Weber and Marx: Understanding Society and Law

Weber’s Perspective on Objectivity and the Ideal Type

Weber acknowledged the impossibility of studying total reality; thus, he analyzed reality in parts, considering various aspects (e.g., economic, economically relevant, and economically conditioned). These conceptions are influenced by the socio-cultural reality of the modern West. The objectivity of knowledge stems from the rigor of the method.

Ideal Type Method: Highlighting one feature among many. We are conditioned by culture and subjectively influenced by our initial concerns. Choices are made according to possible meanings. The goal does not exclude subjectivity, as it arrives at a generally accepted context from a subjective choice.

For Weber, reality is indefinite and total, given the multiplicity of socio-cultural conceptions. However, total reality cannot be empirically proven. Science, for him, is not empirical evidence but the relationship between concepts (helping to measure and explain society itself).

Ideal Type vs. Reality

The Ideal Type does not match the empirical world; it is not real. It’s a conceptual construct (e.g., the state has a monopoly of force – a concept. All states are assumed equal. However, in reality, states have different strengths, like Honduras and the USA.). The Ideal Type, as a method, seeks objectivity, but the starting point that determines the ideal type is subjective.

Marx: Dialectical Materialism and Law

Marx’s ideas contrast with Kelsen’s, who studies the norm for its own sake, leading to the fundamental rule (closed system); an empirical design. Marx helps to critique empiricist-positivism, highlighting the importance of theory and methodology.

Dialectical Materialism and Law

• Law: Result of the economic process of commodity production (equivalent to infrastructure) -> Law is cogent as the norm -> State is heteronomous.
• Marx’s view of society:
  • Infrastructure: Concrete foundation of society, encompassing production and consumption relations (economics).
  • Superstructure: Law (legal dimension), State (political dimension), art, religion, culture (politics).

When criticizing political economy, Marx criticizes both the infrastructure and the superstructure, i.e., the whole of society. The infrastructure determines the superstructure.

Marx saw a reductionism, where the superstructure is determined by the base, a unilateralism. Law serves a purpose: an instrument of social control and reproduction of capitalism. He viewed law as oppression and was against human rights (as they have a middle-class background – interests and values related to private property).

Weber’s Critique of Positivism

Weber criticizes positivism. For him, the researcher’s interest, and therefore their subjectivity, regardless of the context and specific values of society and individuals, is what matters, in contrast to the positivist view.

For Weber, knowledge is the science that seeks to know. Knowledge is based on a trace and not on its total reality. Note: Total Reality: No one can objectively observe the whole. We observe a part, influenced by a vision, a concern.

In Weber, there are two fundamental questions:

1. The question of reality and what is known – a theoretical question.
2. The question concerning how we know reality, what we want to experience, influenced by cultural aspects – a methodological issue.

Hence, Weber’s theoretical and methodological importance.

Law from Multiple Perspectives

We can think of the rule in several directions:

• As an economic phenomenon.
• As economically relevant phenomena (influencing the economy, e.g., cogent rules in labor law ensuring production and the capitalist system’s continued operation).
• As economically conditioned phenomena (e.g., economic downturns influencing society -> The state will hire more, for example).