On Bauman's Interpretation of Weber

Abstract:This article provides a re-assessment of Bauman's interpretation of Weber. It refers to this end to Du Gay's critique, which came out in the late 1980s and called into question the accuracy of Bauman's interpretation of Weber as contained in Modernity and the Holocaust. Du Gay objects of Bauman that Weber's ideal type of modern bureaucratic organizations is not incompatible with ethical considerations, and Bauman has therefore misrepresented Weber. The article dwells on and evaluates this objection also in the light of this work, and other and more recent works by Bauman. Bauman has consistently praised Weber for his ability to understand the modern condition, and Bauman considers him as a sociologist of the modern age, but also as an academic outsider. Weber could therefore understand better than other scholars that ‘lighter’ (rather than ‘heavy’) modalities of the capitalist order are conceivable. ‘Lighter capitalism’ is however a trait of Bauman's conception of post modernity (which this article briefly considers), rather than of modernity. Weber has also grasped, according to Bauman, the inconclusiveness of the rationalization process and called attention to a future, which is different from that prefigured by the modernity project. Bauman is accordingly not entirely consistent in considering Weber a sociologist of modernity. It has also been argued here that the scope of Du Gay's critique of Bauman's interpretation of Weber should be extended, as there are for Weber several aspects of modern society that are not compatible with instrumental rationality. In particular, Weber has dwelt on value-rational aspects of modernity — such as the persistence of the values of solidarity and honour in the market, in the workers' unions, and in the bourgeoisie as a status group—which Bauman has neglected to consider.