Lecture 6 – Weber and Sociology of Law
• Law a process within an evolving society
• Founders
– Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber (1864-1920)
– Comte’s methods: sociology – observation, experiment, comparison
– Max Weber – starting point is his book ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism’. This gives an explanation for the existence of capitalism which arose out
of ascetiscism: it is a duty to work hard (“protestant work ethic”) for its own sake
rather than for profits.
– He says that in the early days of Protestantism, people wishing to do God's work
approached the work of everyday life as though everything were being done for the
glory of God. It was a serious matter. It was no longer just a question of making your
living and making profits for yourself by trade or whatever. Instead, this was the work
of God that people were doing and so it had to be approached with a spirit of religious
duty. As a result of this, Max Favre comes out with a famous expression, which is
known as the “Protestant work ethic”. The idea that it is our duty to God and to each
other to work hard, that work was pursued for its own sake and that it was good for
our immortal souls, rather than that it was simply good for profits. As a result, if you
had been part of one of the early Protestant communities, you would have regarded
the profits that were earned not as your own income, but rather as God's money and
it was very important to make sure that you paid a reasonable proportion, usually a
tenth or a tithe as it was known into your religious church, and that the rest of the
money should not be enjoyed too much, rather, you should be thinking about the fact
that this is work which you have carried out and so a lot of the money should be
ploughed back into creating greater prospects for work creation and for investment
of the money as though it were God's money rather than our own. The situation was
not markedly different in Catholic societies, people were allowed to enjoy the
proceeds of their own work. Yes, they were still encouraged to give a proportion and
again, usually a time towards the church but there were a large number of religious
feasts throughout the year where people were encouraged to enjoy themselves. And
so the same starting point was rather different between Catholic societies and
Protestant societies. Catholic societies didn't make a distinction between the work
that you carried out and your personal life. They didn't make a distinction between
money as that were created as a result of profits and personal moneys, it was all very
much the same sort of thing. Whereas in protestant societies, you had to make a clear
distinction between the money that was belonging to God and the money that
belonged to individuals. You could take a certain proportion of it. And this had the
effect that in Protestant societies, scrupulous accounts were created. To divide of
business assets and moneys from those of the individuals. Workforces, therefore,
were more disciplined and they approached their work in a rather different way as a
way of dedication originally towards the glory of God, but as secularism started to
grow, work was seen as a duty which had less to do with God, but nonetheless was
still to be taken very seriously. So the important steps that Max Faber identified in his
book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. And he regards capitalism with
, its particular way of noting down all the financial transactions and creating annual
profit and loss accounts as part of this Protestant work ethic.
• Important steps were:
– Disciplined labour force, reinvestment of capital
– Separation of the productive business from the household monies
– The development of the Western city - People came in from country areas in order to
find employment in the cities. So there was a ready source of people prepared to go
into employment in the industries.
– Development of the Nation state - The nation state started to exist because laws were
rational, legal in the sense that people stopped regarding systems of laws as being the
creation of a monarch and began to see them as being the appropriate way to
organise structure and to create a society which was aimed towards particular good
purposes.
– Rational – legal system of laws - that is to say, a system of laws aimed at achieving
peace in society and the development business.
– Double entry book-keeping and accountancy
What we can say that continued into the future was:
• Disciplined labour force - disciplined in the sense of approaching work with due seriousness.
There should be rules in relation to the workplace so that, as is indicated by discipline, there
is a set of targets towards which people should be straining. And if they fail to achieve them,
there should be consequences laid out in a set of rules.
• Reinvestment of capital
• He was influenced by Marx but disliked Marx’s revolutionary politics. There is no class warfare.
He wrote:
“When asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate
worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic
order . . . victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its support no
longer . . . the idea of duty in one’s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead
religious beliefs.” (pages 123-4)
I think this is quite an important quotation because it explains that capitalism was an
inevitable thing to rise. It was as particularly fitted towards industrial development. It
concentrated on instilling the sense of duty into people's work lives, order by means of rules
so it's a rule ordered activity to carry out work. Duty replaced religious belief, but people
worked towards the most efficient means of creating profits, which were then reinvested.
• The problem is that people begin to think that the wealth they have earned is deserved. This
idea that if people earn a lot, they have deserved it. If they don't earn very much, they deserve
that because they haven't been working hard enough or aren't good people. It tends to take
the view away from any approach towards social welfare and social conscience, which is
something that we have to be very wary about.
