The Modern Western Institutional System

THROUGHOUT Weber’s scientific career run two major threads of interest, in the methodology and theoretical formulation of social science, and in the understanding of the social structure and dynamics of modern Western civilization. Undoubtedly the latter was his dominant interest, the former being regarded as instrumental to it. In pursuing his interest in the society of his own time, to a degree unknown before, he made use of the comparative method, illuminating the subject of interest by contrast as well as by agreement and historical antecedent. It is this, with the orientation of his comparative analysis to generalized theory, which distinguishes his work most strikingly from all the historical schools of thought with their tendency, on the highest level of generalization, to issue in evolutionary philosophies of history.¹

Though they were worked out in a long process of development involving varied particular projects of research, there is a sense in which Weber’s main contributions to this problem came to focus in two primary parts of his work, his sociology of religion and his comparative institutional sociology as summarized in the present volume. At both points in his own mind to a very great though probably decreasing extent, and still more in that of his interpreters, Weber treated the modern order as that of ‘capitalism.’ His first contribution to the sociology of religion was the essay on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with its strong emphasis on finding adequate motivation for acquisitive activity in a system of market relationships. Similarly, in his treatment of the sociological foundations of economic activity in the present volume, Weber tended to centre his attention on the system of market relationships, the significance of money and money calculation, and property relationships, all with special reference to the functioning of profit-making enterprise.

But from the very beginning in both connections Weber was by no means concerned only with acquisitive activity in general. He distinguished explicitly the ‘rational bourgeois capitalism’ in which his primary interest lay from other forms which had been common to other civilizations, and which were dependent on quite different conditions. Only this was, he held, specific to the modern Occidental World. Thus from the very beginning of his work he was not merely attempting to contribute to the explanation of a phenomenon the essential descriptive features of which were clear to everyone and common ground for all competent scholars in the field. A great deal of the originality of Weber’s contribution consists, rather, in bringing into the centre of attention aspects even of our own economic order, which have been obscured in a great deal of social and economic thought, and showing their very great importance for our society.²

But the very investigation of these aspects and their formulation in terms of comparative perspective tended to show more and more that they could not be treated as of merely economic significance in any simple sense. ‘Capitalism’ in the sense in which Weber meant it, must be regarded not as a form of economic organization alone, but as the distinctive pattern of a whole society. Terminologically this agreed with other schools of thought, notably the Marxian, of which Weber was acutely conscious. But the farther Weber’s studies progressed, and the greater his knowledge of fact and the broader his comparative perspective became, the less did the ordinary criteria of capitalism seem adequate to characterize such a total institutional order. Weber never proposed any specific alternative, but there is nevertheless a strong basis in his work for changing the emphasis from the economic aspect as such to common elements which underlie both this and many other aspects of our society.

Seen in terms of Weber’s sociology of religion there is peculiar to our society the relative predominance of a certain basic attitude or orientation toward world activity, the attitude which he treats as distinctive of ‘ascetic Protestantism.’³Five components of this attitude are, perhaps, particularly significant. In the first place it is ‘ascetic’ in the sense that it has strong inhibitions against immersion in the most immediate worldly interests and satisfactions for their own sake. In its original protestant form it had a definitely transcendental orientation to supernatural values, but even though now secularized, it still maintains a high level of tension between ideal and real.

The existence of such tension, which is to Weber typical of a transcendentally founded religious ethic, can, however, work out in either of two directions. The consequent relative devaluation of things worldly can lead to a negative reaction, to flight into mystical contemplation or otherworldly asceticism, or it can, on the other hand, lead to a drive for active mastery over worldly things and interests, to making over the world in the image of a transcendental ideal. This, above all as embodied in the Calvinistic conception of the Kingdom of God on Earth, is a crucial feature of ascetic Protestantism and the basic orientation again has survived in secularized form.

Third is ‘rationality.’ This concept is, as has been shown, a difficult one in Weber’s work. What he means here includes above all two things. On the one hand tradition is radically devalued—nothing is sacred merely because it has become traditionally accepted and established, everything must be tested anew in terms of a universalistic standard. On the other hand it means the systematization of conduct according to rational norms. No single act can stand by itself or be valued on its own merits alone, but only in terms of its bearing on a whole system of rational conduct. The drive of ascetic Protestantism is not merely for mastery, but in this sense for rational mastery over the world.

Fourth is ethical universalism, the insistence on treatment of all men by the same generalized, impersonal standards. This is of course common to all branches of Christianity, but in combination with the active ascetic attitude becomes an obligation for the ordering of ordinary secular life which it has not been elsewhere.

Finally, to Weber the high functional differentiation and specialization of roles in our society was by no means to be taken for granted as the simple result of utilitarian ‘division of labour.’ In many societies there are deep-seated sentiments opposed to carrying such specialization too far, above all those which oppose treating a human being merely as an ‘instrument’ of impersonal ends. Particularly in a society which places an unprecedentedly high valuation on human life and personality as such, willingness to fit into specialized instrumental roles requires explanation. An element of this explanation Weber found in the protestant orientation in that in his process of active mastery over the world the individual was an instrument of a higher instance, of God’s will, and was working in the service of an impersonal end beyond his own personal interests. At any rate the importance of this willingness for the modern occupational system can scarcely be doubted or overestimated.

It is primarily the combination of these five elements of orientation which Weber means by the concept of the ‘calling.’ It is the conception of an individual’s ‘business in life’ as a calling in this sense, as a matter of moral obligation, which is to a comparable degree, distinctive of the modern world. It will be noted that acquisitiveness or a valuation of profit does not enter into this at all. Weber devoted a great deal of attention to the motivation of acquisitive activity in terms of the protestant ethic. But it is quite clear that this is a secondary problem.⁴It touches certain ranges of particular activity in particular situations within the broader general orientation. The pattern of the calling can be acted out in roles such as that of scientist, physician, civil servant, or even Christian minister which in our society are specifically defined as non-acquisitive roles in which the ‘profit-motive’ is not supposed to play any part. Indeed it is acquisitive orientation only in the context of the calling pattern which Weber treated as characteristic of modern ‘rational bourgeois capitalism’ as distinguished from other types.

Weber himself of course attributed a decisive influence in the development of this fundamental orientation to Protestantism, and the present writer thinks him, with a few qualifications, right in doing so. But it should not be forgotten that this historical question is logically distinct from that of whether he was right in placing the descriptive emphasis in characterizing the modern institutional order where he did, by contrast for instance with the Marxians for whom a system of profit-making enterprise as such and the consequent ‘exploitation’ are the essential things.

The attitude orientation characteristic of the modern world has been sketched because it is a primary clue to the generalized features of our institutional order which Weber brought out most sharply. The orientation to transcendental religious goals has, of course, to a large extent receded, but there are important elements of asceticism in our valuation of subjection to discipline in the interest of relatively remote and impersonal goals, and particularly in the valuation of rationally disciplined labour, at times almost as an end in itself. The active orientation to mastery is very clear in our valuation of technological achievement, and in our attitudes toward social reform and our unwillingness to tolerate ‘evils.’ These two elements of orientation supply a kind of pervasive framework rather than specific institutional patterns. The same is to some extent true of the third element, rationality, especially in a negative sense. One of the most important elements which Weber included under traditionalism in other societies was magic. One of the most striking fields is that of health. Modern scientific medicine is altogether unique in the extent to which it treats ill health as a problem of rational technique rather than of ritual healing. Only in Greco-Roman Antiquity has there been anything even remotely approaching it.

Universalism and functional specificity are much more readily recognizable as pattern principles underlying specific institutional forms. The first is particularly important in two fields, the patterns governing personal status and rights, and those governing the treatment of ability and achievement. The principal freedoms which we have come to value so highly, and the relative immunity from invidious discriminations on such grounds as birth, individual favouritisms, ethnic or class status, have their roots in this pattern. ‘Equality before the law’ is doubtless very far from being able to guarantee effective substantive equality for ‘all sorts and conditions of men,’ but that kind of particularistic discrimination is surely far less prominent in our society than in most others of a high degree of complexity. Secondly, the valuation, and its expression in recognition and status, of ability and achievement by such universalistic standards as technical competence has, particularly in the occupational field, a far wider scope in modern Western society than in most others. No other large-scale society has come so near universalizing ‘equality of opportunity.’ An important consequence of the universalistic pattern in these two fields is the very high degree of social mobility, of potentiality for each individual to ‘find his own level’ on the basis of his own abilities and achievements, or, within certain limits, of his own personal wishes rather than a compulsory traditional status.

Again there are perhaps two main fields in which functional specificity is of particular significance. On the one hand we are to a most unusual extent emancipated from the dependence of every act and interest on a ‘total’ status. To take one of the most conspicuous examples, the acquisition and uses of property both as instruments of all sorts of ends and for immediate consumption uses, is to a very high degree dissociated from personal status and immediate involvement in a system of political authority. This dissociation of the sphere of property is to a high degree essential to mobility and to the realization of universalistic standards. A second, closely related phenomenon is the freedom to enter into private agreements with limited content without involving the total status of the parties, but only specifically limited interests. What we think of as ‘freedom of contract’ would not be possible in an institutional system in which, as in the Middle Ages, all the principal elements of an individual’s status were treated as bound together. The granting of a fief was, to be sure, in a sense a ‘contract’ but not a limited one in the modern sense. It involved property interests, a status in the system of political authority, and a fundamental reciprocal relation of personal loyalty ‘for better or for worse’ in whatever exigencies might arise between lord and vassal. The nearest modern analogy is that of the marriage ‘contract.’ But in the feudal case while the fiction of freedom was maintained, in fact both parties were usually bound to each other by the rule of heredity. It was thus more like marriage in a system of compulsory preferential mating.

More obvious than this is the differentiation of specifically delimited spheres of functional activity, in systems of authority in the concept of office, in others in spheres of technical competence, or of assigned function under authority. This is of course in part determined by the situational exigencies of efficient performance. But for the case of authority Weber has quite conclusively shown that there is much more to it than that, that it involves a specific discipline on the institutional level. In quite different contexts, as for instance that of the informal discipline governing such a non-bureaucratic function as medical practice, the same thing can be shown.⁵

The fact that these institutional patterns are, in a comparable degree of development, distinctive of the modern Western World, is brought out by Weber with peculiar sharpness and clarity by his systematic comparative analysis which demonstrates the radically different character, in the relevant respects, of the institutional structures of most of the other great civilizations. Weber commanded a knowledge of comparative institutions which is perhaps unique in the history of the social sciences. Perhaps his most impressive single demonstration of the radical contrast with things western is to be found in his analyses of the classical civilizations of China and India in his Sociology of Religion.⁶

But precisely this comparative perspective, while heightening his realization of the uniqueness of our social system, also heightened his sense of its precarious state of instability. The institutional features which preoccupied him are the ones which to a peculiar degree have made possible the distinctive achievements of Western history in science, in technology, in law and government, in the large-scale organization of administration, even in the arts and literature. But at the same time they are far more vulnerable to disruptive influences than other alternative forms. They themselves generate crucial internal strains which make a transition to different situations likely.⁷

It is perhaps in this context that one can best attempt to place Weber as an interpreter of the course of modern society. He came at a time when, perhaps particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world, most scholars were still under the spell of what has already proved to be an altogether unrealistic Utopian optimism about the future. Everything would, we were told, continue indefinitely to become ‘bigger and better’ in the paths laid out by the development of the recent past. Weber was undoubtedly one of those who saw far deeper than this into the real balance of forces of his time. He is certainly not, however, to be regarded as one of a certain class of prophets of doom, for instance of the Spenglerian variety. There is little in his work of the idea of inevitable unrolling of the life cycle of a civilization. On the contrary he certainly believed that the course of history often hung precariously in the balance and could be crucially influenced by the actions of individuals and movements. His personal ethic was a Spartan ethic of ‘responsibility’ not one of contemplatively watching the inevitable process unfold.

But if not a prophet of inevitable doom, Weber was not an unrealistic optimist. He saw tendencies which he thought might well lead to a drastic alteration in the institutional foundations of our society.⁸He correctly diagnosed the period of World War I as one of deep crisis in our civilization as a whole. He died too soon after that war to have a clear conception of the shape of its aftermath as we are experiencing it now. It would be entirely out of character to set Weber up as a detailed prophet of the future. No one realized better than he the futility of trying to predict detailed events long in advance. But, with the hindsight which so greatly simplifies our problem, we can see that, considering the blindness of most of his contemporaries, Weber on the whole saw the nature of the crisis, and the general direction of change very clearly. He did not predict Hitler or the Nazi movement, but he quite clearly saw that a large-scale charismatic movement in reaction against modern ‘liberal’ institutions but with certain ‘democratic’ elements was a very real possibility. He also saw various more direct tendencies for social structure to shift over toward the traditionalistic type.

It would probably be a legitimate extension of Weber’s analysis to hold that the National Socialist movement has mobilized the forces antagonistic to the maintenance of these distinctive Western patterns more powerfully than this has ever happened before. According to Weber’s analysis, the effect of its securing definite political predominance over the principal area of Western civilization would almost certainly be its gradual transformation into a traditionalized structure, a structure which in detail could not be foreseen, but which might well assume the form of some kind of feudalism. Such a transformation could not in the long run fail to choke off the most distinctive cultural products of our society, above all science and rational thinking, and to lead to a great revival of ‘superstition’ and mythology. But by the same token, such a consequence is not inevitable. We may well stand at one of those great crucial dividing points of history like the Persian Wars to which Weber devoted such a penetrating analysis. On the outcome of the present struggle may well depend whether Western civilization will have an opportunity to fulfill its as yet unsuspected potentialities, or revert to a rigidly fixed traditionalism.

This is a remarkable diagnosis of the situation of a great civilization, probably unique in its sober realism and its intellectually sophisticated allowance for the immense complexity of the problems, for its ability to draw clear and definite conclusions from such complex materials and yet not fall into dogmatic over-simplification. This intellectual achievement in no small measure owes its possibility to the fact that its author, in a certain sense against his own will, devoted himself to the problems of systematic theory in his field. What he achieved in the field of theory was far from perfect, indeed its improvement in several directions has already become possible. But as he forged it and used it, it was a powerful instrument of understanding in the attack on some of the most complex and baffling problems the human mind has ever attempted to solve. But such results do not come about automatically even given the instrument ready-made. To forge the instrument so largely himself and at the same time achieve such mastery in its use, is scientific achievement of a very high order.

TALCOTT PARSONS.