Politics, power and the rule of man over man

The idea that the “rule (Herrschaft) of man over man” is an inescapable fact of human existence is a central theme of Max Weber's social and political thought (E&S 939). A discussion of the forms of rule (Herrschaft) constitutes the core of his most important work, the unfinished and incomplete Economy and Society. For Weber, the idea of a world free from “the rule of man over man” is Utopian. So too is any escape from the struggle for power through a unity of interests within classes, political parties, states or nations.

Few political thinkers have been committed to the idea of the “permanence of the political”; in some ways Weber was obsessed with it. For Weber, man's unavoidable fate is to be a political animal, but politics does not and cannot offer a road to either happiness, justice, perpetual peace or redemption. “Anyone who goes in for worldly politics must, above all, be free of illusions and acknowledge one fundamental fact: to be resigned to the inevitable and eternal struggle of man with man on this earth” (GPS 29). The “rule of man over man” is the inevitable concomitant of this struggle. Struggle requires leaders who, in turn, require the “apparatus of a human following.” Consequently, it is not surprising that the religious prophet and the political demagogue play a central role in Weber's thought.