IV. Politics as a VocationPolitik als Beruf, Gesammelte Politische Schriften(Muenchen, l921), pp. 396-450. Originally a speech at MunichUniversity, 1918, published in 1919 by Duncker & Humblodt,Munich.This lecture, which I give at your request, will necessarilydisappoint you in a number of ways. You will naturally expect meto take a position on actual problems of the day. But that willbe the case only in a purely formal way and toward the end, whenI shall raise certain questions concerning the significance ofpolitical action in the whole way of life. In todays lecture,all questions that refer to what policy and what content oneshould give ones political activity must be eliminated. For suchquestions have nothing to do with the general question of whatpolitics as a vocation means and what it can mean. Now to oursubject matter.What do we understand by politics? The concept is extremelybroad and comprises any kind of independent leadershipin action. One speaks of the currency policy of the banks, of thediscounting policy of the Reichsbank, of the strike policy of atrade union; one may speak of the educational policy of amunicipality or a township, of the policy of the president of avoluntary association, and, finally, even of the policy of aprudent wife who seeks to guide her husband. Tonight, ourreflections are, of course, not based upon such a broad concept.We wish to understand by politics only the leadership, or theinfluencing of the leadership, of a politicalassociation, hence today, of a state.But what is a political association from the sociologicalpoint of view? What is a state? Sociologically, the statecannot be defined in terms of its ends. There is scarcely anytask that some political association has not taken in hand, andthere is no task that one could say has always been exclusive andpeculiar to those associations which are designated as politicalones: today the state, or historically, those associations whichhave been the predecessors of the modern state. Ultimately, onecan define the modern state sociologically only in terms of thespecific means peculiar to it, as to every political association,namely, the use of physical force.Every state is founded on force, said Trotsky atBrest-Litovsk. That is indeed right. If no social institutionsexisted which knew the use of violence, then the concept ofstate would be eliminated, and a condition would emerge thatcould be designated as anarchy, in the specific sense of thisword. Of course, force is certainly not the normal or the onlymeans of the state-nobody says that-but force is a meansspecific to the state. Today the relation between the state andviolence is an especially intimate one. In the past, the mostvaried institutions-beginning with the sib-have known the useof physical force as quite normal. Today, however, we have to saythat a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopolyof the legitimate use of physical force within a giventerritory. Note that territory is one of the characteristics ofthe state. Specifically, at the present time, the right to usephysical force is ascribed to other institutions or toindividuals only to the extent to which the state permits it. Thestate is considered the sole source of the right to useviolence. Hence, politics for us means striving to share poweror striving to influence the distribution of power, either amongstates or among groups within a state.This corresponds essentially to ordinary usage. When aquestion is said to be a political question, when a cabinetminister or an official is said to be a political official, orwhen a decision is said to be politically determined, what isalways meant is that interests in the distribution, maintenance,or transfer of power are decisive for answering the questions anddetermining the decision or the officials sphere of activity. Hewho is active in politics strives for power either as a means inserving other aims, ideal or egoistic, or as power for powerssake, that is, in order to enjoy the prestige-feeling that powergives.Like the political institutions historically preceding it, thestate is a relation of men dominating men, a relation supportedby means of legitimate (i.e. considered to be legitimate)violence. If the state is to exist, the dominated must obey theauthority claimed by the powers that be. When and why do menobey? Upon what inner justifications and upon what external meansdoes this domination rest?To begin with, in principle, there are three innerjustifications, hence basic legitimations of domination.First, the authority of the eternal yesterday, i.e. of themores sanctified through the unimaginably ancient recognition andhabitual orientation to conform. This is traditional dominationexercised by the patriarch and the patrimonial prince of yore.There is the authority of the extraordinary and personal giftof grace (charisma), the absolutely personal devotion andpe