere leadership. In Germany at this time what was required was a range of institutional changes both economic and political to reduce the power of the Junker's and facilitate the birth of democratic forces and associations. Weber saw universal bureaucratisation as the great threat in modernity. Ironically and tragically, he completely ignored what, with hindsight, has turned out to be an equally significant danger-- the totalitarian charismatic dictator -- the individual who takes over or usurps control of the vast bureaucratic machine of modernity using it for criminal sectional or irrational ends. Thus while Weber advocated a vigorous parliamentary democracy and rigorous civil debate, his pre-occupation with charisma and leadership in modern mass society distorts his commitment to, and understanding of, democracy.