Preview for “Politics as a Vocation”

“Politics as a Vocation” is a lecture written by Max Weber, a German political economist whose beliefs and ideas on politics influenced many. The universe of his writing is focused around the nature of politics, and the way people were involved and influenced by politics, which was eventually molded into the modern politics, as we know it today. Weber explains that the focus of his lecture is surrounded between two beliefs of politics, that being leadership and relation of a state. Weber mentions that “every state is founded on force” (25) and how that force coexists with the idea of violence, and if without it that there wouldn’t be a state. “Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” (32-4). Weber also mentions that territory is another description of a state, being described in a physical force, as the one and only right of the use violence. “Hence, ‘politics’ for us means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state” (37-9). This quote explains politics as either in a leadership form in self-seeking power for there own prestige, or for the sake of others.

Weber emphasizes on the idea of power and how it is legitimated, with three basic legitimations of domination, this idea of leadership and power become the belief of man in his writing. “First, the authority of the ‘eternal yesterday’…sanctified through the unimaginably ancient recognition…domination exercised by the patriarch and the patrimonial prince of yore” (54-6). This expression of domination goes way back to the idea of when one ruled, all ruled, and will alway...

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...s the naked possession of the power he exerts, or he nourishes his inner balance and self-feeling by the consciousness that his life has meaning in the service of a cause” (246-9). Weber does a great job making the whole lecture come together with this expression. By stating that politicians must be economically independent, weather it be because of wealth or personal position. Weber was referencing the thought of, authority of the ‘eternal yesterday,’ with the idea that one ruled, all ruled, and will always rule. “Under normal conditions, the politician must be economically independent of the income politics can bring him. This means, quite simply, that the politician must be wealthy or must have a personal position in life which yields a sufficient income” (254-7). For self-happiness and the power for owns sake, one must live ‘for’ politics or live by politics.