Legitimate Domination
I disagree with the idea of legitimate domination. The reason is because in order for a pure legitimate domination to occur, every human should willingly accept the authority above them without any rights of their own. Human beings tend to be selfish enough to just look after themselves. This nature of selfishness in my opinion stops the pure legitimate domination to happen.
There are three grounds to legitimate domination that Max Weber introduces in his theory. The first ground is the rational ground. In my opinion, rational ground is a ground that is controlled by legality. What I mean by this is that the rational ground enacts the law and the law must be obeyed no matter what happens. Even the judges of the Supreme Court have the duty and responsibilities to follow the written rule/law.
So the rule/law is what controls the rational ground. It is obvious to me that this is so legal and legitimate enough to be called a legitimate domination. We might think of America as a nation which is following the rational ground. But in fact, America isn’t purely following the rational ground. Every citizens has their own shares and own powers to own arms. If they are not pleased with the government then they might revolt and bring down the government. This clearly shows us that countries that makes the bearing of weapon be legalized, isn’t legal bureaucratically dominated.
The second ground is the traditional grounds. Traditional grounds in the other hand don’t even follow the written law. The most important part is the tradition itself. The leader or the dominating group is not quite superior in comparison to the rational ground. The service and the total obedience to the ruler come not from the ability or the superiority of the ruler but from personal royalty.
In order to create a law in traditional ground, in my opinion is impossible. I say this because in traditional ground, everything should come from the good old ways. To create a law is to make a new law and according to my understanding of tradition, there is nothing new but only the good old ways that accompanies the subjects of the traditional ground.
The third ground is the charismatic ground. In order to understand this concept of Weber much vividly, I have found the actual definition of the word “charisma” from the Oxford dictionary.
“Charisma is defined as: the powerful personal quality that some people have to attract and impress other people.” (2000)
So we can assume by the definition that this ground requires leaders or rulers who are not acquired by legality nor tradition but a leader who is charismatic enough to attract many followers.
When I think of a charismatic leader, I think of Adolph Hitler. Hitler was not a great example of a leader for sure but he was surely attractive enough to bring one of the biggest wars in the history of the world killing many innocent lives including Jews. I wouldn’t agree with Weber categorizing Jesus as a charismatic leader but in his perspective, Jesus could have looked like a perfect example for his theory.
Going back to the origin of all these theory “legitimate domination,” I would like to emphasize the fact that legitimate domination is only possible by the members who have agreed to follow the domination. If there isn’t any agreement, then there will be no domination.
“Domination was defined above as the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons.” (1978, Weber)
Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary (6th edition).(2000).
Oxford university press
Weber, Max (1978). Economy and society (G. Roth and C. Wittich).
Berkeley: University of California. (Originally published in 1922).
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