Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," from 1919 to 2019

Max Weber re-presents "Politics as a vocation," on the 100th anniversary of the lecture, originally given to students in Munich, Germany. A class at the University of California - Santa Cruz taught by Professor Hillary Angelo hears a shorter, updated version. As a special bonus, Weber takes questions concerning his own scholarship as well as politics in the wake of neo-liberalism today. The Q&A begins at 54:30.

This work of “performance sociology” is sharply abridged – one-third the length of Max Weber’s original 1919 lecture, which must have lasted two hours. I also have edited the original English translation (From Max Weber, edited by Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills Oxford University Press 1946) to: (1) simplify and clarify language, (2) reduce Germanic syntax in sentence constructions, (3) resequence certain discussions with an eye to improving continuity of the abridged version, (4) adopt wordings more conducive to apprehension by the 21st-century American ear, and (5) recast overly male gendered formulations. Also, in order to underscore the current relevance of Max Weber’s analysis, I have occasionally introduced discussions of our own historical epoch, hopefully in ways that he would endorse. Even with all these emendations, the present text is overwhelmingly that of Weber. Nevertheless, there is no assurance that I have not erred in any number of ways, and for any such errors, I take full responsibility. In the final analysis, my hope is that the present discourse does not do Max Weber an injustice but rather captures the spirit of his lecture, for our times. -- John R. Hall