A Cynical Turn: Max Weber and Hannah Arendt on Value, Domination, and Political Economy

32 Pages Posted: 19 Aug 2013 Last revised: 23 Aug 2013

See all articles by Steven Klein

Steven Klein

University of Florida - Department of Political Science; Department of Political and Social Sciences; University of Chicago

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

Max Weber and Hannah Arendt are usually read together as theorists of the political, attacking the modern assimilation of politics to economics. They are taken to differ only in how they conceive the political: Weber, as domination, and Arendt, as action. This paper argues that readers have missed relevant differences in their thought because they have not compared Weber’s neo-Kantian philosophy of value with Arendt’s phenomenological method. Through such a comparison, this paper advances two claims. First, it argues that Arendt, unlike Weber, is a theorist not of the political but rather of the possibility of non-subsumptive relationships between politics and the economic. Second, it argues that Arendt has a more nuanced view of domination than either her admirers or critics admit. Against Weber’s charismatic politics of the extraordinary, Arendt thus opens space for a radical democratic critique of political economy, even if she does not always pursue the implications of her insights.

Keywords: Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, value, domination, political economy, democratic theory

Suggested Citation

Klein, Steven, A Cynical Turn: Max Weber and Hannah Arendt on Value, Domination, and Political Economy (2013). APSA 2013 Annual Meeting Paper, American Political Science Association 2013 Annual Meeting, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2303535

Steven Klein (Contact Author)

University of Florida - Department of Political Science ( email )

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Department of Political and Social Sciences ( email )

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University of Chicago ( email )

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United States

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