The Origins of the Puritan Capitalist and the Vocational Politician-a Series of Just-so Stories? Or Why is Weber's Genealogy of the Vocational Politician So Uncontroversial

This article seeks to answer a rarely asked question about Max Weber's political sociology: Why has there been so little controversy about his account of the origins of the vocational politician in Politics as a Vocation when there has been so much debate over his account of the origins of the ascetic accumulating entrepreneur in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? In particular, I ask why his peculiar narrative in which he connects the demagogue of the Athenian polis, the renaissance prince, the Gladstonian dictator of the parliament to the modern vocational leader of parties and states has drawn so little attention while scholars continue to fight over his narrative of the formation of the vocational capitalist? I advance some contextual reasons and then some theoretical reasons for the neglect of this political genealogy of the vocational politician. Finally, I examine the incorporation of Weber's vocational politician into political science and why political science was not interested in his political genealogy. In conclusion I argue that the two narratives are fictions of a sort, but they serve quite different purposes in Weber's inquires

Art · Capitalism · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Protestant work ethic · Sociology · Vocational education · Law · Political Theory and Influence · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory