Personal Versus Impersonal Forms of Exploitation

Abstract

Social evolution of the sort surveyed by Max Weber is discussed with the emphasis on the lesser bureaucratic capabilities of Islamic political entities versus Western political entities that have evolved out of European, and originally to a large extent Christian, political traditions. Examples are given of resulting traditions of social integration and thus differing traditions of personal versus impersonal forms of social exploitation. Examples include Islamic versus Western historical institutionalization of slavery. American reliance on political democracy to correct problems resulting from economic inequalities, but also movement in the opposite direction, reliance on market forces as an alternative to the bureaucratization forced upon society by the political process, differs from the social democracy which is the ideal of tribal societies that is also the underlying ideal of Islamic societies that are built upon traditions of tribal democracy.