Deus ex Machina

Abstract

That modern state power is bureaucratically and legally organized almost goes without saying. But that procedural correctness is enough to explain the belief in its legitimacy is more difficult to understand and often disputed. Why would anyone hold the conviction that correctly following contingent and man-made rules confers legitimacy? How can this be sufficient on its own? Yet, this is exactly what Max Weber claims. To fully appreciate this claim, this chapter argues, we first need to embrace Weber’s religious approach to politics and legitimacy. What intrigues Weber is how bureaucrats find existential purpose within an instrumental organization that becomes an end in itself. Indeed, how the divine rises from the machine. It is therefore the modern professional that holds the answer to the problem of legal-rational domination. Weber famously traces modern professional ethics back to the religious figure of the Saint. To make sense of this inquiry, the chapter pursues four different faces of the Saint – the Intellectual Theologist, the Methodological Monk, the Aristocratic Virtuoso, and the Dedicated Professional – and relates these to modern man in general, and the bureaucrat more specifically.