Charisma and Patronage

Reasoning with Max Weber

Andrew D. McCulloch
Charisma and Patronage
… for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric
acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might
have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden
life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

The final words of George Eliot’s

Middlemarch (1871–2)
Charisma and Patronage
Reasoning with Max Weber

Andrew D. McCulloch
University of Lincoln, UK
© Andrew D. McCulloch 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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Andrew D. McCulloch has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Published by
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

McCulloch, Andrew D.
Charisma and patronage : reasoning with Max Weber / by Andrew D. McCulloch.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-7344-6 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4724-4025-9 (ebook) -- ISBN
978-1-4724-4026-6 (epub) 1. Charisma (Personality trait)--Social aspects--Case studies.
2. Charisma (Personality trait)--Political aspects--Case studies. 3. Leadership--Social
aspects. 4. Political leadership--Social aspects. 5. Weber, Max, 1864-1920. I. Title.
BF698.35.C45M33 2014
303.3--dc23
2014016109

ISBN 9780754673446 (hbk)

ISBN 9781472440259 (ebk –PDF)
ISBN 9781472440266 (ebk – ePUB)
III

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD
 Contents

Preface    vii

Introduction    1

1 Max Weber and the Problem of Charisma    13

2 Jesus, Christ and the Mythology of Charisma   27

3 Utopian Communities, Charisma and Moral Despotism    49

4 Charisma as a “Career”   65

5 Joan of Arc: A Case of Subordinate Charisma   75

6 Hitler’s Charisma: The Worst Case Scenario and

the Paradigmatic Case    99

7 Nelson Mandela: Charismatic Agent of Passive Revolution   147

8 Crises within US Capitalism and the Search for

Corporate Charismatic Leadership    179

9 Patronage and Political Charisma    199

Bibliography   221
Index   231
This page has been left blank intentionally
 Preface

This book has a very long genesis, and one thing it did not do is write itself.
The idea for it began nearly 40 years ago when I was in a crowd listening in the
open air to the late Tony Cliff, who was an extremely dynamic speaker. Cliff had
not long before disbanded the International Socialists, expelling many, and had
installed himself as undisputed leader of the replacement Socialist Workers’ Party.
At the time of the expulsions, Cliff was working on his four-volume study of
Lenin. His allegiance was to Lenin as a leader, rather than to his politics and, for
Cliff, Lenin’s chief virtue as a leader was to skilfully ride the changing currents of
working class consciousness and struggle (Shaw, 1978: 138–40). A person just in
front of me in the crowd confided to his neighbour the perceptive comment that
unfortunately charisma was not just a problem for the political right but also for
the organisations of the left. Although I have long ago forgotten what it was that
we were all protesting about, the painful truth of that overheard remark from an
unknown source planted itself irrevocably in my mind. This book is its strange
fruit, although perhaps now I would rephrase the overheard remark: charisma is a
problem of the Right and for and of the Left.
The eavesdropping occurred when I was happily teaching sociology at North
East London Polytechnic, in a department ably led by Mike Rustin. After three
years there I moved north to teach in Newcastle. The main courses I taught in the
north were in sociological theory and I also taught a course in the sociology of
community. I had begun writing about community and communities earlier when I
was the late Philip Abrams’ research assistant. This book would have been better if
Philip had been able to read and comment on it. As it is, I rely considerably on our
joint work (Abrams and McCulloch, 1976) and his superb Historical Sociology
(Abrams, 1981). Being able to write with Philip was the very best of learning
experiences. The community course I taught in Newcastle included a section
on utopian communities, and it became hard to avoid the conclusion that many
utopian community structures seemed peculiarly fertile ground for the flourishing
of charismatic leadership. I am lucky to have shared in Newcastle this interest in
researching and teaching about communities with the Reverend Dr Bill Pickering.
Many years ago Michael Howard of the University of Maine and I collaborated on
a piece. Mike was more sceptical about communities than I was then, and partly
for that reason, the piece did not get published. However, what we did together
forms an intellectual substrate to some of this book.
The concept of charismatic leadership is of singular importance in the
theoretical work of the historical sociologist, Max Weber. Eventually I was able
to publish a critical article on Weber, charisma and the alleged charisma of Jesus
viii Charisma and Patronage

Christ (McCulloch, 2005),1 and that article is the basis of two chapters in this
work (and my thanks to Sam Whimster, the editor of Max Weber Studies, for
permission to use that material). However, although it was not part of the article,
I realised when I was writing that Weber had been lucky enough, in many senses,
to write before the terrifying period of Nazi rule and the charismatic dictatorship
of Adolf Hitler which, of course, has profoundly affected how not just I think
about charisma.
Many people, not all of them named here, have supported me along the way when
I was slowly writing this book. Writing is mostly a desperate attempt to distance
myself from my own stupidity. I was only able to lurch towards a conclusion
when I came lamentably late to the realisation that systems of patronage were the
key to sociological understanding about charismatic leadership and rule. Many
people have enquired about the book’s progress, but the fact that sometimes I did
not have the faintest idea what I was trying to do, and changed my mind about the
point of the book several times, meant that intellectual encouragement and certain
personal friendships have been crucial. Foremost amongst those performing these
combined roles were Ted Benton of the University of Essex and Harry Collins of
the University of Cardiff. Ted and I also share an abiding interest in the natural
world. I have played a role in the Conference of Socialist Economists and been a
member of the editorial board of the associated journal, Capital & Class. I would
not have survived as a writer without the intellectual sustenance I got from contact
with those comrades. My brother-in-law, Professor Lind Coop, boosted my
intellectual confidence at significant points and I was thankful for the interest of
his father-in-law, Dr Bill Wright. I am also grateful to the publisher’s anonymous
reader who saw some merit in an earlier version of this text and offered some very
useful comments.
During my academic employment in Newcastle-upon-Tyne there were a
number of immediate colleagues who were important to my long-term well-being.
They are Pam Davies, John Donnelly, Graeme Kirkpatrick, Dave Knight, Kevin
McLoughlin, John Newton, Monica Shaw and Mave Mundy. With the last of these
I taught sociological theory jointly for many years and it was to my profit, for
Mave is a wise woman of rare integrity. Of course, in the self-seeking deserts of
morality that many higher educational institutions have become, neither of these
valuable qualities of hers was adequately recognised. Or, perhaps, it is rather she
was never promoted because it was noticed that she possessed these worthwhile
but threatening qualities. The Social Science Centre, based in Lincoln, UK, is
a cooperative which has been offering free higher education for three years. Its
animating spirits are Joss Winn, Gary Saunders, Mike Neary and Sarah Amsler.
Joining the cooperative as a scholar has been a joy: friendship and zestful respect
make for good thinking.

1 The article began with the promise that it “was part of a longer investigation into
the history and sociology of charisma” (McCulloch, 2005: 7). I am glad that I was not able
to imagine that making good that promise would take so long as it has.
 Preface ix

Roger Powell, the wildlife photographer, is my oldest and my staunchest male

friend. Roger has a profound gift for friendship and I am therefore not the only
one who is grateful for the comfort and stimulation of his company. Our days in
the field are always memorable, even if we see nothing of note. The same is true
of Hervé and Maryvonne Bertozzi, whose recent friendship has enriched our lives.
The home in France of Peter and Barbara Tame has been a haven and they saved
my life in 2007 when they took me to hospital in Ganges with what turned out to be
a burst appendix. Kirsteen Thomson and Bryn Jones offered encouragement and
sage intellectual advice, as did Geoff Payne and John Veit Wilson. In particular,
this was true of Neil Jordan, my editor at Ashgate. Chapter 8 could not have
been written without the books kindly lent from his extensive modern business
collection by Dr Jason Kingdon. One of the casualties of my meandering progress
was a chapter on Pericles, which took many months to write before I decided to
turn off its life-support machine. Professor P J Rhodes of Durham University very
kindly responded to one of my enquiries. I am sorry that his kindness has not been
properly repaid by seeing the chapter in print.
Unfortunately, many of the people I have mentioned will probably not agree
with all that I have written. Those who write will certainly know, however, that the
eventual results of writing seriously are not always what one expects, and some
parts of this book were indeed a surprise to me.
The long period of writing was punctuated by a series of sad and sometimes
tragic events. These have been made more bearable by my mother, Jacqueline,
and my sisters, Fiona, Helen and Lindsey who, with their partners, make a loving
family. Peter Allwood made a beautiful house, sold it to us, and Peter and Elaine
became our friends. Ian Pedley and his medical team have kept me alive. Both my
sister, Helen, and Jeananne Coop, my sister-in-law, are remarkable inspirations to
those of us who are also ill, as well as to the healthy. That is also true of our son,
Alex, who was born with both a serious congenital heart defect and the wise spirit
to enjoy a full and successful life.
I have been extremely fortunate in the development of a blissful partnership
with Celia McCulloch. At the centre of our life together have been wonderful and
gifted children, Anna, Clare, Ruth, Laura, Alex and Julia, and our 11 grandchildren.
Celia is an accomplished poet and it is to her that I generally defer in matters of
grammar and written style. However, much as I might not wish to do so, I must
accept all responsibility for any infelicities in this book.
The book is dedicated to my late father, a good, kind soul, whom I cannot
ever remember reading a book. He would have despised charismatic leaders, the
subject of this book, because he was embarrassed by anything flashy or boastful.
This page has been left blank intentionally
 Introduction

Aldi is one of the largest supermarket chains in Europe, although it operates

worldwide. Members of the Aldi family are among the richest men in Germany,
where the chain originated. This statement is on its UK recruitment website: “At
Aldi we’re looking for outstanding graduates, born leaders possessing the drive
and ambition to succeed in a demanding and fast-paced environment”. In the same
vein, it is reported that since 1997 the UK government ministers have appointed
nearly 300 independent policy advisers or “tsars” as the media has dubbed them,
to intervene on a wide range of public issues such as employment law, social
mobility, families, and fuel poverty. What these apparently exceptional people do
and how is agreed directly between themselves and the relevant minister and there
are no agreed rules and “no systematic record of past appointments and public
expenditure” (Levitt, 2013: 40).
It is a very common conception that there are some people who are “born
leaders”, that such people, we might say, have “something about them” and that
in any large human group there will always be gifted people who are special or
who standout. It might even be suggested that the most energetic and ambitious
individuals are “charismatic” and that their assumption of major leadership roles is
inevitable. Others defer to them from early on in their lives because their promise
was always evident. These are the people who “get things done” and without their
stirring example most of us would lead torpid lives mired in sloth. They can even
become leaders who change history. These, and similar ideas, are a significant part
of western culture and politics. But the question is, why?
Charismatic is a common description of many leaders: Thatcher, Clinton,
Trotsky, Stalin, Mao Zde Dong and, above all, Hitler. Many of those given the
description do not merit it. Recently, it has frequently been wheeled out to describe
mercurial business leaders such as Kenneth Lay of Enron, Steve Jobs at Apple, Lee
Iacocca at General Motors and so on (cf. Khurana, 2002). Charisma is actually a
sociological idea that has passed into most European languages, and it has become
part of our cultural and political vocabulary, and yet it is a term, which is presently
unclear and seems quite often to mark an explanatory absence.
The social theorist who has done most to develop the original concept of
charismatic leadership is Max Weber (1864–1920). Weber defined a charisma
as follows:
2 Charisma and Patronage

The term ‘charisma’ will be applied to a certain quality of an individual

personality by virtue of which they are1 considered extraordinary and treated
as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional
powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person,
but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the
individual concerned is treated as a ‘leader’. (Weber, 1978: 241)

Few Weberian scholars writing in English (with the exception perhaps of Reinhard
Bendix) have rivalled the intellectual quality of Lawrence Scaff’s Fleeing the
Iron Cage – Culture, Politics and Modernity in the thought of Max Weber (1989).
Scaff’s judgement of Weber is that

The spirit of our contemporary life is captured in the concepts and questions he
left behind: bureaucracy, domination, rationality, charisma, the ‘ethic’ of work,
disenchantment. He saw the predicament of our ‘fate’ in an age of bureaucratic
domination; the problem of the ‘irrationality’ of a purely instrumentally, or
means-ends, oriented culture; the questionable deep attraction of ‘charismatic’
enchantment in the face of misplaced meanings. (Scaff, 1989: 1)

Nevertheless, although evidently Scaff places the concept of charisma at the heart
of Weber’s immense sociological contribution,2 Scaff himself only deals with
the concept in passing (cf. 169–71). This is especially regrettable in a scholar as
serious as Scaff because he is in no doubt that in “contemporary discussion” the
concept of charisma has become “notoriously cheapened”. Unfortunately, he is
absolutely correct (although Weber is not immune from bandying the term about)
(see Weber, 1978: 268).
Thus, a critical examination of charismatic leadership, which this book
is, must engage with Weber’s work, although this book is not an exegesis of his
contribution. Weber’s work might be regarded as definitive but it has its problems.
What Weber leaves unclear in his analysis of charisma is whether it is the person
who is extraordinary, or the situation which is extraordinary, or whether, and most
importantly, whether charismatic leadership emerges when both the person and
the situation are meshed in an exceptional combination. This book offers the view
that charismatic leaders are not born; it is rather that they are made. There are two
key parts to this making. Charismatic leadership, which can lead to charismatic

1 I have changed this translation and substituted “they are” for “he is”. The subject
of this sentence is the noun “personality”, which in German is feminine. Therefore, Weber
wrote “sie”, that is “she” in the original. Most charismatic leaders are indeed male, but we
should not smuggle in the assumption that they are inevitably so.
2 Turner’s (2000) frontispiece is even more emphatic about the importance of
charisma. It begins, “Max Weber is indubitably one of the very greatest figures in the
history of the social sciences, the source of seminal concepts like ‘the Protestant Ethic’
and ‘charisma’”.
 Introduction 3

rule, is the result of the misplaced use of ruling class patronage in times of deep
and desperate social schism. But that is not enough. There also has to exist small
intense groups where what I call “charismatic transformation” can take place.
Weber believes that charismatic leadership results in a charismatic community
(Weber, 1978: 243). The argument of this book is the reverse: charismatic
leadership is the result of an intense communal experience within a group with a
handful of members.
The case studies and episodes discussed in the following chapters, try to make
this argument about the conditions of personal charismatic transformation. Part of
this argument is that charisma, charismatic leadership, and charismatic rule can
be thought of sequential steps in a deviant career, using “career” in the way that
the deviancy theorist Howard Becker does. The distinction between charismatic
leadership and charismatic rule will become clearer as the argument develops.3
However, it is not just charismatic leaders who are made; there is a western cultural
and political history to the idea of charisma itself, and the idea that charismatic
attributes in a person deserve social and political recognition. Moreover, as the
case studies should illustrate, even political charisma shows itself in various forms.
Thus, there are several ways in which my approach is different from that of
Max Weber. The most important one is that for Weber successful charismatic
eruptions are always revolutionary, disruptive and profound. They change the
course of history. There are examples that I discuss where my point is to show that
the recourse to charismatic rule is a device used by a fraction of the ruling class
seeking supremacy over the whole of the ruling class. This is not an upending of the
normal, but its confirmatory establishment. Conservative Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher re-engineered the British state, and by appealing to wider sections of
the working class than hitherto secured the continuing disastrous supremacy of
finance capital in the UK. An outsider by social class and gender, her sponsorship
and patronage was through marriage. I do not seek here, however, to explain her
achievement of charismatic leadership.
Such a historiographical perspective is an opening out of historical possibility
and not its closure. There is, for instance, no prospect of a final historical solution to
the understanding of Hitler’s “final solution”. Indeed, there are no final solutions.
Thus, there is no absolute nailing down of the phenomena of charisma in this
book. This is, in part, a case study approach which cannot offer completeness. The
point is that the cases (and episodes) are not sampled as representative but seen
as exemplary (Harré, 1983: 41). What I hope there is, is what Simon Schama has
described as one of the many tasks of historical study, that is “a clear-eyed vision
of the trappings and aura of charisma, the weird magic that turns sovereignty
into majesty” (Schama, 2010: 6). I offer a discussion that should encourage an
awareness of and prompt a profound wariness about this historical phenomenon, if

3 The distinction is partially made by Shakespeare in the Prologue of King Henry

V: “princes to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene”.
4 Charisma and Patronage

for no other reason than charismatic rule rules out justice as a social practice. Under
charismatic rule, there is the dictatorial exercise of will and nothing much else.

The Personal Characteristics of Charismatic Leaders

Charismatic leaders seem to share a number of personality traits: for instance,

they usually possess exceptional memories and have some physically striking
quality. They are mostly young, misfits of some kind, certainly outsiders,
and nearly always male and are often capable of remarkable bursts of intense
energy (cf. Willner, 1984: 144–6). Very few of charismatic leaders are female,
and if they do exist, they seem to acquire some conventional male characteristics
and lose some conventional feminine ones during their period of charismatic
transformation. Joan of Arc, for instance, dressed in men’s clothes. Nevertheless,
the greater number of male charismatic leaders compared to the number of female
charismatic leaders should alert us to the significance of structural rather than
personal explanations of charismatic leadership.
Charismatic leaders take extreme pride in their strength of will and they show
themselves to be capable of extraordinary self-transformation and energy as they
fashion their mission and pledge themselves to fulfil it. They are often obsessive
and share some of the characteristics of those with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS).
Baron-Cohen suggests that

one can think people with autism and AS as people driven by the need to control
their environment. Being in a relationship with someone with AS is to have a
relationship on their terms only. … [A] relationship with an adult with AS is
only possible when the other person is able to accommodate in the extreme to
their partner’s needs, wishes and routines. The more controllable an aspect of the
environment is, the more people with autism or AS are driven to comb its every
detail and master it. (Baron-Cohen, 2004: 140–41)

Charismatic leaders often see even themselves as a means to their ends and the
power of many of them rests in no small measure upon their evident readiness to
accept death as a risk of their work. They might commence their public lives with
only some of these attributes and acquire them as their assumption of charismatic
leadership progresses and then achieves, perhaps, charismatic rule. Although they
are deeply self-centred, they also learn to focus sharply on those they address
personally and tailor their speeches selectively to their varied audiences. Acute
about insecurity and weakness in others (especially weakness of will), they master
anger as a manipulative tool. They might be emotionally limited but a key skill is
to be able to win over on first contact many of those they talk to. Extreme closeness
of attention by them, even though it might be brief, can create a flattering illusion
of a special friendship and concern in the listener.
 Introduction 5

The giving of the charismatic self to others is, though, a transient experience.
The self-dedication to their mission means they are rarely capable of enduring
close relations with others, or enjoying family life or normal human intimacy.
They expect absolute personal fidelity because they and their mission are
indivisible but, by the same token, they cannot be consistently loyal to others.
Their paradoxical nature means if they succeed there is a radical division between
those who are their disciples and followers and those who despise them and find
them contemptible. There are relatively few who are indifferent to them and who
just do not understand their attraction for their disciples and followers.
Charismatic leaders are originally outsiders but they must, if they are to be
successful, readily acquire early sponsorship and protection; that is, they must
acquire patronage and it is their distinctive characteristics which facilitate this.
Patrons with a purpose in mind must have some confidence that their choices
are unusually capable. Nevertheless, some protégés usurp their early sponsorship
and support, even turning against it, committing a kind of political or even real
parricide in a single-minded pursuit of their mission. They can do this when
they have earned moral status through trial and punishment during their journey
from social periphery to centre. Thus, such leaders become amoral in the sense
that others are merely instruments to achieve their self-appointed mission. At its
extremes, they are amoral because only they are allowed to have moral agency, but
their followers have little moral standing from their perspective.

Charisma and Weberian History

The effects of charismatic leaders – Christ, Luther, Calvin, for instance – are crucial
to the explanation that is offered in Weber’s major historical essay, The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. One obvious problem with Weber’s legacy
is that for him charismatic leadership is a repudiation of the deadening process
of rationalisation that not just afflicts modernity but is from his perspective the
essence of modernity. The divine charismatic leaders of The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism are thereby graciously offered historical moral absolution:
the arid materialism of modern societies is forcibly condemned, but only as an
unintended consequence of their previous and, unfortunately, long-past moral and
ideological creativity. Charisma is seen therefore, in the context in which Weber
discusses it, in a positive light: the charismatic leader is a supreme expression of
the human personality – even if the unintended consequences of their behaviour
are verhängnisvoll (Weber, Scaff tells us, plays with verhängnisvoll’s double
meaning of fatal and fateful (Scaff, 1989: 1)). Remarkable individuals, then, are
presented as having a massive historical leverage that in itself is perceived by
Weber as the ultimate fulfilment of human individuality and personality.
But what charisma is is never adequately explained except perhaps through
what might be termed these “pertinent effects”. However, this is in the end
tautological: charisma is ultimate personal power and we know it is present
6 Charisma and Patronage

because it is effective. We know it is not present when it does not work anymore
(cf. Wolpe, 1968). This, nevertheless, hints at a critical empirical feature of
charisma: charisma is written in binary code. It is either present or it is absent.
There is no half-way house. It is suggestive that Adolf Hitler was constantly
despised and under-estimated by his many of his opponents (Field Marshal Paulus
is alleged to have said at Stalingrad when faced with humiliating surrender that he
had no intention of shooting himself for the “Bohemian corporal”). If Hitler was
seen by some as a jackanapes, Christ is reported as constantly making the same
point that recognition of his divinity is not conditional or partial: it is absolute and
complete or it does not exist at all. (See Luke 11:23 and Matthew 12:30: “He that
is not with me is against me …”. Although, the gloss on this by the wily writer of
the Gospel according to St Mark is brilliant: “For he that is not against us is on our
part” (Mark 9:40).)
Lassman argues that, for Weber, charisma was central because, “Underlying
all of Weber’s political thought is the problem of the continuing existence of the
free human being under modern conditions of rationalization and disenchantment”
(Lassman, 2000: 95). Perhaps the consequence of this kind of value or even
ideological commitment was an entirely understandable reluctance on Weber’s
part to dissect completely the meaning of charisma. If charisma is demystified,
die Entzauberung of the world is complete. It is a bathetic kind of envy, but
nonetheless true, that it should now be impossible to perceive any charismatic
performance after the existence of Hitler in the same, affectedly disinterested, way
that Weber did. Weber argued that successful charismatic leaders rupture historical
evolution, and some writers have indeed argued that Hitler’s charismatic rule
and its barbaric consequences do threaten to defy any sense of normal historical
causation (Clendinnen, 1999: 95). A consequence for this Marxist is that what the
Hitler period of history means is that a materialist explanation of the phenomenon
of his rule cannot be a reductive one. Charismatic rule involves the creation of
a new moral order and a new set of ideological choices which can be materially
contextualised but not exhaustively explained by material circumstances.
Weber apparently believed himself to be “absolutely unmusical religiously
and have no need or ability to erect any psychic edifices of a religious character
within me”. I cannot imagine a more self-deluding or a more disingenuous remark,
which is not saved by Weber qualifying this with the admission, “But a thorough
self-examination has told me that I am neither antireligious nor irreligious”
(Swatos, 1998: 598).4
Christian religion is the ideological ether in which much of classical European
sociology moved and had its being. Nietzsche’s pronouncement of the death of God
actually preserves the deity as a haunting absence. Weber is a paradigmatic case.
Charisma is not the deus ex machina, it is precisely for him the deus in machina,
the possibility of a gifted human being exercising god-like, supernatural power
which saves humanity from the fate of determinism and therefore succumbing to

4 The emphasis is in Weber’s original letter of 9 February 1909.

 Introduction 7

fatalism. Charisma apparently eludes the mundane ties of gender and class and
status. Weber appears to believe that human beings can for fleeting moments fly
in the face of history. It is the psychological escape hatch necessary so that Weber
and Weber’s thought can give the slip to his merciless and relentless pessimism.
The hope of charisma is a balm for many more pessimists than Weber, however.

Why Discuss Charisma, Charismatic Leadership and Charismatic Rule?

There are, of course, those who deny that the concept of charisma is “analytically
useful” (Wolpe, 1968: 306). Harold Wolpe is a careful and thoughtful critic who
concludes that the use of the concept of charisma leads to mono-causal idealist
explanations that explain everything in terms of a prevailing “belief in an
ideological system” (Wolpe, 1968: 314). His response to this is to suggest that,
“What is needed … is an analysis based on the inter-relationship of values, power
and leadership qualities or skills. Such an analysis would show, inter alia, how in
a given structural context, the valuation of the leadership skills in ‘charismatic’
terms enters into the situation as one of the relevant factors” (Wolpe, 1968: 314).
There is much of value in this position and I come very close to supporting
it. The danger with it is that it could be read to imply – particularly the
derogatory quotation marks – that the concept of charisma is an essentially
empty one and structural factors do not just principally but do completely explain
charismatic eruptions.
Thorpe and Shapin (2000) argue against what they take as Weber’s general
historical thesis that charisma is increasingly incompatible with rationalised
modernity. (Mommsen, however, perceptively suggests (1974: 103) that it is
the rarity of charisma that contributes powerfully to its attraction.) Thorpe and
Shapin’s article on Oppenheimer, the leader of the USA’s Manhattan Project to
create the first atomic bomb, claims that Oppenheimer was a charismatic leader.
Their argument is that the possibility of charismatic leadership certainly arises
in situations where, as in the Manhattan Project, “Everyday life … was marked
by a high degree of uncertainty. Structures of authority, communication and the
division of labour were contested and unclear” (Thorpe and Shapin, 2000: 545).
They conclude by claiming that in modern technical and scientific innovative
organisations the possibilities of charisma frequently arise. Normative
uncertainty is actually rather common, as their analysis concedes. Talcott Parsons
(1952: 293, 355) has pointed out (and other scholars have followed his lead such
as Lockwood (1964, 1992) and Mann (1970)), that many important values in
modern societies are actually, to resort to Parsons’ useful term, highly exploitable.
That is, they are inherently contestable terms open to multiple interpretations.
Thorpe and Shapin therefore land themselves with the problem, which they do
not address, of explaining why endemic normative uncertainty is not consistently
solved through charismatic leadership.
8 Charisma and Patronage

The crucial social and normative condition for a charismatic eruption is not
uncertainty, as Thorpe and Shapin have it, but directly conflictual relations between
or within different institutional and social structures. The archetypal western
charismatic leader apparently emerges at precisely the point where the problem
is how to “Render … unto Caesar the things that be Caesar’s; and unto God the
things that be God’s” (Luke 20:25). For Weber, the charismatic leader answers
the crucial question, “Which of the warring gods shall we serve?” (Gerth and
Mills, 1993: 153). Charismatic leadership is a possible and indeed probable product
of the leader–disciple relationship in a situation where there is ideological or social
schism. It is this situation of schism that is the source of the absolutely divergent
estimations of the capacities of charismatic leaders. Charismatic leadership can
metamorphose into charismatic rule. This is a significant and fateful concentration
of personal power. This book hopes to make a clear distinction between these
sequential transformations from acquiring charisma, leading charismatically and
ruling charismatically.

Charisma as a Social Relation

A charismatic leader like Hitler is a vortex which draws into itself the absolute
right to make and justify fatal moral choices in a new way. The mission of a
charismatic leader is to offer a new moral universe. What is the good, and the
path to its attainment, are redrawn. Many found in Nazi Germany that this was an
exciting and enticing prospect even as they were enwrapped within a regime of
inordinate criminality. The decision processes of the Nazi regime were turbid but
this centripetal form of rule meant that there was a widespread murderous moral
inclination against “outsiders” amongst the soldiers and officials of the Third
Reich. This genocidal hatred was not directed solely or even originally at Jews
but at all those who inhabited lands to the east of Germany which Hitler and his
regime coveted. This hatred of these “others” was rooted in a deep commitment to
a community of which Hitler’s charismatic rule was a major constituent part. His
immediate followers enjoyed a rampant sense of entitlement as representatives
and embodiments of this community.
As Weber correctly argued, the decisive shift to charismatic rule, a qualitative
upgrade in power, can only occur with the recruitment of a small staff of persons
who are fanatically loyal to the leader and his mission. The English mercenary,
Simon Mann, has explained that, “You can’t become a tyrant on your own.
It’s a pact. Tyranny is a pyramid and the pyramid is made of petty tyrants”
(Mann, 2011 quoted in Porter, 2012: 20). This intensive form of power must then
be complemented by the extensive power of an organisation centred on the ruler
and governed by his personal interpretation of the mission. The whole organisation
must achieve some form of closure and the more effective the closure, that is the
greater the moral density, to use Durkheim’s term, the greater the supremacy of
the leader and the more extreme is the interpretation of the mission. To continue
 Introduction 9

to maintain his authority, the leader generally has to be more and more audacious
ideologically in his interpretation of the mission.
Weber, however, has a different view and does not have the advantage of the
hindsight we have of Hitler. For Weber, “In traditionally stereotyped periods,
charisma is the greatest revolutionary force” (Weber, 1978: 53). However,
“in its pure form charismatic authority may be said to exist only in the process
of originating. It cannot remain stable but becomes either traditionalized or
rationalized, or a combination of both” (Weber, 1978: 54). The alternative
revolutionary force is that of reason, but Weber argues reason only works to alter
material circumstances. Charismatic rule, on the other hand, works in the subjective
and the ideological realm. After the experience of Hitler, we have to conclude that
Weber is wrong to suppose that there is invariably an almost immediate decline
in revolutionary charismatic authority once it appears. Certainly, in Hitler’s case,
there was no weakening of the destructive transformational impulse until his death
and Nazi Germany’s capitulation.
Charismatic leadership is therefore a singular form of social relation:
charismatic leaders head a community with an inner core, of which they are
the heartless heart. Thus, I am not primarily writing about people who possess
glamour or abundant charm, or have shown singular prowess, or who exude a
certain magnetism, or even possess a quiet authority, although charismatic leaders
do often have some or all of these characteristics. This book, for instance, contains
almost nothing about Prime Minister Tony Blair, nor anything about President Bill
Clinton, except the next few lines and some further ones in the last chapter. These
men were widely judged as being charismatic and they had some charismatic
qualities, but they were actually more glamorous and charming than charismatic.
Their personal qualities facilitated the adoption of right-wing policies whilst they
were leading parties which claimed not to be right-wing. As Roche has written: “La
droite définit le cadre idéologique du libéralisme, mais c’est souvent la gauche au
pouvoir qui l’applique” (Roche, 2011: 128). And, to paraphrase Voltaire, if Blair’s
and Clinton’s glamour had not existed, in those circumstances of fundamental
betrayal, it would have to have been invented.
Sociologists who use the concept of charisma in its present Weberian form are
required to consent to a paradox: a concept that is allegedly sociological exists
in a sociological black hole where apparently none of the normal assumptions
of sociology apply. It is Weberian theory’s escape hatch. In this black hole the
distinctions between agency and structure and micro-structure and macro-
structure are dissolved. Further, not only do the conventional and basic categorical
triad of class, “race” and gender not seem able to achieve any purchase on this
slippery concept, there is a sort of secret celebration that this is the case. This
book challenges the concept of charisma’s evasion of these fundamental kinds of
sociological categorisation. In particular, in all of the literature that I have come
across, there is absolutely no acknowledgement that charismatic leaders and rulers
belong almost invariably to a very dangerous group of males. Nevertheless, the
10 Charisma and Patronage

wish in this book is that the more we contextualise charismatic leadership and
rule, the less extraordinary and the more explicable it is.

The Charismatic Community

Nearly all societies, even utopian communities, are trisected by the divisions
of class, race and gender, but some are much more divided than others. Talcott
Parsons and normative functionalists are wrong: societies are not simple wholes,
ideologically or in any other way (although the resilience of this weird idea is
extraordinary). A striving after social wholeness, complete solidarity, is the
mark of a utopian community and it is also part of the teleology of charismatic
leadership. Charismatic leaders recruit disciples and gather followers: leaders
give direction and disciples are their executives. They offer their disciples and
followers a sense of belonging and fulfilment of a communal mission. The mission
has two bases, either race or class, and each of these takes two forms. One type is
a mission either to transcend social class divisions or to purify a social class. The
other type is a mission either to transcend race or ethnic divisions or to purify a
race or ethnic group.
Transcendence and purification are key parts of the language of theology.
Charisma, the gift of grace, was originally a purely religious term. Not only is
the mission of a charismatic leader frequently a religious one, but martyrdom is
what they frequently seek. Indeed, in some figures a symbolic death seems to
inspire a kind of elation (Hitler is a case in point). Thus, the deaths of charismatic
leaders are rarely natural. There is a compact with death which often includes
their disciples and even their followers. The ultimate nature of the mission of
charismatic leaders does not admit of living with failure. The tendency towards
ideological absolutism can result not only in an ideological implosion but also the
urge to physical self-annihilation. Death is seen as the ultimate sacrifice,5 and it is
the means to ultimate certainty. Race and class consciousness and race and class
organisations have each mobilised more males and more successfully than gender
consciousness and organisation have mobilised females. Moreover, race and class
organisations have rarely been free from gender oppression. Indeed, class struggle
is often consciously expressed in a sexist form and race and ethnic struggle even
more so.

The Structure of the Book

Charismatic leadership and charismatic rule are disparate phenomena and this
book is based on a very small number of case studies of both historical figures

5 Death is not the ultimate sacrifice: the ultimate sacrifice is to continue to care for
and love those who have suffered irrevocable physical and mental decline.
 Introduction 11

and types of organisation. The chosen organisations are the utopian community,
and the modern business corporation. I try to show that the utopian community
and the modern business corporation share some common structural elements
from the perspective of charismatic analysis. The individual studies of are of Jesus
Christ, Joan of Arc, Hitler, and Nelson Mandela. The study of Hitler is an extended
one, as is that of Mandela. The personal case studies should stand on their own
because they were not originally chosen to fit into an overall argument but because
of their intrinsic interest. Despite the inclusion of Mandela, there is no positive
endorsement of charisma and charismatic leadership in this book. The book has a
critical slant and is an act of redress as the notion of charisma has had too easy a
ride and has been seen too one-sidedly, mostly in a positive light.
A number of different threads of argument run through these apparently
eccentrically chosen substantive topics – although if the book is successful in its
aims the choices will justify themselves. One theme is that even if individuals with
charismatic leadership potential are present, there are often, substantial structural
barriers to personal charisma evolving into leadership and rule. Another is that
Jesus was not a charismatic leader, but the myth based on his life, that is the life
of Christ, has provided the cultural template for subsequent charismatic leaders
and rulers. His life was not charismatic but his crucifixion and, more importantly,
his triumph over death was. (MacCulloch relates that Christian crucifixion
iconography is not found before the fifth century (MacCulloch, 2010: 179).)
Thus, another theme is the importance of myth for the legend of charisma, for
charismatic rule is actually extremely rare and not inevitably transient because it
becomes bureaucratised but because it is personal. Joan of Arc is another chosen
special case because her brief life was dramatically played out in a form of society
in which charisma was a key and constant part of political rule.
An obvious weakness in this book plan is its wholly western and largely
Christian focus. These artificial limits are the result of my intellectual capacity
and the fear of producing an unwieldy book with too broad a sociological and
historical span. I can recognise that this book might be read in ways that I have
not intended, but I would rather run that risk than appear to claim a certitude that
is unwarranted.
As befits a Marxist, I take an irreverent attitude towards sociology. For instance,
I have never subscribed to the vain attempts to create a sociological tradition spun
out of the work of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. Parsons’ effort in The Structure
of Social Action (1949, but first published 1937) is magnificent, gloriously self-
centred, and dismissive of Marx, who would have been, as a political economist,
perfectly happy if Parsons had completely excluded him. Robert Nisbet in the
introduction to his book The Sociological Tradition (1970) also levers Marx in, but
one cannot view the effort in the book as successful. Nisbet presents himself as
valiantly extending a helping hand to Marx who, when Nisbet was writing (his
book was first published in 1966), was completely overshadowed in American
sociology by the influence of Alexis de Tocqueville (Nisbet, 1970: viii). Nisbet
was certainly right that Marx would soon outshine Tocqueville (long passages
12 Charisma and Patronage

of which are extremely tiresome), but whatever which way one turns Marx it
is impossible to contrive to present him as a sociologist. Moreover, there is the
problem that, although Weber and Durkheim were very near contemporaries and
knew each other’s languages well, there is no evidence of any mutual appreciation
or even acknowledgement of the other’s work. Tradition is not invariably poor
history, but inevitably so.
These protestations will now appear rather disingenuous for it would be
remiss of me not to acknowledge two major modern sociologists who have had
a direct personal influence upon my thinking and my work. David Lockwood
taught me when I was a graduate student at the University of Essex. David
Lockwood presented a combination of characteristics which would baffle those
witless failures who currently control much of higher education in the UK. David
Lockwood was both an appallingly bad teacher and an outstanding intellectual
example. Afterwards, I completed my intellectual apprenticeship as the research
assistant of the greatly gifted Philip Abrams (1933–1981). Philip principally
thought of himself as a historical sociologist and, if I was forced to present myself
as a sociologist, it would be in the genre in which he distinguished himself. His
posthumously published Historical Sociology (1982) is a beautifully written tour
de force.
The explanations of the economic structure and crises of capitalism by those
who work in the Marxist tradition of political economy rightly command immense
admiration. I am thinking of the work available in English of the likes of Brenner,
Hobsbawm, Harvey, Mandel, and so on – names almost without number. No
Marxist political analysis or organisation measures up to their work or that of
other major Marxists which are not readily available in English. There used to be
a defence, in the face of Actually Existing Socialisms, that Marxism had not been
tried out. This failure is actually evidence for the prosecution. It is lamentable that
the politics of capitalism and its capacity to dominate and facilitate exploitation as
it poisons the biosphere have been left still clothed in mystery. Sleek and greedy
buffoons rule us, and not just in the UK. In a sardonic review of Eric Hobsbawm’s
How to Change the World (2011), Gregory Elliott proposes that the word “not”
has been missed from the title (Elliott, 2011: 142) – although there is a world
of difference between “not how to change the world” and “how not to change
the world”. In a future in which idiocy masquerades as optimism, the desperate
temptations of charismatic leadership and rule might be great. It has been indeed
how to change the world, unfortunately.
 Chapter 1
Max Weber and the Problem of Charisma

Introduction

It is incontestable that it is Weber who has bequeathed to modern sociology the

concept of charisma, although he attributes, in a back-handed compliment, its
initial “one-sided” formulation to Rudolf Sohm (Weber, 1978: 1112 and note 1156).
(One-sided, of course, is a positive description of Weber’s own definition of his
ideal-type concepts.) Since Sohm, he writes, “developed this category with regard
to one historically important case – the rise of the ecclesiastic authority of the early
church – his treatment was bound to be one-sided from the viewpoint of historical
diversity. In principle, these phenomena are universal, even though they are most
evident in the religious realm” (Weber, 1978: 1112) and one of the reasons that
Jesus Christ is the archetypal charismatic figure in the sociological tradition is
that Weber puts him there. The evidence for this from Weber’s Economy and
Society alone is compelling enough. Many charismatic leaders are mentioned in
passing, such as religious figures like Zoroaster or Muhammed, or secular leaders
like Napoleon or, from Weber’s own time, the littérateur, Kurt Eisner. Only Jesus
Christ’s charisma is described at length over more than three of Weber’s most
highly perceptive pages (Weber, 1978: 630–34), which I discuss critically in the
next chapter.

Weber’s View of Charisma

It is not just that the unfortunately unclear concept of charisma is, in the judgement
of most scholars, at the heart of Weber’s theoretical “system”, it is also that charisma
for him was an ultimate value. He demanded it of others and there is persuasive
evidence that he could be perceived as charismatic (by) himself. Consider, for
instance, Karl Jaspers’ extraordinary assessment of Weber in a commemorative
address given in the year following Weber’s death:

In his personality the whole age, its movement and its problems are present; in
him the forces of the age have an exceptionally vigorous life and an extraordinary
clarity. He represents what the age is … and to a large extent he is the age.
In Max Weber we have seen the existential philosopher incarnate. While other
men know in essence only their personal fate, the fate of the age acted within
his ample soul … His presence made us aware that even today spirit can exist
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