Lowith on Weber – A Review of Karl Lowith’s Max Weber and Karl Marx

Lowith relativises Weber’s notion of scientific objectivity in an effort to hide the obvious inconsistencies in it. But by so doing he destroys, occludes or obfuscates the central insight in Weber’s “negative” approach to scientific “objectivity” and to the Rationalisierung. Far from being a ‘relativist’ notion in a hermeneutic sense, which is what Lowith argues [science questioning its own pre-suppositions and avoiding “absolute values or ultimate ends”], Weber’s ‘Objektivitat’ arises from the very fact that there is conflict between different “values”: this conflict allows and indeed constitutes the “free-dom”, the “room to manoeuvre” [Ellenbongsraum] that drives the Rationalisierung. Therefore, it is not the Rationalisierung that constitutes “the iron cage of modern industrial labor”. This last phrase contains a sunjective genitive: it is “the iron cage” of need-necessities that pro-duces “modern industrial labour” – the Arbeit of Classical German Idealism and Classical Political Economy! Hence, “modern industrial labour” is pro-duced by “the iron cage” of need-necessities, by this “free-dom” of conflicting needs. Weber never said that “the iron cage” is the very regimentation of the Arbeit!

Lowith misses the “conflictual drives” that turn “the mantle” into “the cage” and confuses thus the process of Rationalisierung - its results and institutional and political outcomes that appear to be “rational” from a logico-scientific viewpoint - with its “cause”, which is instead to be found in that very conflictual “free-dom” that Weber says is “irrational” that the capitalist “Kalkulation” or “Akkumulation” has made entirely consistent with the “rationality” of the Rationalisierung. Lowith is left then with a dilemma that he attributes to Weber and Marx instead: - that is, the reconciliation of the “rational process” of the Rationalisierung under capitalism, on one side, and its “irrational” end-goal of infinite accumulation, on the other.

La medida implícita con respecto a la cual es interpretadala irracionalidad de lo racionalizado (Ensayos sobre sociología dela rehg ión, 1, pp. 35 y ss., 54, 62), es, tanto para Marx comopara Weber, la presuposición de que el fin originario y autónomo,el fin último de todas las administraciones humanas noson ellas, sino el hombre, para el cual todo lo demás es «medio»para «sus» fines. Por ejemplo, la concepción económica del

estrato burgués de la sociedad, en sus orígenes aún religiosa,esto es, motivada por necesidades determinadas del hombre,se vuelve «irracional» no a través de que se transforme en unaeconomía profana por medio del vaciamiento de sus contenidosreligiosos, de modo que lo que primero era un medio indirectopara fines religiosos ahora sirve a otros fines, profanos;

sino sólo a partir de que la forma de la economía se autonomizatanto que ésta —a pesar de toda racionalidad externa— no tieneya ninguna relación clara con las necesidades de los hombres,como tales. Entonces el sobre-poder y propio poder de las relacionesde vida, devenidas en relaciones de cosas autonomizadas,es lo que es —o sea, «irracional», bajo la precondiciónde que lo «racional» sea la autonomía y el propio poder delhombre —ya sea que su humanidad sea determinada, comoMarx, en el horizonte de su existencia social o medida, como

hace Weber, respecto a la individualidad de su autoresponsabilidad. (Pp.64-5)

But there is no such dilemma in Weber, because he never believed in “rationality” in a substantive or teleological sense, in the way that Marx almost certainly did. Indeed, this is the real and true meaning of that “disenchantment of the world”, that “dis-illusion”, that eclipse of ultimate values or “twilight of the idols”, that Weber attributes to the rise of capitalism, rationalization and science! As a corollary we may add that Weber as well as Marx were wrong on this question: - the first for his belief in “instrumental or purposive rationality” of capitalism [the Kalkulation] and the latter for his judgement based on “substantive rationality” - the change from use value or C-M-C to exchange value M-C-M’].

La forma propia de la realidad que nos rodea, en la cual estamosposicionados, fue establecida como el tema originario y completode las investigaciones de Weber. Como el motivo último de susdisquisiciones «científicas» se revela la tendencia hacia lo terreno.La problemática específica de nuestra realidad, por su parte,es resumida por él bajo el rótulo de «racionalidad». Sin embargo,en aparente contradicción con lo dicho hasta aquí, Weberintentó hacer comprensible el proceso general de la racionalizaciónde nuestra completa vida, porque la racionalidad quesurge de él es algo especificamente irracional e incomprensible.Así, por ejemplo, la adquisición de dinero con el fin de manteneruna vida económicamente segura parece racional y entendible,pero, en contraposición, la adquisición de dinero específicamenteracionalizada, con el fin de la adquisición misma —«pensada

así como puro fin en sí»—, es específicamente irracional. Ese55

hecho, tan elemental como decisivo, esto es, que precisamentecada racionalización radical, con la necesidad del destino, cree

irracionalidades,…

What is “irrational and incomprehensible” is not the process and substance of the Rationalisierung or of the Akkumulation, but rather the conflict or “free-dom” that gives rise to it, the “need-necessities” (“the necessity of destiny” – how is this for “transcendence” in Weber?) that pro-duce “the iron cage”. The “iron cage” in fact is not for Weber a social order opposed to individual freedom – which is what Lowith

mistakes it to be - but rather the very objectification of this “freedom of the will” understood in the sense of the negatives Denken from Schelling to Heidegger. Much to his merit, Lowith was among the first to identify this novel, negative approach to “free-dom” (unsurprisingly, given his philosophical background in the tradition of Schelling and Heidegger). But then he fails to apply this consistently to Weber’s entire oeuvre.

What neither Weber nor Marx see is that the process of accumulation is neither “irrational” nor “rational” but is rather a “political project” [Weber’s Kalkulation made possible by the rigid discipline of the factory] of command over living labour through the process of valorization and realization of capital [Marx’s Akkumulation]. (Cf. Nietzsche’s much more useful contrast of “rational man” and “intuitive man” in ‘Uber Wahrheit und Luge’ based on the former’s need for “safety and certainty” leading to the theorization of [scientific] “necessity”. On this see also M.Montinari’s Nietzsche, pp.34-5:

La formulación esencial del problema que preocupa a Nietzsche en losprimeros años de Basilea, se encuentra en la conferencia que pronunció el1º de febrero de 1870 sobre el tema Sócrates y la tragedia, uno de losnumerosos trabajos que preceden la publicación de El origen de latragedia. Al describir la figura de Sócrates como “heraldo de la ciencia”,Nietzsche dice: “la ciencia y el arte, sin embargo, se excluyen”. Laidentificación del socratismo con la ciencia del siglo XIX es, por lo menos, [35] tan “antihistórica” y arbitraria como la fe de Nietzsche en el “renacimiento”de la tragedia clásica por obra de Wagner. Pero esa afirmación encierra eldesarrollo ulterior del pensamiento de Nietzsche y podría figurar comolema de su llamado período positivista. Efectivamente, el postulado de quela ciencia y el arte se excluyen alternativamente, vale tanto para elNietzsche wagneriano como para el Nietzsche “espíritu libre”: sólo lasconsecuencias son opuestas. La desvalorización de la racionalidad“socrática” contrapuesta tanto a la intuición apolínea como al éxtasis

dionisíaco, alcanza su punto culminante en El origen de tragedia.)

Both Marx and Weber – and here Lowith has a point, one of the most important points in his work! – start from an idealistic, ontogenetic vision of “man” that neglects the inter-subjectivity of being human.

Sólo porque, en última instancia,es sobre el hombre como tal donde tiene efectos y se revelala problemática del orden social y económico burguéscapitalista, el «capitalismo» mismo también puede ser entendidoen su significado fundamental y ser objeto de una preguntasocial-filosofica. Si necesariamente el tipo de humanidadse revela en la forma de las relaciones de vida sociales y económicas,entonces un análisis temático más o menos particular,32 .3.3tanto de la «economía y la sociedad» capitalista como del

«proceso de producción» capitalista., contendrá en sí, comohilo rector explícito o no, una mirada específica de ese hombreeconómico que es asi’ y no de otro modo; mientras que, comoanálisis crítico de la economía y de la sociedad humanas seorientará, a la vez, por una idea del hombre diferente de lo factual.Si las investigaciones «sociológicas» de Weber y Marxdeben ser entendidas en su significado principi'a l y radical, entoncesserán remontadas a esa idea del hombre en última instancia.«Ser radical es tomar la cosa de raíz. La raíz para elhombre es el hombre mismo» (Marx, Introducción a la crítica dela filosofía del derecho de Hegel). (Lowith, pp.31-2)

The problem is that Lowith happens to share this erroneous view of being human: there is no “hombre mismo” that can form the basis of a “critique” of capitalism; rather, the critique must start, not from the early Marxian notion of “self-alienation” (most notably in the Paris Manuscripts), but from the inability of capitalism to satisfy the very needs that led to its rise, which is the proper focus of Marx in the Grundrisse. These “needs”, then, are entirely and immanently historical, and not “social-philosophical” as Lowith contends. The philosophisch approach to social “science” (Wissenschaft) belongs more appropriately to Weber and not (at least self-avowedly) to Marx, who preferred to talk of “critique” (and not in a Kantian antinomic sense, [pace Sohn-Rethel and Habermas!], but instead in a Hegelian-dialectical dimension, as Lukacs has correctly established – but see also Colletti in Ideologia e Societa’). It is wrong for Lowith then to seek to homologate Weber’s and Marx’s approaches to capitalism and “social science” in this regard, and then, quite incredibly, even to champion Weber’s abstract-formal categorization of capitalism as the apex of the “Kalkulation”, of the Rationalisierung, as a “historical-earthly” approach – a Wirklichkeitswissenschaft, to quote Hans Freyer (to whom Lowith refers) - to be contrasted with Marx’s “teleo-logical” one!

La liberalidad científica de Weber seexterioriza también aquí como un no-estar-atrapado en prejuiciostrascendentes. A esos prejuicios, «trascendentes» en unsentido amplio, que cruzan el sobrio día a día de un mundodesencantado, pertenece también la creencia —compartidapor el marxismo— en el «desarrollo» y el «progreso» objetivos(D.C., pp. 203 y ss.). Ésta se postula como necesaria «cuandosurge la necesidad» de otorgar «al acontecer del destino de lahumanidad, religiosamente vaciado, un "sentido" terrenal y noobstante objetivo» (D.C., p. 33, nota 2, la cursiva es nuestra.Compárese con pp. 56, 61 y ss.). Según Weber, sin embargo,esta necesidad es una inconsecuencia frente a lo terreno. Ensu «luz» se pone ahora la «realidad», y el hilo conductor parala interpretación de ese mundo vuelto sobrio es el proceso deracionalización, a través del cual él se desencantó y se opacó.

La medida con la cual Weber juzga este hecho histórico de laracionalización es su aparente contraposición, esto es, la libertaddel individuo puesto sobre sí y responsable de sí, la liber54tad del «héroe humano» en relación con el sobre-poder de los«órdenes », «administraciones », « empresas », « organizaciones» e «instituciones» de la vida moderna,29 que funcionan através de la racionalización. Esta tesis se debe desarrollarmás por medio del análisis del sentido originario y abarcadorde la «racionalización» que es; a su vez, el concepto contrapuestoa la interpretación marxista del mismo fenómeno, bajoel hilo conductor de la alienación de sí.

Lowith therefore also misapprehends Weber’s undeniable atavism for the “value-neutrality” [Wert-freiheit] of science - even for the possibility of “science” as a “value-free” instrument [Objektivitat], which is something that Lowith understates and seeks to minimize, preferring instead to stick to a presumed “relativism” in Weber’s approach to “science”. And it is for this very reason that Lowith misinterprets the Weberian notion of Rationalisierung by finding “an apparent contrast” between “the freedom of the human hero” and the “overwhelming power of [social institutions]”. In actual fact, there is no such “apparent contrast” in Weber precisely because he identifies “free-dom” with the antagonistic assertion of “individual self-interest” which then results “scientifically” in the adoption of equally “scientific” means to the “stated aims” of individuals – aims that become “stated” through the “free play” of conflicting “market forces”.

La última presuposición de las definiciones«individualistas» de Weber de las así llamadas «formaciones» sociales es, empero, que solamente el «individuo» es hoyde forma verosímil, real y con derecho a la existencia, es decir,sólo es real el hombre singular puesto sobre sí, ya que a lasobjetividades de cualquier tipo, como consecuencia de su desencantamiento(a través de la racionalización), no puedeotorgárseles ya un significado autónomo. Si el Estado fuera, enoposición, realmente todavía una «res pública» y el hombre comotal un miembro de la ciudad y del Estado y no en primeralínea una persona privada sólo responsable por sí, entonces sítendría sentido interpretar también al Estado mismo sustancialy «universalmente», y no basándonos en las oportunidades

de su «existencia». (P.53)

And yet we know very well that for Weber it was possible – indeed essential! – to attribute an “autonomous” rationality precisely to that “scientific” relation between “available means” and “stated aims”! In an ab-solutist world only apparently without conflict, such as the one that preceded market capitalism, science would be impossible or

suppressed because there would be no “alternative uses” for it, no “choice” [which is the aim of the Katheder-Sozialismus – scientific socialism!]; it would be impossible to see the “meaning” of science as the “measurement of the rationality of means for the pursuit of stated aims or ends or values” given that these aims, ends or values would not be “stated” in a “free” manner – that is, conflictually. And in such a world without conflict the Rationalisierung would be ab-solute, without limits, because it would have hypothetically eliminated by force the “conflict” between “individuals” that market capitalism allows.

This does not mean that “the laws of science” are inapplicable in a feudal state, for example. Yet, because science is absolutely meaningless except as human activity, once that “activity” (Wirk-lichkeit, actu-ality) is denied, there is precious little that “science” can represent! By opening up “com-petition”, Weber contends, capitalist society becomes both “scientific” and “rationalized” at the same time because goals can be “stated” and means can be chosen “freely” and therefore “rationally” and “scientifically”! Science and rationality are confiscated, as it were, they are rendered im-possible or in-effectual precisely by those political regimes that pretend to rationalize even “choice” and thus eliminate conflict!

Tanto los opositores como los partidarios de la bifurcaciónentre conocimiento y valoración malentienden el motivocentral que porta en Weber la diferencia, esto es: la comprensiónde que nosotros vivimos hoy en un mundo que está cosificadoa través de la técnica científica y que, por otro lado, la racionalidadobjetivada de la ciencia nos ha liberado de lasujeción a normas de tipo moral y religioso, válidas universalmente.La ciencia es, por la fuerza de su progreso continuo, unpoder que destroza la autoridad de la tradición. Nuestras valoracionesúltimas no pueden, por eso, ni apoyarse sobre la tradiciónni fundamentarse científicamente; son, para bien o para

mal, cuestión de la decisión personal. (p.163)

Once again, Lowith fails to explain how and why “we live today in a world reified by scientific technique”! Had he tried to answer this, he would have understood that it is indeed not “the objectified rationality of science [that] has freed us from moral and religious norms”, nor is it “science as a power that destroys the authority of tradition by the force of its continuous progress”. Instead, it is those forces (the need-necessities) that destroy both the force of tradition as well as moral and religious values that have led to a specific political practice that we now call “science”!

Of course, Lowith is quite right to insist with Weber that

Empero, sí se puede

discutir científicamente con un marxista que postula la tesisde que determinadas relaciones sociales y económicas condicionantambién el surgimiento de religiones, así como, inversamente,Weber ha mostrado que determinadas conviccionesy expectativas religiosas pueden contribuir a determinar la

forma de ordenar la economía. (p.162)

But here once again it is the “instincts for freedom” that seem more central to that kind of “interdependence” that Weber himself highlighted genially and that does not escape Lowith’s beady eye:

La racionalización no significa entoncesun creciente conocimiento general de las condicionesde vida, sino el saber o la creencia de que si sólo se quisiera sepodría saber en cualquier momento; porque en principio nohay poderes secretos e incalculables que pudieran entrometerse.Más aún, significa que en principio todas las cosas sepueden controlar a través del cálculo. El lema de la ciencia de latemprana modernidad es la frase de Bacon: saber es poder.La racionalización científica, más precisamente el actuar racionalde acuerdo con fines, significa, empero, el desencantamiento

del mundo. (p.158)

Quite right! The exakte Kalkulation! That is the arcanum imperii! But there is no contra-diction or antinomy or opposition between “free-dom”, rational action and “the disenchantment [Ent-zauberung] of the world”! Weber’s notion of the Problematik der Sozialismus consists precisely in this: - that the “riddle” of the rationalization of the economy and society and the preservation of “freedom” is one that belongs properly to socialism and not to market capitalism (though perhaps Schumpeter may add “monopoly capitalism”). Socialist planning is not a “problem” for “market” capitalism; rather, it is the other way around! Capitalism is “the” problem for Socialism because it shows that the only way to act “rationally” is by allowing the “free-dom” of social conflict over need-necessities through the “market”, which is what Socialism wishes to eliminate! For Weber, the “problematic of socialism” is the impossibility of reconciling choice and rationality, freedom and science, except from the choices and free-dom of in-dividuals! This is the “truth” of Weber’s methodological individualism. Lowith seems to argue that Weber is either seeking to reconcile these opposites or else that he harbors “illusions” about being able to do so! But we know that neither is the case because in this exact respect market capitalism represents for Weber the apex of both human free-dom and scientific rationality.

(This also is the entire tenor of Schumpeter’s approach to “socialism” in C,S and D where in fact the Austrian seems to accept an evolutionary transition from market to monopolistic capitalism, and

then to socialism. This is something that Weber denies ferociously! Cf. here also Schumpeter’s high regard for Walras as the greatest economist for precisely this Machian reason: - the price mechanism maximizes the satisfaction of individual human needs – human needs taken from the point of view of atomized human beings! - at equilibrium [TGE, p.79]:

The whole of pure economics rests with Walras on the twoconditions that every economic unit [each individual] wants to maximize utility andthat demand for every good equals supply. All his theorems followfrom· these two assumptions….. Whoever knows the origin and the workings ofthe exact natural sciences knows also that their great achievementsare, in method and essence, of the same kind as Walras'. To findexact forms for the phenomena whose interdependence is given usby experience, to reduce these forms to, and derive them from, each

other: this is what the physicists do, and this is what Walras did.)

If the Law of Value is given an objective quantitative form, as every “socialist” wishes ardently to do, then there will be no space for that “subjective Law of Value” that is the common basis of both the negatives Denken and neoclassical economics! Without the social conflict of the latter springing from individual need-necessities and related “choices”, no proper “science” is possible without the last vestige of “free-dom” (market freedom) evaporating. For Weber, market free-dom begins precisely with the expropriation of workers from the means of production, with the Trennung intended as a pro-duct of the stahlhartes Gebaude. Then it continues with the discipline of the factory, on which “the exact calculation” of profit is based.

Lowith completely fails to see this point – whence comes his inability to comprehend what he misconstrues as “the antinomy of Weber’s political science” between his “opposition” to the Rationalisierung – as “irrational” and “illiberal” – and his staunch defence of it against the idealistic liberal literati! In fact there is no antinomy or contradiction because there is no “opposition between freedom and Rationalisierung” – because Weber sees the Rationalisierung as the outcome of the very conflict of interests, the “free-dom”, that market capitalism erects to the centre of social life, to its fulcrum, and not as the source of such conflict between “individual freedom” and “social order”, between “soul” and “forms”, between “spirit” and “iron cage”.

La antinomia de la ciencia política de Weber consiste, básicamente,en que justo la inclusión ineludible en el carácter deempresa racional de todas las administraciones modernas sevuelve el lugar del posible ser sí mismo, y la carcasa de «servidumbre» el único espacio de juego de aquella «libertad demovimiento» que buscaba Weber, como hombre y político. Élnegó a todas las administraciones actuales aquel sustancial

valor propio, pero las afirmó, sin embargo, como el medio dadopara un fin libre de ser elegido. Por otro lado, precisamentela comprensión de la subjetividad de nuestra postulaciónúltima del fin y del valor y de nuestras decisiones debía garantizarla objetividad y austeridad del pensamiento científicoy del hacer político. Como consecuencia de ello, la posiciónde Weber se volvió una firme oposición y una defensa únicadel individuo autónomo, en medio de y contra la creciente dependenciadel mundo político y económico. Todas las diferenciasrigurosas que trazó en la teoría de la ciencia y en la conductapráctica, la separación entre cosa y persona,conocimiento objetivo y valoración subjetiva, funcionariado yelite, ética de la responsabilidad y ética de la convicción, surgen

de la una y fundamental oposición entre libertad y racionalización….(P.64)

In this single paragraph is encapsulated Lowith’s greatest insight in this work – namely, that Weber understands that “the iron cage is the only space of play of that ‘room to manoeuvre’ [or “elbow room”, Weber’s Ellenbongsraum] that Weber sought as a political man”. And yet this paragraph contains also Lowith’s greatest failure in this work: - his failure to see that in Weber there is absolutely no “opposition [Gegen-satz] between free-dom [as we have defined it here] and the Rationalisierung”! Quite to the contrary: it is “free-dom” that drives (remember the Nietzschean-Freudian “drives” or Triebe) the process of Rationalisierung that culminates in the capitalist Kalkulation! This is so even though Lowith himself comes to admit that Weber’s “relativism” was based on “objective” scientific observations:

Weber renunciaa comparar el valor de culturas diferentes de modocomparativo-distintivo, como ya en el «prefacio» a los Ensayossobre sociología de la religión aclaró, lacónico. El motivo para esareserva no reside empero en el relativismo de la conciencia

histórica, sino en que Weber llega a la comprensión filosófica[p.163] de que, frente al «andar de los destinos humanos», se haríabien en guardar para sí sus «pequeños comentarios personales», «como se hace también al mirar el mar y la montaña». Esovale también para el destino de la racionalización del mundopor la ciencia, al que Weber ni afirma ciegamente, ni niega como

alienación. (Pp.163-4)

It is Lowith’s failure to understand this difficult but pivotal point that leaves him beset with doubts and interrogatives about the Weberian scientific and personal quest:

Nos preguntamos entonces:¿Por qué no lucha él [Weber], como Marx, contra esa «autoalienación» universal del hombre? ¿Por qué no caracteriza él al«mismo» fenómeno, como Marx, como un «materialismo depravado» de la enajenación de sí, sino que se conforma con

designarlo con el concepto científicamente neutro y doble ensu posible valoración de la «racionalidad» (doble porque expresa,a la vez, los resultados específicos del mundo modernoy lo completamente cuestionable de esos resultados)? ¿Noafirma y niega Weber, en un continuo, ese proceso de la racionalización,análogo al destino?41 ¿Por qué cuestiona, de la forma másaguda, con toda la pasión de su personalidad, aquel «orden»planificado, la «seguridad» y la «especialización» de la vidamoderna en todas sus instituciones políticas, sociales, económicasy científicas, y se reconoce,' no obstante, desde la primeraoración de los Ensayos sobre la sociología de la religión hastasu última conferencia —La ciencia como vocaciónn—— como «hijo de

su tiempo», como «especialista» y científico? (P.66)

The obvious antinomy between “science” and “choice” is something that neither Robbins nor Hayek detected in their oxymoronic description of “economic science” as “the science of choice”. Like Weber, this Machian strand of the negatives Denken theorises the conflict of interests between individuals as a divergence over “scarce” - that is to say, commonly-sought - resources. The difficulty is that to the extent that “resources” are “scarce” they reveal a “common interest” that is incompatible with “conflict” as an unqualified concept. And to the extent that there is unqualified conflict, it is impossible for this to be “resolved”, even through “com-petition”, because this requires “agreement” over the conduct or rules of this “com-petition”. The outcome can be decided either belligerently through endless war or else, if agreement is possible, co-operatively through “science”, given that the conflict itself reveals a “common interest” – a “com-petition” – in and for these “resources”. Indeed Weber does not spare even “science” from this “com-petition” because its direction is determined by “values” whose ultimate “rationality” [Wert-rationalitat] cannot be de-fined. And yet science needs to retain a degree of epistemological autonomy if it is to be worthy of the name – and this for Weber is the “rational scientific” relation between ends/values and means [Zweck-rationalitat].

The problem with all of these “positions” is that it is impossible to separate scientific means from the value ends themselves – because “science” itself is a means devoid of all epistemological autonomy as against political activity! And therefore science is inseparable from values because it is itself a “value” [Nietzsche’s “will to truth”, which Lowith misunderstands as applying merely to “philosophy”, to “truth” as an absolute value, and not to “science” itself! P.43]. As such, science becomes a political project or activity with given “intentions” by its

practitioners over other human beings. But at this precise point it loses its “scientificity” and turns into political practice.

This is what Lowith fails to appreciate [pp.69-70] – and what explains his equivocations on Weber’s notions of ‘Objektivitat’ and Rationalisierung. The very “formal” definition of the Rationalisierung is reflected and continued in the “formalistic” definition of capitalism that Lowith takes up from Weber – whereby he gets entangled in the vicious circle of the Sombartian “profit-motive” being dictated by a Protestant-religious “ethos”. Lowith uncritically repeats Weber’s formulation without any critical deepening of “the iron cage” and of “the rational organization of free labour through the discipline of the factory” – which is what we have done in the Weberbuch.

La «racionalidad», establecida como hilo rector del entendimiento,no se diluye en ser racionalidad de algo, racionalidadde un campo específico (el cual, como «patrón», se extiendesobre los otros campos de la vida); sino que, pese a su procedimientocientífico disciplinario (a la manera de una imputaciónreversible, causal, de «factores» determinados), esa racionalidades entendida por Weber como una totalidadoriginaria, esto es, como la totalidad de una «forma de modelareconómicamente» y de «conducir la vida» condicionadaen múltiples maneras pero particular, en resumen, como unethos occidental. Ese ethos direccionante (Ensayos sobre sociologíade la religión, 1, p. 239) se manifiesta tanto en el «espíritu» delcapitalismo —burgués— como en el del protestantismo —burgués—(Ensayos sobre sociología de la religión, 1, pp. 30-34). Ambos,religión y economía, se dan forma, en su vitalidad religiosay económica, en la marcha de esa totalidad directora yla impregnan otra vez, concreta y retroactivamente. La formade la economía no es ni un fluido inmediato salido de unacreencia determinada, ni ésta es un fluido «emanatista» de unaeconomía «sustancial», sino que ambas se dan forma, «racionalmente», sobre la base de una racionalidad universal del

modo de conducir la vida. (p.56)

Dobb’s curt reply to this thesis is devastatingly simple:

The further difficulty attaches to the idealist conception of Sombart and Weber and their school,that if capitalism as an economic form is the creation of the capitalist spirit, the genesis of the latter must first of all be accounted for before the origin of Capitalism can be accounted for. lf this capitalist spirit is itself an historical product, what caused its appearance on the historical stage? To this riddle no very satisfactory answer has been propounded to date…, (Dobb, SDC, p.9)

Even Lowith’s jejune attempt to combine “the economic” and “the religious” factors in the rise of capitalism founder on his formalistic insistence (with Weber) that “rationalization” as a pure “ethos” can indeed explain anything at all! The diatribe between Weber and Marx should not be approached from the “materialist” or “idealist” divide, as even Dobb does here, but rather from the much more specific ground

that capitalism is not “a mental attitude” but rather a very real “system of production of needs” – one founded on the wage relation as a specific mode of political and social organization (as Dobb himself highlights a little earlier on pp.7 and 8). It is not so much “idealism” that is the problem with the Sombart-Weber theses. The real problem is that they fail to focus on and account for “the political reality” of the wage relation as a form of violence contained in the “exchange” of dead labour for living labour on an accumulative basis, where the “accumulation” is rendered politically necessary by the very “free-dom” of the living labour employed. In other words, there is no need to rely on the “greed” of the capitalist in seeking “infinite accumulation” – because “accumulation” itself is “indefinite” due to the very character of the “exchange” involved between dead and living labour! It is obvious that in feudal society it was the “bond” of the “serf” to the “glebe” that made such indefinite accumulation impossible. Thus, the wind-mill and the steam-mill represent this different application of “scientific activity” to the process of surplus production. And as Dobb himself goes on to show in his masterpiece, it is the feudal lord himself (!) who first saw the possibility of transforming subsistence production into capitalist production by “freeing” his serfs. And then it was the turn of the emancipated serfs to employ other emancipated serfs for the purpose of capitalist production and accumulation.