Weber on Authority

Weber on Authority

Rational legal authority is formal in Weberian terms. Traditional authority is substantive or an emotional commitment to duty. If Weber is right then charismatic authority is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the established order. The routinization of charismatic authority or “Routinization of Charisma” will reestablish a legitimate authority. Marx has Kautsky the original message is simplified and domesticated.

The charismatic leader is a revolutionary in opposition and emancipation from routine. Charismatic authority establishes a new pattern of conformity that becomes a duty. In the beginning the authority is a moral authority before it becomes routine. Obedience is morally correct, duty the followers are to follow. Then routinization of the followers becomes final when the leader dies the leaders teachers becomes another tradition. Trotsky permanent revolution is a way of realizing this problem?

Authority existing within a corporate groups, even democratic ones, there will be certain set themselves apart from the main group because of their knowledge to become coordinators of other peoples behavior. In those situations leadership will become more stable and expertise is secondary.

In egalitarian groups with nearly equal distribution of weapons leadership is founded on persuasion and personal appeal and therefore situational and unstable.

In non-democratic situations whether appointed, assumed or elected those in authority have something other than ideological support for their position of influence. Coercion, persuasion, or ideological certainties are part of a  continuum of tools to keep the people in line.

Some people have more influence and thus they form a separate body within the group. This is true even if the authority is temporary and situational like at band level society.