Weber Blog
Power
Power is a topic that Weber elaborates when he talks about social organization. Power is prevalent in many social interactions, it is primarily a person imposing his/her will on others and the others obeying those commands. The subject of power can be broken down to two other forms that include domination and discipline. All this falls under how people can be forced or conditioned to obey orders from other that may seem to be in power in society. There are many examples to show this concept, but throughout history there is one main example that sticks out from the rest. Before World War II the Nazi party rose in power in Germany and was the main reason that the war even began. Adolf Hitler was the leader and man in power of the Nazi party. Power, domination, and discipline was all portrayed in the Nazi regime and during the time in which Adolf Hitler was in power in Germany.
The concept of power is defined as the “possibility within a social relationship of imposing one’s own will, even against opposition”. A person can have power over others, but this power is dependent on the situation in which the person or group is in. The power is dependent on the context and on the circumstance. People that follow the orders of these people or groups in power follow them because they have some quality or sets of qualities that allow them to impose their will on the people. Power can be broken down to two other subsets. These two areas include domination and discipline. There is a difference between the two, but the base to both of these areas come down to people being under control by the person and group that has the power. Domination is described as the “possibility of finding a specified group of people to obey a command of a determined content”. In other words, domination is the ability to find people that will obey what you tell them to do regardless of the situation. This type of obedience can stem from coercing, forcing, asking, commanding the people that is being dominated. The domination occurring has to be a legitimate form of domination. This means that the domination occurring has to provide a strong enough reason for either party to obey or to demand. Domination can be coming from a single person in power giving orders. Discipline is described as the “possibility of finding a specifiable number of people who in virtue of a habitual attitude will obey a command in a prompt, automatic and unthinking manner”. Discipline is obedience through habit, there is no force used because the people that obey do so unconsciously.
The Nazi Regime was in control of Germany in the early 1900’s and was in control of the people as well. The leader of the Nazi Regime was Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the one man that had total power over the army and the people in the country. The type of power that Hitler had was through his control of the dominating army at the time. Domination came into play here with the way Hitler could force the people of Germany to do anything he wanted to. The driving force to the domination that Hitler had was because of the fact that he had power over the army. Not only did he use the army to force people to obey, but in fact he used his charisma to win over supporters as well. The way he spoke helped him win the seat as a chancellor. That means people believed in what he said and stood for enough to vote him in. He succeeded the president after the president’s death. He used the army to force the people. As the article about Power stated, one person could have the power or there could be an executive branch that also had the power. In this case Hitler and the Nazi army were those two powers. Throughout his dictatorship he established Nazi concentration camps around the country. These concentration camps would be set up as labor camps, prisoner of war camps, and killing centers as well. The people that were sent to these camps would be soldiers of the opposing army, homosexuals, anybody that was against him, and Jews. These camps were run by his Nazi soldiers and throughout the time of their existence there would be horrible acts committed on these detainees. After World War II ended, soldiers were asked why they did these acts on the opposing side and one soldier’s response was simply, "as a simple soldier, I learned to carry out orders". This is a prime example of the term discipline. These soldiers were going out, killing, and torturing innocent people just because the person in power would tell them too. The idea of obedience was so engraved in their mind that they did not think twice in carrying out orders and would just go out and commit heinous crimes. Not only were the soldiers the ones following orders unconsciously, but also the people of Germany. They attended rallies and would do the Nazi salute on command.