Stanford Law Review

Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society by Max Rheinstein; Edward Shils Review by: W. Friedmann Stanford Law Review, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Mar., 1955), pp. 306-308 Published by: Stanford Law Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1226399 . Accessed: 22/04/2012 07:35
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been stimulated in his teachingby two casebookson which ProfessorDodd collaborated: Cases on Corporations, jointly produced with his colleague,Professor Ralph J. Baker,and Cases on Corwith DeForestBillyou. Moreover, ProporateReorganizations, fessorDodd'sarticlesare invaluable aids to those who teachany of the subjects A glance at the list' of his involvingcorporations. shows what an amazinglyprolificauthorhe was. All writings and scholars are fortunatein having so valuablea lawyers legal this as book final which does so much to illuminatethe legacy of the American business corporation. origins
H. RHINELANDER* LAURENS
MAXWEBER ON LAWIN ECONOMY ANDSOCIETY. (20th Century

Legal PhilosophySeries,Vol. VI.) Edited by Max Rheinstein. Translatedby Edward Shils and Max Rheinstein. Cambridge: HarvardUniversityPress. I954. lxxii + 363 pages. $6.00. One of the valuableservicesperformedby the 20th Century of the lopsided Legal PhilosophySeriesis the gradualcorrection ideas about continentallegal philosophy prevalentin AngloAmerican circlesthroughthe accidents of translation. Until a few been have yearsago, English-speaking lawyersmight forgivenfor that Kelsen is the continental of believing only jurist significance. An equallywidespread illusionis that Eugen Ehrlichis the only notablemodernsociologist of law, at leastof continental vintage. A few yearsago,Dr. Kahn-Freund's editionof Renner's Institutes this impression.This translation of PrivateLaw helpedto correct of MaxWeber's classical work,Law in Economy and Society, is a further contribution to the understanding of continentaljurisIt will now be to make the prudence. possible studyof Weber's work compulsory in serious course reading any dealingwith legal owe a great debt of gratitude sociology. Juristsand sociologists to the editorsof the 20th Century Seriesand, in LegalPhilosophy to Professor Rheinstein and his Professor collaborator, particular, Shils. Max Weberwas one of the greatestand most influential uniteachers of this His work and character are disversity century. not intellectual but also tinguished only by greatness, by nobility
6. See pp. 452-58 for a bibliographyof published writings by MerrickDodd. * Professorof Law, Universityof Virginia.

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of purpose.As a politician, Weberwas a courageous and influential supporter of the new democratic forcesfighting for recognition in the Revolutionof I9I8 and the struggleof the Weimar Republic. But as a scholar,Weber,unlike Hegel and so many lesserfiguresof the academicworld, did not use his intellectto of scholardisguisehis personalpoliticalbeliefs in an apparatus In midst the the First World of when a War, ship. greatmajority of scholars were blindedby the passionsof war, he publishedhis showed that rationalscientificargumenthad to stop short of ultimatevalues-values are a matterof choiceand belief,not of rationalexperiment. In his sociologicalstudiesWeber appliedhis theory of ultimatevalues. His Sociologyof Law is a masterly studyof various interrelations betweensocialstructure and legal systems,regardless of the ideologies of the systems(althoughWeberis, of course, not unconscious of them as a factorin analysis).The study,thereis and analytical fore, strictlydescriptive sociology. Its most iman portantpart is analysisof the varioustypes of law administratorsand their relationto the types of legal orderwhich they help to develop and administer. Weber'sterminologyof the "charismatic" law-maker of earlytimes (thoughrevivedin ghastly distortionby such twentieth-century figures as Hitler) has become classical.It is usedin a chapteron The Legal Honoratiores and the Typesof LegalThought,a chapterwhich also containsa and the masterlycomparative analysisof the Anglo-American continental typesof legal development. Weber'sprimaryinterestis in the processof rationalization of the law and the kind of administration which it demands. of the in Something optimismof the nineteenthcenturysurvives his thought. If Maine detectedin progressive societiesa steady evolutionfrom status to contract-a trend which has been reversedin many respects-Weber,who did not live to witnessthe in highly developedsocieties,believednot orgies of irrationality in the of rationalover irrational administration, only superiority but also in the steadyprogress towardit. One of his most interis his analysis of the superiority of a rational, estingcontributions "civil service"type of legal administration over depersonalized, the earlierautocratic, absolutist and sometimespaternaltype of administration.
celebrated essay on the Wertfreiheit der Wissenschaft. In it he

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is Weber's definitionof law, which maybe Equallyinteresting described as the sociological of Kelsen'sanalyticand counterpart formalisticdefinition. Weber said,
An orderwill be calledlaw if it is externally guaranteed by the probability that coercion(physical or psychological),to bring about conformityor avenge violation,will be appliedby a staf of peopleholding themselves speciallyreadyfor that purpose.1

The field of legal sociologyis, of course,infinite. Even mental giants of Max Weber'sstaturecan illuminateonly cornersof it. But far more importantthan the actualsubjectmatterof legal is one'sapproach to studyingthe interrelation of law and sociology It is in this respect that Max Weberhas madea contribusociety. tion at leastas significant as that of Ehrlich.
W. FRIEDMANN*
CASESANDTEXT ON WILLS ANDADMINISTRATION. By Lowell Tur-

rentine. St. Paul: West Publishing Co. I954. xxxii + 419 pages.

$7.50It is axiomaticthat a casebookshould not attemptto be all things to all people. But, with understandable zeal, a casebook editorand his publishers are often proneto appealto the wishes and needs of too many. When such enthusiasm is carriedinto a field like wills, where substantive and procedural problemsare controlled local the effectiveness of an editor's codes, largely by workis greatlydiminished.Fortunately, Professor Turrentine has beencontentto present whichfuturelawyersare specific problems withoutattempting to presenteveryconceivlikely to encounter, able variationproducedby statutorydifferences.Yet the more variances are aptlyand conciselystatedin text or footimportant notes. It is no paradox to saythathereis a casebook whichis likely to appealto many. the conflicting Althoughthis book is a compromise-between of "bar examination pressures questions coveringa wide rangeof subjectmatter,and shrunkenallotmentof time for the course"' in Wills-it is an excellentone. While the bookwas designedfor
1. P. 5. * Professorof Law, University of Toronto. 1. P.ix.