Science, Values, and the Empirical Argument in Max Weber's ... · This article provides a detailed ... 2. This section was largely omitted in Weber’s oral presentation, ... with

[MWS 4.2 (2004) 157-177] ISSN 1470-8078

© Max Weber Studies 2004, Department of Applied Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University, Old Castle Street, London E1 7NT, UK.

Science, Values, and the Empirical Argument in Max Weber’s Inaugural Address

Ola Agevall

Abstract Max Weber’s inaugural address in Freiburg, ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, is as important as it is contested. It has been used as a key to an understanding of both Weber's political and methodological thought. The minutiae of the empirical part of the lecture, however, has received less attention. This article provides a detailed reconstruction of the largely implicit explanatory scheme in the inaugural address. It sets out to show how Weber's analysis of a social transformation in rural West Prussia—from a patriarchal to a capitalist employment regime—relates to the specific explanandum of the study. The reconstructed explanatory scheme is then used to interpret Weber’s views of the relations between science, values and politics. Keywords: Employment regime, patriarchalism, capitalism, value freedom.

1. Introduction Max Weber’s 1895 inaugural address in Freiburg, ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, elicited strong reactions in Weber’s own days, and it has continued to be hotly contested in recent scholarship. Thus, when ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, along with Weber’s other works on the conditions of the agricultural workers, appeared in the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe (MWG I/4), Günther Roth asked ‘how much damage it can do to Weber’s reputation’ (Roth 1993: 150). The question is no doubt a warranted one, if we consider its opening passages:

What I intend is firstly to illustrate, from just one example, the role played by physical and psychological racial differences between nationalities in the struggle for existence. I should then like to add some reflections on the situa-tions of states which rest on national foundations—as ours does—in the framework of a consideration of economic policy (Weber 1994: 2, italics added).

On the face of it, this declaration of intent seems to be a crude speci-men of scientific racism. There is, however, ample evidence that Weber was opposed to explanations in terms of race. A case in point is Weber’s

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158 Max Weber Studies

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discussion of ethnic groups in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1990: 234-44). Here, Weber emphatically rejects explanations in terms of ‘objective’ dif-ferences between ‘races’. Ethnic groups and nations are rather portrayed as so many imagined communities. They need not, and frequently do not, correspond to any real differences in characteristics—‘racial’, linguistic, or otherwise—between the observed groups. In fact, examples abound of Weber’s sceptical attitude towards racialist thinking.1 So how are we to reconcile the declaration of intent in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’ with Weber’s views in his other writings? Some commentators have suggested that he simply changed his mind (Manasse 1947). But is this the most plausible and fruitful interpretation? We will return to this issue.

2. Which context? Whose interpretation? Despite—or perhaps because of—its controversial contents, The Nation State and Economic Policy has become the centre of attention for many Weber scholars. Wolfgang Mommsen states that it ‘must be judged as the most significant documentation that we have of Max Weber’s political philosophy until the war years’ (Mommsen 1984: 36). Arnold Bergstraesser (1957, 1961), Albert Salomon (1934), and Wilhelm Hennis (1984, 1987, 1988) have all chosen the inaugural lecture as the takeoff point for their respective readings of Weber’s work. In addition, Wolfgang Schluchter (1988) and Rita Aldenhoff (1991) have given important and insightful interpretations of the text. These scholars all agree on the importance of the inaugural lecture for an understanding of Weber’s work; they disagree, however, on what Weber actually says in his speech. To some extent, the different inter-pretations correspond with a difference in emphasis. ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’ consists of three sections (Aldenhoff 1991).The first part is an exposition and explanation of empirical processes. Weber portrays the transformation of the agrarian economy, the effects of this transformation upon the conditions of the agricultural workers, and the joint effect of these transformations on migration processes. The second part2 is methodologically oriented. It treats the relations between science, values and politics in a way that antedates much of his later writings on ‘value freedom’. Finally, in the third part, Weber uses the empirical

1. For a fuller discussion, see Ay (1993); cf. also Guillaumin and Poliakov (1974) and Schmuhl (1991). 2. This section was largely omitted in Weber’s oral presentation, which, as Rita Aldenhoff points out, is likely to have had an impact on the reception of his speech.

Agevall Science, Values, and the Empirical Argument 159


results in the first section as a starting point from which he airs his own ‘personal, and in this sense subjective’, political concerns. Thus, the con-cluding part of Weber’s talk is devoted to expounding and presenting his political views, his ‘value criteria’, and to a critique of the state of things in contemporary Germany. Mommsen reads the inaugural address against the folio of his own main thesis, that ‘politics, not just practical politics but politics in the larger sense’ was central to Max Weber’s life and life work (Mommsen 1984: 1). He tends therefore to put stress on the third part of the lecture, contextualize it, and use it to trace the ‘economic nationalism’ in Weber’s political outlook. Schluchter and Aldenhoff, on the other hand, are inter-ested in methodological aspects. They concentrate on the second section, bringing out relevant contexts and fitting the resulting picture into a coherent account. Yet, the differences between interpretations cannot be reduced to a question of emphasis. Beneath the interpretive ‘division of labour’ lurks irreconcilable differences. The most pointed disagreement is between Mommsen and Hennis, and it is instructive to compare their versions, with the aid of a couple of strategic examples. ‘The science of political economy’, says Weber, ‘is a political science’ (Weber 1994: 16). What does this mean? From the point of view of Mommsen’s framework, Weber is asserting that the science of econom-ics must not be allowed to be unpolitical. Wilhelm Hennis, on the other hand, places the same proposition in a different context, namely the German Historical School of Economics. Upon this reading, the oppo-site of ‘political’ is not ‘unpolitical’, but ‘cosmopolitical’ (Hennis 1987: 32). The German Historical School of Economics had criticized classical economists for being unhistorical in their search for universal laws gov-erning the economy. The variations from one epoch to another, and from one nation to another, are so considerable that it is folly to believe that the same set of laws will apply to all nations and epochs alike. Friedrich List, in his Das nationale System der politischen Ökonomie (1842), had provided a name for this supposed mistake: classical economics is cosmopolitical. By contrast, the historical school should be political: it should take into consideration nationally and historically specific fea-tures in the study of economic life (Agevall 1999: 53). In much the same manner, it proposed to supplant the theoretically constructed individual of classical economics, the homo œconomicus, with the concrete per-sonality of man, as it manifests itself in specific historical situations (Salomon 1934: 152). The same text, even the same sentence, thus turns out to give rise to diametrically opposed interpretations. Where Mommsen sees politics in



Weber, Hennis sees a ‘science of man’, concerned with the mutual rela-tion of ‘conditions of existence’ and the quality (‘virtue’) of man (Hennis 1987: 38). Mommsen’s and Hennis’ interpretative frameworks have consequences far beyond the one example given above. It shows up, for example, in their understanding of other concepts used by Weber in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, such as ‘breeding’ (Züchtung), ‘selection’ (Auslese), ‘struggle for existence’, and ‘race’. According to Mommsen, these and other similar concepts have a Darwinist pedigree (Mommsen 1984: 41). Hennis, however, argues that they have nothing to do with Social Darwinism, but that they are in fact part and parcel of Weber’s conception of economics as a ‘Science of Man’. So how are we to adjudicate between these rival interpretations? The first strategy that comes to mind is to resort to context. We rely on con-textualization, and on internal consistency, to resolve our differences. But that is just the catch. Both Hennis and Mommsen have done a superb job in contextualizing Weber, and both provide consistent interpreta-tions. The problem is that they construe the context differently, and their disagreements revolve around the question of which context is the rele-vant one. The only way out of this impasse is to introduce more context, more facts for the respective interpretative schemes to digest. It then seems to be a promising strategy to focus on the empirically oriented first part of ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’. It can be argued that the minu-tiae of the explanatory scheme is the most neglected aspect of the inau-gural lecture in Freiburg. Deciphering it, however, poses difficulties of its own. One difficulty is that Weber’s empirical argument is a condensate of writings already published. These themes had occupied Weber at least since 1892, when he was appointed by the Verein für Sozialpolitik to be in charge of an investigation of the conditions of the rural workers in West Prussia, and he returned to them again and again, in a long array of articles, review essays, speeches and debates.3 He had already developed an explanatory model for the events under scrutiny, but it is only hinted at in the inaugural lecture. What needs to be done, then, is to fill in the blanks in the argument, to spell out what is only mentioned en passant or tacitly taken for granted, and thus to restore the context. The next paragraph provides a reconstruction of Max Weber’s explana-tory scheme. Yet, since substantial parts of Weber’s argument in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’ are contained in his earlier writings

3. See Max Weber Gesamtausgabe, I/3 and I/4.



on the conditions of the agricultural worker, and since there is a growing body of scholarly work in this area, we can at least sketch its contours beforehand. We get a general picture of what Weber is aiming at from Pierre Bourdieu in his Rules of Art (1996). As Bourdieu sets out to examine the gradually emerging autonomy of the literary field, he suggests that this transformation is best understood in analogy with Max Weber’s analysis of the agricultural workers. In both cases, we are dealing with a ‘shift from the servant, attached by personal ties to a family, to the free worker’. The latter is ‘freed from the ties of dependence which limited or pre-vented the free sale of his labour’, and can ‘put himself on the market and undergo its anonymous constraints and sanctions, often more pitiless than the gentle violence of paternalism’ (Bourdieu 1996: 55). In other words: Max Weber’s writings on the conditions of the agri-cultural workers is an analysis of the transformation from patriarchalism to capitalism, and its social consequences. This is also the message we find in the works of Weber scholars (Munters 1972; Tribe 1983; Riesebrodt 1989; Torp 1998). But here we come up against a second difficulty. If the empirical argument in the ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’ is a condensate of Weber’s writings on the agricultural workers, and if these writings deal with a transformation from patriarchalism to capitalism, why does Weber declare that his purpose is to illustrate the role of racial differ-ences in the ‘struggle for existence’? An interpretation of the Inaugural Address should also clarify why Weber chose to speak of ‘race’ in his declaration of intent. This question is taken up in the final section of the paper, where it is also argued that Weber’s reasons for emphasising ‘race’ provide new information on Weber’s views of the relations between science, values, and politics.

3. The explanatory scheme in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’ What is it that Max Weber wants to explain in ‘The Nation State and Eco-nomic Policy’? To begin with, he notes that the population is decreasing in the rural areas of West Prussia. This was not a novel finding. On the contrary, the population decrease in this area had long been identified as a major political issue, and it was linked to some of the most controver-sial political issues in Germany at the time. When Max Weber agreed to arrange the data collected for the Verein für Sozialpolitik, he was thus thrown right into a field of political forces, with criss-crossing interests. Before we proceed, we need to make a few brief comments to serve as background.



From the 1850s and 1860s onwards, there was a growing concern, on the part of public officials and politicians, that the countryside of West Prussia was being depopulated. This was partly an effect of emigration, notably to the USA, and partly an effect of urbanization. The rural popu-lation moved abroad, or was drawn to industrial work in the cities. Yet, politicians and Beamte were not the only ones who worried over the reced-ing population figures. Employers in the region, landowners of the Junker estate, complained about a shortage in labour supply (Riesebrodt 1984: 5). The problems faced by the estate owners were further aggravated by the crisis in the agrarian economy that hit Germany in the 1880s. Cheap American wheat flooded the European market and kept prices down. Russia, Canada, and Argentina also exported considerable amounts of cereals to Europe. Between 1880 and 1886, the price of Prussian wheat dropped from 221 Mark/ton to 157 Mark/ton (Wehler 1994: 45). The estate owners therefore favoured political measures that would alleviate the problems caused by low prices and labour supply shortage. In terms of practical politics, this meant two things. First, they wanted the state to introduce protective duties on cereals. Second, they wished that the state would secure the supply of labour power, by opening up the borders to Polish Wanderarbeiter. The Junkers’ demand for protective duties was at odds with the eco-nomic interests of the industrial proletariat, and with those of urban dwellers generally, since the latter had an interest in low prices on bread. Any measure taken on the issue would therefore amount to taking sides in this conflict of interests. Bismarck had imposed protective duties but when he resigned in 1890, Leo von Caprivi pared them down. Bismarck’s policy on this issue was thus applauded by the estate owners, whereas Caprivi’s was better suited to the interests of the urban proletariat, even if they would have preferred to have the protective duties removed altogether. Concerning the second demand of the estate owners, that the borders should be opened up for nomadic migrating labour, the boot was on the other foot. Bismarck had closed the borders, Caprivi opened them again. The former feared that the large Polish population in eastern Germany would pose a threat to the young nation’s existence and internal coher-ence. This is why Bismarck, himself a Junker, did not support the demands of the estate owners. To open up the borders to Polish immi-grants would, he thought, make the situation worse. A series of measures were implemented along these lines. Among them was a repressive politics against the Polish population (the so called Kulturkampf), and a settlement policy designed to ‘colonize’ the countryside with Germans.



It is clear from this brief overview that questions relating to migration cut across a number of political questions: settlement policies, migration policies, ‘inner colonization’, labour power shortage, protective duties on cereals, Kulturkampf, entailed estates, and the economic and political status of the Junkers. 3.1. Explanans and explanandum Let us now resume the thread, and ask again what Max Weber wants to explain in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’. Some commentators have suggested that the decreasing population figures in West Prussia is the explanandum of the study, and that Weber uses racial differences to explain it (Olsson 1991: 12). Upon closer inspection, however, it is clear that Weber is not primarily interested in the aggregate net changes in population in the region (a decrease of 1.25 per cent, compared to an average population increase of 3.5 per cent in Germany as a whole). Instead, he starts out by stating that West Prussia is stratified along three different variables: a. Quality of arable soil (poor/good) b. Social stratum (peasant village/manorial estate) c. Nationality (Germans/Poles) The pattern he wishes to explain is very specific, which stands out if we combine variables (a) and (b) in a property space:

Quality of arable soil

Poor Good

Peasantvillages

Social stratum

Manorialestates

From 1871 to 1885, Weber finds, there has been a decrease in population on the manorial estates located on good, fertile land. In the same period, however, there has been an increase in population in peasant villages located on the poor soils. It is this rather counter-intuitive finding that Max Weber sets out to explain, not the net loss of population. Why did the number of peasants increase in areas where it is pre-sumably harder to make a living as a farmer? And why is it that the decrease in population affects the richly endowed and favoured estates? This is the explanandum of ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’.



What, then, shall we make out of the explanans of the study? Could the differential pattern be accounted for in terms of ‘racial differences’? Some of Weber’s remarks appear to indicate that this is what he has in mind. He underlines, on several occasions, that the Poles are more will-ing to adapt to hardships than the Germans, and that this difference explains why the Germans are moving out. Weber further notes that the Polish population tends to reside in the social strata that are worst off, economically and socially. On the less fertile soils, it is hard to survive as a small farmer. These areas can only be cultivated rationally through large-scale production, that is on the manorial estates. Life on the estates may not be free, but it is materially more secure than life as a peasant. And where the Poles are located on land with poor soil quality, they tend to make their living as small farmers. On fertile soils, on the other hand, it is more beneficial to be a peasant than to be an agricultural worker. Here, you can make a good living as a free farmer, a life much more appealing than the quasi-serfdom on the estates. When the Poles reside in areas with good soil quality, they tend to be agricultural workers. According to Weber, then, there is indeed a difference between Poles and Germans in terms of adaptive capacity. This conclusion is further reinforced, in Weber’s view, if we consider how the decrease and the increase in population is distributed. It is the Germans who are moving out from the manorial estates on the fertile soils, and it is the Poles who stand for the increase of small farmers in areas with poor soil quality. So far it does in fact seem as if ‘racial differences’ do the crucial ex-planatory work in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’. Yet, some-thing is clearly amiss in this account. Weber wants to explain a very specific change. If, as Weber claims, the adaptive abilities of the German and the Polish population are fairly stable, how could they explain changes in the population? To be more precise, how could they explain a population decrease in manorial estates on fertile soils, and a simul-taneuous increase in peasant villages on the not so fertile ones? If adaptive ability plays a causal role, and if the explanans of the study is population change, then the decisive factor must be located in a change in the conditions which the two groups face. This is indeed consonant with Weber’s argument, but some of the most important links in the argu-mentative chain are only mentioned in passing, and so remain largely implicit. To bring them out, and make them explicit, is our next task. We start with a brief, but central, passage in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, where Weber notes that there ‘is a decline in the old patriarchal relationship to the smallholders on the estates which once linked the day-labourer directly to the interests in agricultural produc-



tion, in that he was a small cultivator with a right to a share in the pro-duce’ (Weber 1994: 9). As we would expect, Weber is here referring to a transformation proc-ess, where a patriarchal system is rapidly eroding, and is replaced by a capitalist system (Kleinschmager 1989: 29; Torp 1998: 36; Riesebrodt 1989). Such a transformation can be framed in different ways and entails a variety of shifts, but Weber has something more specific in mind. The central analytic category in Weber’s analysis is Arbeitsverfassung (hence-forth: ‘employment regime’), a concept denoting the different ways in which the relationship between employers and employees is structured (Tribe 1983; Torp 1998: 38). Now, if Weber is to portray the transition from a patriarchal employ-ment regime to a capitalist one, he must answer the following set of questions: What was the traditional, handed down employment regime like on the manorial estates in West Prussia? In which ways has this changed, and what accounts for the transformation? How does this affect the conditions of the agricultural workers? 3.2. The traditional employment regime on the eastern estates Max Weber’s analysis of the old employment regime that used to prevail in West Prussia is found in the ‘“Privatenquêten” über die Lage der Landarbeiter’. Here, Weber provides an ‘ideal typical picture’ of the traditional employment regime on the manorial estates (Torp 1998: 38). The relationship between employer and employees, called ‘Instleute’ (sing. Instmann), was structured as a sharecropping system:

The owner of the estate provides the Instleute with a house and a garden. He also provides them with a patch of arable land—varying, according to the quality of the soil, from 2 to 6 Morgen—where they can grow cereals, potatoes, and flax. They are allowed to keep a cow, for which they some-times get free pasturage and forage, and they generally get free fodder for poultry, and often for other farm animals as well. In addition, the Instleute can lay claim to free fuel, hay, and health care. Payment of wages is organ-ized in a very characteristic manner. During the threshing period, wages are paid as share of the threshed cereals. This usually means that the Intmann’s share ends up between 15 and 16 bushels, when threshing is done by flail. Outside the threshing season, wages are paid in cash: Either as wages by the day—which of course is low, e.g. 30-40 Pfennig, although lately it has been somewhat higher—or as a fixed salary for the entire year (Weber 1892: 75).

The estate owner thus engages to employ the Instleute all year round, and the employees in their turn are committed to do work on the estate, whenever it is needed. The Instleute must furthermore provide one or two additional workers, the so called ‘Scharwerker’. If they had children



fit for work, these would be employed as Scharwerker; if not, the Instmann had to hire his Scharwerkers, employ them as servants, and provide for them himself. Max Weber continues to paint a vivid portrait of the eco-nomic and social conditions of this group of labourers:

Let us assume that the conditions of a particular Instmann fit this descrip-tion. We can then get an idea of what his budget looks like. He doesn’t have to spend anything on housing or fuel. The clothes he needs are pro-duced by himself, from the flax he himself grows, spins, and weaves. His need for vegetables and potatoes is entirely covered by the produce of his own patch of land, and his need for bread is covered by the cereals he grows and his share in the threshed cereals. He gets the butter and milk that he needs from his cow, and the poultry he is allowed to keep provide him with enough eggs. Even in bad years, he receives a surplus of potatoes and cereals, and this is used to feed 1-2 pigs up for slaughter. In this way, and by breeding cattle for which he gets free pasturage, part of his need for meat is covered. Let us assume that a third of his need for meat is covered in this way. Whatever else the Instmann needs to survive—meat, colonial products, some clothes, furniture, and tools—must be bought. Some, let us assume half, of the cash income he and his Scharwerker earns is used for this purpose. Unless he has able-bodied children, he must use the rest of the cash to pay the servants he has hired. What remains is only an insig-nificant amount, which can be used to cover his non-material needs. So far he has just about made both ends meet. In normal years however, and even more so in good years, he receives a considerable surplus from the rich produce of his patch of land and his share in the threshed cereals. This surplus is transformed into cash—partly through selling his share in the threshed cereals, partly through selling fatted swine bred on the potato surplus—which he can save. (Weber 1892: 76).

From this account, Weber infers that the interests of the agricultural worker to a large extent coincided with those of his employer. Since the Instmann does not spend any money on cereals, and since he gets his cash from selling fattening animals and cereals, he too has an interest in high market prices for these products. He and his employer are affected by the same contingencies, be it sunshine, rain, frost, hailstorms, or animal diseases. And when prices fall, due to economic crises and competition from abroad, the Instmann and the Junker suffer alike (Weber 1892: 77). The traditional, patriarchal employment regime can thus be summa-rized in three characteristics: (1) workers are employed all year; (2) the workers are mainly paid in kind; (3) the workers and their employers have, in a certain sense, common interests. The situation for Instleute on the manorial estates was thus secure but not free. This, too, is empha-sized in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, when Weber writes that there ‘is hardly a more secure material situation than that of the cottager on the eastern estates’ (Weber 1994: 8).



3.3. The transition from patriarchalism to capitalism According to Weber, however, this situation had undergone major changes. The system with Instleute and Scharwerker, he says, is in a state of decay, from which there is no return (Weber 1893b: 172). It is replaced by a new, capitalist employment regime. In this novel system, the workers are not employed for the entire year, they are paid in cash not in kind, and the workers’ interests no longer coincide with those of the estate owners. The next question to consider is how Max Weber conceives of the causes which has brought down the old patriarchal employment regime. In ‘Die ländliche Arbeitsverfassung’, he identifies two factors—the threshing-mill and the sugar-beet—as the causes behind this development:

In material terms, there are two big disorganizing factors which, in the most conspicuous fashion, have dissolved [the old system]. The first, less important one, is the threshing-mill. The second is the sugar-beet, which I here a potiori treat as a representative of intensive agriculture generally. In the last instance, the decisive aspect here, from the point of view of the employers’ economy, is that both these factors affect how many workers they need in the winter and how many they need in the summertime. With the introduction of the threshing-mill and the sugar-beet, the discrepancy between summer and winter becomes so accentuated that it is altogether impractical to keep the workers employed all year long. Hence, the num-ber of resident workers on the estates decreases; they are replaced by sea-sonal workers. The general consequences of this is a transition towards capitalism, where the old relation is transformed into a pure wage-labour contract (Weber 1893b: 172-73).

Agriculture has, of course, always been a seasonal industry. The farm-ers don’t need as many hands in the winter months as they do in the hectic harvest season, and this has always posed a problem to the organi-zation of labour in rural areas. But Max Weber is suggesting that the sugar-beet brought special problems. From the 1870s onwards, new technical methods for extracting sugar from sugar-beet became available, and it became very profitable to grow this crop. Growing sugar-beet, however, requires a huge workforce. It has been estimated that handling them requires three times as many workers as the pasture-ground (Olsson 1991: 13). When the manorial estates turned to cultivating sugar-beet, the demand for agricultural workers skyrocketed—but there was no demand for these workers in the winter months.

Every farmer knows that he needs very different amounts of labourers in the different seasons. In the winter, he could dispense with them alto-gether, save for the ones necessary to tend the live stock. This is especially the case today, if threshing is done with threshing-mills, or if he grows a lot of sugar-beets. During the harvest, on the other hand, and especially if



the weather is unsettled, the farmer is in a situation where he can hardly get enough hands. In most cases, he has a hard time finding the workers he needs (Weber 1893a: 127).

The estate owners were therefore not inclined to employ workers all year round. They demanded seasonal workers, and these must be paid in cash, not in kind. According to Weber, this is the key to understand-ing the transformation from a patriarchal to a capitalist employment regime in West Prussia. This explanatory scheme is mentioned, but not elaborated, in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’: ‘Seasonal labour in the beet-growing districts requires seasonal workers and payment in money’ (Weber 1994: 9). As the employment regime changes, so do the conditions of the rural labourers. The seasonal labourers, migrant workers from Russian Poland, are paid in cash; they have no cereals to sell on the market, and they have to buy the cereals they use. The migrant agricultural worker and the estate owner thus have opposite interests: the former wants low prices and high wages, the latter high prices and low wages. At the same time, the conditions of the resident workers, the Instleute, deteriorate. Max Weber talks of a complete and utter destruction of the old employ-ment regime, with dire social consequences in its wake:

Well, gentlemen, what we see before us is a destruction of the old employ-ment regime in eastern Germany. It is manifest, above all, in what has been done to the Instmann. His patch of arable land is reduced or taken away from him, his share in the threshed cereals is shrinking or evaporating altogether, and the pasturing-ground where he used to graze his animals—the hub around which his economy revolved—is abolished and used for other purposes. It also manifests itself in increasing wages, which gives rise to conflicting interests between estate owner and worker. In areas where the destruction of this employment regime is already far advanced, it has brought about a severe decline in the social position of the workers, and made it difficult for them to get sufficient amounts of nutricious food-stuffs (Weber 1893b: 173).

We are now beginning to discern the implicit explanatory scheme employed in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’. It remains to be seen, however, how this model relates to the explanans of the study. On the one hand, Weber wants to understand why population is decreasing on the manorial estates located on fertile soils. On the other hand, he wants to explain why population is increasing in peasant villages where soil quality is poor. How does the underlying explanatory scheme link to the explanation of these patterns? It is clear that, taken by itself, the transformation of the agricultural employment regime cannot account for these results. Nor, of course, can they be explained with a mere reference to ‘racial differences’



between Germans and Poles. In ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, Weber only hints at the concrete explanatory structure. But from these hints, in conjunction with the explanatory scheme reconstructed above, it is possible to bring out the line of argument in full. First, Max Weber points to the ‘transformation of the forms of agricul-tural enterprise’ in West Prussia (Weber 1994: 11). This is a reference to the transformation of the employment regime, as the estate owners turn to growing sugar beet. The Junkers prefer migratory workers, paid in money, to resident Instleute paid in kind. Second, Weber mentions the ‘tremendous crisis in agriculture’ (Weber 1994: 11). He refers here to the sinking prices on cereals, brought about by the introduction of cheap imported grains from Argentina, Canada and the USA. Low prices ren-dered production of cereals unprofitable. So why do the German agricultural workers migrate from manorial estates located on fertile land? We can summarize the argument in six steps: 1. Only fertile soils permit beet-growing. On less fertile land,

farmers are restricted to producing cereals and potatoes. 2. Cultivating sugar beet requires vast acreage. Thus, sugar beet

are cultivated on the estates, not on small farms. 3. Hence, the expansion of sugar-beet production only affects

estates located on fertile soil. 4. Sugar-beet cultivation is labour-intensive and strictly seasonal.

The Junkers are therefore unwilling to employ workers all year, and prefer instead to use migrating seasonal workers.

5. As a consequence, the Instleute are bereaved of much of their means of subsistence. Life on the estates is still not free for the resident workers, but their social and economic position has been severely undermined.

6. The Germans are unable to adapt to these new circumstances. They migrate, leaving behind the Polish workers, who are more willing to accept these hardships.

In the same manner, we can reconstruct Weber’s answer to the second question. Why is there a population increase in peasant villages located on land with poor soil quality? And how does it come about that it is the Polish population that is increasing? Max Weber answers these ques-tions along the following lines: 1. It is not possible to grow sugar-beet on land with poor soil

quality. In these areas, the land in only fit for growing potatoes and cereals.



2. These unfertile soils can only be cultivated rationally by means of large-scale production. This has two consequences:

2.1. It is extremely hard to make a living as a small agricul-turalist in these areas. The majority of peasants in these areas are Polish, not German.

2.2. On the manorial estates, production tends to focus on cere-als, cultivated on a large scale.

3. There is a crisis in the agrarian economy. Cheap imported cereals are pushing down the prices on domestic cereals.

4. Under this economic pressure, the estates begin to crumble. They are forced into bankruptcy, or to selling out parts of the estate.

5. This means that land is parcelled out to peasants. The manorial estates are loosing ground, while the number of poverty-stricken peasants is increasing.

6. The Germans are unable to adapt to this hard life. The Poles, however, are willing to accept such hardships, and they are moving into the parcelled-out patches of land.

This, I suggest, is the argument Max Weber developed in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’. It is a far cry from Weber’s own blunt assertion that he wants to illustrate ‘the role played by physical and psychological racial differences between nationalities in the struggle for existence’. But there is a puzzle here. If Weber had this subtle argument in mind, why did he present it as a not-so-subtle inquiry into the role of racial differences? ‘Race’ does play a part in the argument, for it appears in the last steps of the two argumentative chains. We must ask, however, why he chose to place so much emphasis on this last step which, after all, is causally active only in conjunction with the preceding links in the argument. As we will see, Max Weber had his reasons for emphasizing the ‘racial differences’ in adaptive ability in his inaugural lecture. To bring them out, however, we must seek beyond the empirical explanatory scheme, and engage in a different sort of contextualization.

4. Science, values, and politics The inaugural lecture in Freiburg consists of several layers, and the empirical part we have dealt with only serves as a point of departure for arguments of a completely different kind. Max Weber has his own view of what ought to be done politically in the situation he describes. He proposes that the borders should be closed



to migrating workers, and that the German state should purchase land in eastern Germany. He then goes on to present and clarify the ‘economic nationalism’ on which these propositions are based. ‘Essentially’, he says, ‘an inaugural lecture is an opportunity to present and justify openly the personal and, in this sense, “subjective” standpoint from which one judges economic phenomena’ (Weber 1994: 1). When proposing these measures, Weber simultaneously opens up a more principal discussion of the relation between science, politics and values. Max Weber’s line of reasoning on these matters is parallel to, and antedates, his later remarks on ‘value-freedom’ in the social sciences. Weber continuously returns to these issues in his writings. They occur in a long array of articles (Weber 1904, 1913, 1917, 1919). In each of them, Weber emphasizes that science cannot provide us with value-criteria. Questions concerning what we ought to do and how we should live our lives are beyond the reach of scientific arguments. In Wissenschaft als Beruf (1919: 93), Weber goes on to say that there is only one value which is presupposed by the sciences, namely the value of truth and knowledge. Doing science implies that we consider the scientific results ‘worth knowing’, and it presupposes that knowing them has a value in itself. This tacit assumption of the value of science, however, cannot be proven scientifically. Nor is it possible to prove that ‘the world described by that science deserves to exist’ (Weber 1919: 94). Thus, the natural sciences can tell us what to do if we want to master life technically—but whether we should do so, and whether this is mean-ingful, must be left undecided. Modern medicine can, for example, pro-vide us with the technical means for prolonging and sustaining life. It cannot prove, however, that this is what should be done at any cost. The calling to seek knowledge for knowledge’s sake is the presuppo-sition of every science. This calling, however, in conjunction with the scientific division of labour, exposes us to certain dangers. On the one hand, being committed to a theory of how our own field of study works, it is tempting to extend this theory indiscriminately to anything that happens in the world. The theoretical apparatus then ceases to be a scientific instrument, and becomes instead a universally applicable interpretative scheme, a Weltanschauung. ‘Almost all the sci-ences, from philology to biology have occasionally claimed to be the sources not only of specialized scientific knowledge but of “worldview” as well’ (Weber 1904: 167). This lack of self-criticism, he goes on to say, engenders an ‘inevitably monistic tendency’, a predilection for applying the principles of a particular science without regard to their proper limits. On the other hand, our commitment to science makes it all too easy to succumb to the illusion that it is possible to derive value-judgements and



ideals from the scientific materials. Medical science is a good example. It is tempting for physicians to subscribe to a ‘technological imperative’, and conclude that the life of a patient should be prolonged because it is technically possible to do so. Max Weber’s argument is general in scope, but it is the social sciences, notably economics, that he has in mind. Here, too, scientists tend to apply their perspective on every conceivable object. And in economics, too, we have succumbed to the illusion that value-criteria can be derived from empirical data and theory. This critique of economics is a recurring theme in the writings mentioned above. It is first developed, however, in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’. In his inaugural lecture, Weber notes that the science of economics has ‘come into fashion’; its principles are applied everywhere. Economics is thus exposed to the dangers just described:

When a way of looking at things breaks new ground so confidently, it is in danger of falling prey to certain illusions and of overestimating the sig-nificance of its own point of view, particularly in one, quite specific direc-tion. […] [N]ot only has the notion sprung up in the minds of the new generation that the work of national economics has greatly extended our understanding [‘Erkenntnis’] of the nature of human communities, but they also believe that there exists a completely new criterion by which these phenomena can ultimately be evaluated. They think that political economy is able to derive ideals of its ‘own’ from its subject matter (Weber 1994: 18).

The view propounded by economists in favour of Manchester liberal-ism is a case in point. From their point of view, whoever comes out on top in the economic struggle is, by definition, the one ‘fit’ to do so. In a laissez-faire economy, selection will operate to weed out the unsuccessful and promote the successful. Indeed, the fact that a person is successful proves that he is superiorly adapted, that he has the right qualities to survive in the competition. It follows from this, laissez-faire economists believed, that this is what should happen: evolution will guarantee that the ‘best’, the most ‘developed’, will come out as victors. It is exactly this type of deduction that Max Weber pinpoints as a logical flaw. Manchester liberals are not the only ones who fall prey to it. The same holds for many proponents of the historical school of econom-ics. They, too, are liable to become apologetics of the winners in the eco-nomic struggle. What is wrong in these analyses, in Weber’s view, is that they allow the analytic starting point to determine the judgement of those events (Weber 1994: 19). This is a cardinal sin. The science of economics can teach us what we should do if we want to increase the gross national product, or if we want to achieve social justice. Whether any of these



goals should be pursued, however, is beyond the reach of scientific rea-soning. Weber’s conclusion was that the economist must explicate, to himself and to others, on which value-criteria he bases his judgements of the events under study. This is exactly what Weber does in ‘The Nation State and Economic Policy’, when he presents and clarifies his ‘economic nationalism’. Yet, consider what is the prime target of Weber’s criticism! He vocif-erously objects to the habit of economists, of becoming the apologetics of those who come out on top in the economic struggle. He shuns the idea that, by definition, we must celebrate the qualities favoured by the particular economic system under study. Every economic order makes its imprint on the persons living under it. Economic and social systems shape the bodies, aspirations, and will of human beings; they breed virtues and human qualities. Hence, in order to make value-judge-ments concerning a particular economic and social system, we must first inquire into what sort of virtues and human qualities it breeds. ‘A science concerned with human beings—and that is what political econ-omy is—is concerned above all else with the quality of the human beings reared under those economic and social conditions of existence’ (Weber 1994: 15). In the same vein, Max Weber urges us to consider, ‘not the well-being human beings will enjoy in the future but what kind of people they will be’ (Weber 1994: 15). This is a very pointed way of saying that an eco-nomic and social order must be judged according to its effects on human virtues and human qualities. That this is indeed the central point of Weber’s argument is pointed out by Weber himself, in the Gutachten zur Werturteilsdiskussion im Ausschuss des Vereins für Sozialpolitik:

Every mode of organizing social relations must, in the last instance, also be judged from the point of view of the type of human being it fosters. We must ask which human type is given optimal probability of becoming the domi-nant one, by the external or internal (motivational) selection mechanisms of a particular mode of organization. Unless this question is answered, the empirical investigation remains incomplete. Indeed, if we don’t answer it, we don’t have access to the facts necessary for making a value-judgement—regardless of whether that judgement is consciously ‘subjective’ or pur-ports to be ‘objectively’ valid. This is what I tried to say years ago in my inaugural lecture, even if I stated it in an immature form, and even if there are many points in that speech on which I can no longer subscribe (Weber 1913: 127).

Max Weber’s own clarification, as quoted above, gives a good view of the aims of his inaugural lecture. The economists of his day tended to appear as the apologetics of the ‘winners’ in the struggle for existence. Weber’s point is that there is no standard of value peculiar to economics,



and that we must instead examine which human qualities are bred by different economic systems. Until we do so, we lack the factual basis for making value-judgements. The empirical study serves as a point of departure for this discussion, for it is designed to show that the human qualities favoured by the emerging employment regime are the ability and willingness to adapt to the utmost hardship. These qualities are anything but desirable, at least in Weber’s ‘personal, and in this sense subjective’ view. If this is the sort of argument Weber intended to make, his choice of example is well suited for the purpose. It furnishes him with an oppor-tunity to present political measures that run counter to those suggested by the ‘standard of value’ supposedly peculiar to economics. He can show, by means of an example, that there is a real choice to be made between competing values, and that this choice cannot be determined scientifically. The downside of this strategy is that it invites the audience to focus on the contents of Weber’s political views, not on the theoretical point; hence the need for including a methodological section in the printed version of the speech. Why, then, does Weber state that his objective is to illustrate ‘the role played by physical and psychological racial differences between nation-alities in the struggle for existence’? In order to discuss these matters of principle, he needs an example where the human qualities favoured by the emerging economic order are not desirable. This is surely the case in ‘The Nation State and Eco-nomic Policy’. Here, the ‘winners’ in the economic struggle, who are beginning to populate rural West Prussia, are those who are prepared to accept the worst social and economic conditions. What he describes is a system of competition-through-underbidding, favouring a very specific human type—the one that is willing to starve the most. To make this argument, however, Weber needs to emphasize differ-ences in adaptability. Empirically, Max Weber states, there is a difference between Poles and Germans in adaptive capacity—this is what the ‘physical and psychological racial differences’ boils down to. Hence, he can investigate the effects of the economic system on human qualities by studying the increase versus the decrease of the two populations. I would suggest that this is the reason why Weber, in his declaration of intent, stressed ‘racial differences’ rather than his more subtle explana-tory scheme. It is nevertheless unfortunate that Weber uses the word ‘race’. This term often refers to innate, biological qualities. Upon closer inspection, however, this is not necessarily what Weber has in mind:

The two races seem to have had this difference in adaptability from the very outset, as a fixed element in their make-up. It could perhaps shift



again as a result of further generations of breeding of the kind which may have produced the difference in the first place (Weber 1994: 10).

The first sentence implies a racialist model, but the second does not—and that model would suit Weber’s analytical point of departure much better. He has no data to prove either of them. Since Weber is not seek-ing either to prove or disprove a racialist model of explanation, however, he can remain agnostic, and leave this question unanswered. It suffices, for the purposes of analysis, that the difference between the two nation-alities has to be ‘taken account of as a fixed given’. In retrospect, we can see that Weber’s choice of words has proved to be confusing to his readers. Once we can see beyond them, it is possible to see the inaugural lecture both as a subtle empirical argument, and as a first contribution to Weber’s elaborate arguments concerning the rela-tions between science, values and politics.

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