Conclusion

Abstract

Weber’s theory of the state is neither coherent nor finished, and is really no system. If “cultural scientific knowledge in our sense is thus tied to ‘subjective’ presuppositions”, is only concerned with those components of reality connected in some way “to events to which we attribute cultural significance,”¹ then Weber was himself only concerned with those aspects of state reality to which he ascribed such significance. If we do seek to review systematically the scattered remarks in his work, we discover the framework of a complex and many-sided conception of the state which provides a conceptual foundation for the analysis of the modern state. This is true both of the epistemological foundations and of the aspects of the monopoly of force, legitimacy, the law and bureaucracy.