Weber
Reading Weber can often seem like listening to your grandfather drone on about a bunch of seemingly unrelated topics, and you never really know what the point is. So my comments are geared to help you find the thread through his argument.
First, some vocab.
Polis= Greek city-state. Think Athens.
Occident= west/Europe, i.e. not the orient, which ~ Middle East + Asia
Proletariat= contemporary conception of the working class. Not just workers, but workers like us who don’t own the means of production [tools, computers, etc] but go to work for a capitalist boss.
State= national government
Most important, look for clues to Weber’s argument that citizenship
• Is a particular historical creation, i.e. it hasn’t been around forever
• Varies by time and place in which it has existed, i.e. isn’t always the same thing
• Is fundamentally tied to the emergence of cities
How is the city NOT defined for Weber, and then how does he define it [hint “certain ultimate fundamental facts”] (235-6)?
What is the significance of fortification, i.e. walls? (235)
Why did citizenship, and cities, arise in the west and not in the orient according to Weber (237-8)? Attempt a sketch of his model of occidental and oriental development.
What characterized citizenship, and cities, in the ancient [Greek], as well as medieval periods? (239-45). I suggest you develop a two-column table to capture the similarities and differences Weber lays out between the two eras. The following questions are meant as a beginning
• What changed with the advent of democracy?
- Why does Weber argue democracy occurred?
• What organizations did one have to be a member of to be a citizen?
• What were the economic relations in each era?
- What were the major sources of income in each?
- What were the relations between city and country/rural?
- What were the major classes in each?
- What characterized political freedoms in each era?
• What changes in military techniques [i.e. who mattered for military victory] reduced the role of soldiers and heightened the importance of artisan’s guilds (245)? Understanding Weber’s comments about the military on 240 & 245 are key to understanding his historical argument regarding citizenship and the city.
• Finally, how was urban freedom lost in each era? What does Weber say about the relationship between cities and the larger political/economic systems they inhabit during different historical periods? [hint it’s a similar story but cities lose out to different larger entities, with different consequences for capitalism]
Take a second to soak in this last point about the development of the modern nation-state, an organizational form we all take for granted. How do we conceive of our citizenship? What does it mean to be an American?
Even if you feel you don’t fully understand everything in this piece, take the time to try and answer most of these questions, because when you do that you’ll have the basics down, and then lecture and section will reinforce the important themes.
Peterson, The Interests of the Limited City
Right away Peterson lays out his thesis: “we can speak of the interests of that structured system of social interactions of a city” (17). Our task now is to figure out what that means.
Beginning with the first major section, what does this NOT mean (17)?
For those of you who did not like, or understand, Tiebout, enjoy pp 18-20. Read the bottom of 20-top 21 carefully to catch Peterson’s definition, and model, of a city’s interest.
What analogy does he make to compare cities with? Do you buy it?
NOTE that although he insists that cities seek to improve their position along three axes, he’ll only discuss economic interests. If he had chosen social or political interests, could his analysis reach the same conclusions?
Nevertheless, let’s follow his argument.
22-4 What is the primary economic interest of the city?
How does that interest dictate how cities behave toward the three primary factors of production? What variations are there between cities’ ability to control/affect these factors? (24-9)
• Land
• Labor
o How are modern cities different than medieval, and different than nation-states
o What kind of labor do cities want, and how can they get such workers? What tools do they have to do so?
• Capital
o How can cities attract capital [i.e. investment money]?
(30) What problem do suburbs raise for his theory, and how does he acknowledge this?
(32-4) Again, enjoy and pay close attention to Peterson’s critique of Tiebout. Keep these critiques in mind as you read from the bottom of 34 through the end of the article. The arguments he raises against Tiebout’s model of reality are the basis of his conclusions about the limited interests of cities.
Peterson’s conclusions are quite dismal for cities that try to redistribute wealth to create equality, why?
2 comments:
Didn't finish, but started answering some of the questions..
How is the city NOT defined for Weber, and then how does he define it
[hint “certain ultimate fundamental facts”] (235-6)?
The city is not defined for Weber on the basis of its spatial extent. "The question whether a place is to be regarded as a city is not answered on the basis of its spatial extent... the city is in the first place the seat of commerce and industry and requires a continuous provision of the means of subsistence from without" (235).
He defines the city as, "political units designated rather their revolutionary character" (236).
"The polis is always the product of such a confraternity or synoecism (cynicism?), not always an actual settlement in proximity but a definite oath of brotherhood which signified that a common ritualistic meal is established and a ritualistic union formed and that only those had a part in this ritualistic group who buried their dead on the acropolis and had their dwellings in a city" (237).
What is the significance of fortification, i.e. walls? (235)
"...a place was recognized as a city only if and so long as it was a fortified point. In this connection the city was regularly the seat of government, both political and ecclesiastical" (235).
Why did citizenship, and cities, arise in the west and not in the orient
according to Weber (237-8)? Attempt a sketch of his model of occidental
and oriental development.
"The first is the peculiar character of the organization for defense... Everywhere outside the west the development of the city was prevented by the fact that the army of the prince is older than the city... That the king also expressed his power in the form of a military monopoly is the basis of the distinction between the military organization of Asian and that of the west... The forms of religious brotherhood and self equipment for the war made possible the origin and existence of the city... The second obstacle which prevented the development of the city in the orient was formed by ideas and institutions connected with magic... were not in a position to form ritualistic communities and hence a city, because they were ceremonially alien to one another" (237-8).
What characterized citizenship, and cities, in the ancient [Greek], as
well as medieval periods? (239-45).
I suggest you develop a two-column
table to capture the similarities and differences Weber lays out between
the two eras. The following questions are meant as a beginning
• What changed with the advent of democracy?
"Social and not economic class interests are decisive; it is a question primarily of protection against the aristocratic families. The popolani know that they are rich and have fought and won the great wars of the city along with the nobility; they are armed, and hence feel themselves discriminated against and are no longer content with the subordinate class position which they have previously accepted. Similarity exists also, and finally, in the means available to the officials of the separate organization. Everywhere they secure the right of intervention in legal processes in which the plebeians are opposed to the aristocrats.. The further instrumentality of democracy in establishing its domination is compulsory entry into the plebs. In antiquity the nobles were forced to enroll in the tribus and in the middle ages in the guilds, although the final significance was not, in many cases, perceived. Finally there is everywhere a sudden and quite enormous multiplication of offices, a plethora of officialdom called forth by the need of the victorious party for remunerating its members with the spoils of the contest" (240).
o Why does Weber argue democracy occurred?
"The basis of democratization is everywhere purely military in character; it lies in the rise of disciplined infantry, the hoplites of antiquity, the guild army in the middle ages... The decisive fact was that military discipline proved its superiority over the battle between heroes. Military discipline meant the triumph of democracy because the community wished and was compelled to secure the co-operation of the non-aristocratic masses and hence put arms, and along with arms political power, into their hands... the money power plays its role, both in antiquity and in the middle ages" (240).
• Who was allowed to be citizens in each era?
"In both cases it is those of knightly birth, the families leading an aristocratic existence, who alone are active members in the group, while all the remaining population is merely bound to obedience" (239).
".. they designate the mass of citizens who do not pursue the knightly life. The noble, the man of knightly station and feudal qualifications, is watched, deprived of the suffrage and outlawed, as the Russian bourgeoisie were by Lenin" (240).
• What organizations did one have to be a member of to be a citizen?
".. normally the full citizen and member of an urban noble class is a man who possesses land as well as capital, and lives on an income but does not himself take part in trade or industry" (240).
• What were the economic relations in each era?
"That these knightly families became residents of the city is entirely the consequence of the possibility of sharing in trade opportunities... in antiquity, the wealthy families did not carry on trade on their own account but in the capacity of ship owners or money lenders.. settlement in the city is occasioned by the possibility and the intention of employing the rents in trade, and the decisive influence of trade on the founding of cities stands out" (239).
o What were the major sources of income in each?
"In regard to the guilds made up of entrepreneurs one may assume that at least 50% of the members lived on income or soon came to do so" (241).
"... the ancient city had no subsistence policy... The aim was to guard against weakening the military power of the community" (243).
o What were the relations between city and country/rural?
"Under the domination of the guilds, the medieval city pursued a special type of policy, called town-economy. Its objective was in the first place to maintain the traditional access to occupation and livelihood, and, in the second place, to make the surrounding country subservient to the town interest to the utmost extent through banalites and compulsory use of the town market. It sought further to restrict competition and prevent the development toward large-scale industry" (242).
".. in the period of fully developed democracy, there is no mention of anything of the sort, and not until the late Roman period are traces again found. Thus in antiquity the guild, as the ruling power in the town, is absent, and with it guild policy, and also the opposition between labor and capital which is present even at the close of the middle ages.. The ordinary contrast in antiquity was that between urban creditor and peasant debtor. In the city dwelt the money lending patriciate; in the country, the small people to whom it lent its money; and under the ancient law of debt such a condition led readily to the loss of the land and proletarization" (242).
o What were the major classes in each?
"In the middle ages these consist of the guilds, while in antiquity they never possessed the guild character.. different guild strata successively rise to power... The first group includes on the one hand merchants, dealers in exchange, jewelers, and in general entrepreneurs who require a considerable industrial capital; on the other hand it includes jurists, physicians, apothecaries, and in genera; the 'persons of property and culture' in the sense of the modern bourgeoisie" (241).
".. the city of antiquity, in contrast with that of the middle ages, shows increasing class inequality" (244).
"The typical of the medieval guild city is a merchant or crafts man; he is a full citizen if he is also a householder. IN antiquity on the contrary, the full citizen is the landholder. IN the guild city, accordingly, class inequality obtains" (243).
o What characterized political freedoms in each era?
"The non-landholder requires the landholder as his Salmann ("truehander") in order to acquire land; he is at a legal disadvantage and this subordinate legal position is only gradually equalized and not everywhere completely." In his personal relations, however the citizen of the medieval city is free... the equalization of classes and removal of unfreedom became a dominant tendency in the development of the medieval city" (242).
• What were the benefits of citizenship for each era?
"The monopoly of the political guild included cleruchy, the distributing of conquered land among the citizens, and the distribution of the spoils of war; and at the last the city paid out of the proceeds of its political activity theater admissions, allotments of grain, and payments for jury service and for participation in religious rites" (244).
• What changes in military techniques [i.e. who mattered for military
victory] reduced the role of soldiers and heightened the importance of
artisan’s guilds (245)? Understanding Weber’s comments about the military
on 240 & 245 are key to understanding his historical argument regarding
citizenship and the city.
• Finally, how was urban freedom lost in each era? What does Weber say
about the relationship between cities and the larger political/economic
systems they inhabit during different historical periods? [hint it’s a
similar story but cities lose out to different larger entities, with
different consequences for capitalism]
"In antiquity the freedom of the cities was swept away by a bureaucratically organized world empire within which there was no longer a place for political capitalism" (248).
"Here again its autonomy was progressively taken away. The English city of the 17th and 18th centuries had ceased to be anything but a clique of guilds which could lay claim only to financial and social class significance... but in fact, the modern city was deprived of its freedom as effectively as had happened in antiquity with the establishment of the Roman dominion, though in contrast with antiquity they came under the power of competing national states in a condition of perpetual struggle for power in peace or war. This competitive struggle created the largest opportunities for modern western capitalism" (249).
Christena:
Thanks very much for posting this reply. I realize most of you probably hated this article and never want to read it again, but I hope these questions/your replies help those who do want to use it for the final exam studying or for the paper. Keep it up-
AC
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