[author]Jianyin Ma

[content]

Author Jianyin Ma

Associate Professor, School of Law, Beijing Normal University

Abstract: The "iron cage of reason" in Weber’s perspective is a very important metaphor and a key concept for understanding Weber’s theory of society as a whole. In the field of law and politics, the iron cage of rationality manifests itself in the dilemma between the two sides of the bureaucracy and the modern rule of law based on formal rational law. Weber was in an era of fractured social transformation, and it seems that the fractured nature of social transformation in contemporary China is even more significant, showing the orientation of temporal and spatial condensation, at this time, it seems to have a deeper significance to revisit and deeply explore Weber's theory.

1. Introduction: social theory as a position

Although Auguste Comte's ambitious but ideal of replacing philosophy with sociology as the "queen of the kingdom of sciences" did not become a reality, the division of labour between philosophy and social theory did emerge in the modern academic division of labour. With the modern transformation of Western society, social theory (in some occasions also called "social philosophy" or "sociological theory") gradually separated from classical philosophy, forming a new conception of social theory based on the concept of "action - structure - function - virtue" as the main object of concern.

After the category of "society" was separated from the dichotomy of the private world of kinship and family and the public world of the state/church, the individual, public power, and knowledge underwent a process of "socialisation" over the centuries, and the entire Western sphere of politics, economics, culture, law, and religion was transformed in this modernising movement of "socialisation". In the course of centuries, individuals, public power, and knowledge underwent a process of "socialisation", in which the entire Western sphere of politics, economy, culture, law, and religion was transformed in this modernising movement of "socialisation". This process of transformation has given rise to a variety of conflicts, contradictions, tensions and dilemmas resulting from the asynchrony of transformation among various parts of society, as well as people's anxiety, concern and desire to find a way out of these conflicts, contradictions, tensions and dilemmas, which constitute the main field of the problem of modernity. It seems to be difficult to explain the problem of modernity only in a philosophical way, so a different kind of study is needed to cope with the problem of modernity. In Marx's words, "philosophers only explain the world in different ways; the question is how to change it".

Explaining and responding to the problems of modernity, and obtaining the power of action in the process of explanation and response, so as to grasp or even change the direction of social evolution, is the important mission of social theory. Interpreting and responding to the problem of modernity in different ways have formed the three classical paradigms of social theory: the commodification and alienation of society (structure/relationships and values) as the main features, and the emancipation of human beings (social action) as the main goal have formed the main arguments of Marx's social theory; the assertion of social division (function and structure) as the unique feature of modernity has formed the main propositions of Turgot's social theory; and Weber's social theory has formed the main propositions of Turgot's social theory. Weber's social theory, on the other hand, focuses on the rationalisation of society (action, structure and values), replacing the "dead God" with reason, and providing the world with the power and direction of action.

It is in this relationship between social theory and the problem of modernity that this paper discusses Weber's "iron cage of reason" proposition and analyses its significance in legal studies. Rationality and rationalisation are central propositions of Weberian social theory (2.), and the 'iron cage of rationality' proposition is an important metaphor that emerges from Weber's diagnosis of the proposition of modernity in Western societies (3.), which manifests itself in the legal-political sphere in the form of the duplicity of sectional bureaucratic modes of dominance (4.) and the dilemma of the modern rule of law, which is based on the law of formal rationality (5.), Weber prescribed a number of remedies for the dilemma of the "iron cage of reason", the most noteworthy and controversial of which is the so-called "Krisma" cycle (6.). The author also expects that through thinking and analysing Weber's proposition of rationality, it will serve as a starting point for analysing and thinking about the problem of modernity in the Chinese context, and, at the same time, it will also serve as a starting point for his own research on the "Law of Social Theory" (7.).

1. Rationality and rationalisation

Rationality, rationalisation and rationalism are the key words in Weber's thinking about modernity, and they are also the core propositions of Weber's social theory. Many scholars have repeatedly stressed that Weber's "lifelong thesis" is the question of "what is rationality", and that "it is most appropriate to take the question of rationalism or rationalisation as the centre of gravity of Weber's position as a whole". It is most appropriate to take the question of rationalism or rationalisation as the centre of gravity of Weber's position as a whole," and "the theory of rationalisation is the main thread in (Weber's work), by means of which we are able to get a glimpse of the whole of Weber's theory". The interpretation and discussion of rational propositions in Western societies have a profound background in the history of thought. According to the research of scholars, the development of Western rationalism can be roughly divided into a number of stages: either into three stages, namely, nature-based rationalism (ancient Greek rationalism), God-based rationalism (religious-metaphysical rationalism), and human-based rationalism (modern rationalism); or some people take Hegel as the boundary and divide it into two stages, namely, classical rationalism and modern rationalism. But no matter how it is divided, rationality or rationalism, since the beginning of the ancient Greek concepts of "logos" and "nuos," has been in search of some sense of certainty or universality, whether it is nature, God, or the "death of God.

Whether it is nature, God, or man himself after "God is dead," they all need to provide a kind of ultimate care for the order of the earth, the life of the world, and the human mind, and to provide explanations for the past and future contexts of the earthly society and the cosmos. When the proposition of modernity was challenged by postmodernity, antimodernity and neomodernity, rationality also experienced the impact of irrationality, anti-rationality and post-rationality, and the dream of rationality of certainty, universality and finality turned from a beautiful dream into a nightmare. Various "post-academic" thoughts filled the sky of the 20th century, and the rationalism of the post-Weberian era was not rebuilt until the efforts of Habermas, so "communicative rationality" became a new conception of rationality. However, whether "communicative rationality" can eliminate "purposive rationality" and "virtual rationality", "formal rationality" and "material/substantive rationality" in Weber’s context, and thoroughly resolve the original dilemma of rationalism - "Is certainty, universality and finality possible?" , is perhaps the thesis of the times that contemporary social theory needs to continue to face.

However, in the context of this paper, the notion of 'rationality' in Weberian terms is the entry point for the whole text, and the above ideological-historical images are only a narrative background for the proposition of the rationalisation of Weber’s social theory.

The proposition of rationalisation in Weber's perspective is closely related to the fractured transformation of society, which is the thesis of the era shared by the social theorists of that generation, that is to say, the West entered the modern society through the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, and entered into a social form that is very different from the traditional society, in which the humanistic rationalism has replaced the divine (religious-metaphysical) rationalism or the negativity of the naturalistic rationalism in Hegel's sense. This process is both the stage of "God is dead" according to Nietzsche and the stage of "deenchantment" according to Weber. Therefore, the rationality in Weber's field of vision is basically humanistic rationalism; rationalisation itself contains the connotation of transforming from religious-metaphysical rationalism to humanistic rationalism, i.e., the process of rationalisation of religion, and the rationalisation of religion and "deenchantment" are two sides of the same coin. According to Weber, the rationalisation of religion is marked by two things: firstly, the extent to which a religion rejects witchcraft; and secondly, the extent to which the relationship between God and the world and the ethical relationship between that religion and the world are systematically unified. The rationalisation of religion is the key to Weber's discourse on the uniqueness of rationalisation in the Western world as a whole, or rather the development of the whole tree of Western modern rationalism through the Protestant ethic, the root of rationalised religious ethics. Although, according to Brubaker's statistics, there are at least 16 different meanings of rationality in Weber's writings, and Weber himself did not give a clear definition of rationality and rationalisation, so much so that some scholars think that the concept of rationality in Weber's writings is "intolerably obscure and varied". However, the lack of a clear definition may only leave a little more room for imagination for interpretation, and in Habermas's conception, any definition is provisional and open to discourse. Weber illustrates his uniquely Western understanding of rationality by giving examples: he mentions the natural sciences and the "rational, systematic, and specialised scientific professions", market-oriented literature and the organisation of the arts as represented by theatres, museums, and magazines, rational and harmonic music, spatial perspective and the structural principles of architecture; and he refers to scientific legal doctrine, the formal legal system and the "interpretation of the law by professionally trained officials", modern state institutions organised in a rational bureaucracy (Bürokratie), the quantifiable circulation of private rights and the profit-oriented double-entry bookkeeping system of accounting, and capitalist enterprises, and a rationalised way of life for everything. Weber's enumeration may seem chaotic on the surface, but many interpreters and critics of Weber's social theory have summarised it for Weber: Li Mang's dichotomy between "social rationalisation and ethical rationalisation", and Habermas's triangulation, borrowed from Parsons and downwards, which divides Western rationalism in Weber's vision into three categories: "modernisation of society" - the differentiation of the capitalist economy and the modern state and their complementary functions and mutual stability; "rationalisation of culture" - modern science and technology, liberal art, and ethics rooted in religion, or universalist concepts of law and morality; "individual rationality" - guided by an "ethic of conviction", a system of "faith", and the "rationalisation of the individual"; and "social rationality" - guided by an "ethic of faith", a system of "faith". In Schluchter's reading, Weber’s rationalism has three meanings that need to be clarified: firstly, rationalism refers to "a capacity to dominate things through calculation", which is in fact the broader meaning of the term "science-technology"; secondly, it refers to a "metaphysical-ethical" rationalism, which is the systematisation of meaning-relationships at the level of thought triggered by the inner contemplation of the cultured person; thirdly, it refers to a systematic and methodical attitude to life, which is the result of the institutionalisation of meanings and stakes,which is a "practical" rationalism.

No matter how it is classified, it cannot be separated from Weber's central concern with the proposition of rationalisation: the intrinsic connection between the Protestant Christian ethic and the modern society modelled on Western society. Although Weber began to notice in his later years that rationalisation was not a Western style only, but that some forms of rationalisation also existed in non-Western regions such as China, as "the son of modern European culture". However, as a "son of modern European culture", he was most concerned with the unique and special form of rationalisation and rationalism in modern Western culture. It is the Protestant ethic, a form of rationalised ethics, that has led to the emergence of "social rationalisation", or what Habermas calls "individual rationalisation", or what Schluchter calls "pragmatic rationalism", or what Hennessy calls "pragmatic rationalism". or Habermas's "individual rationalisation", or Schluchter's "pragmatic rationalism", or Hennessey's "disciplinieserung" and "methodisierung" of people's behaviour in life. Weber linked the "Protestant ethic" to the "spirit of capitalism", with the former giving birth to the latter and furthering the process of rationalisation in the West as a whole.

2. Interpreting the "Iron Cage of Reason" and the Fate of Modern Man

However, the process of rationalisation and rationalism in modern societies can also fall into the discrepancy between purpose and result and the deviation between subjectivity and objectivity due to the following three modes of development (including but not limited to).

Constructed rationality in the Enlightenment is the first manifestation of rationalism, and the extreme of this manifestation is revolution, because this rationalism believes in man's perfect design of the social order, and believes that man's rationality can bring about man's own well-being, and that man is able to design a perfect set of political, economic, and social order to serve as an environment for man's survival and life. Therefore, this form of rationalism has a Platonic-like utopian complex, typical of Rousseau's social contract theory or other kinds of utopian imaginations of a common world, and the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution are the practical products of this form of expression.

The second manifestation of rationalism is scientism and the ensuing logical positivism, which holds that human life and thought can be arranged in accordance with the patterns of natural science, and ultimately of mathematics, and that science is the only thing that allows human society to be perfectly organised, and which culminates in the predicament of the horrific threat of the atomic bomb and the complete isolationism of the world. "This form of rationalism ultimately leads to the predicament of the threat of atomic bombing and the loss of the human mind brought about by complete materialism.

The third manifestation of rationalism is the hierarchical bureaucracy and the modern rule of law, which represents the so-called modern view of order. The hierarchical bureaucracy is the most technologically developed form of organisation in history, and its appearance of specialisation and objectivity makes the whole system "calculable" to the highest degree. The rule of law, on the other hand, represents the arrangement of people's lives under the perfect legal design, and the construction of rationalism to design the mode of behaviour, the mode of interaction, the organisational form of the human order, as long as the law is perfect, people's lives will be perfect, the German Civil Code and the conceptual law are exactly the reflection of this form of manifestation in the law world, but the tension between a hierarchical bureaucracy based on formal or purposive rationality and the modern rule of law, as it develops into more and more sophistication, and the tension between it and democracy and liberty, is also growing (and this is what this paper is about).

Because of this, rationalisation itself is not the end of Weber's social theory, and the above mentioned dilemma of rationalism in modern society is also the proposition that Weber continues to focus on. Weber's central proposition in his study of the sociology of religion and politics is: after the "demythologisation" and rationalisation of the modern Western society, how can human freedom and human development be possible "especially under the conditions of a highly hierarchical and bureaucratic capitalist society"? How is human freedom and human development possible in modern Western societies after the "demystification" and rationalisation, "especially under the conditions of a highly bureaucratised capitalist society"?

According to the "Portrait of Weber's Thought" constructed by Parsons and Bendix, Weber held rationality in high esteem, and sang the symphony of rational optimism, believing that Western society had gone through the process of disenchantment and rationalisation, and confirming that the modern society of humanistic rationalism was the most rational system of all time in the development of society, and that the modern society of rationalism became the most rational system in the development of society, and that the modern society of rationalism was the most rational system in the development of society. The rationalist modern society became the accelerator of human freedom. Weber, with this orientation, also became the originator of the theory of modernisation and rationality in social development, thereby developing mainstream sociology in the United States.

At the other end of the spectrum, Lukács and Marcuse, in contrast to Parsons, argued that Weber's thought was strongly pessimistic, that modern society was the "least rational" form of society, that it greatly threatened the already scarce freedom of human beings, and that the development of rationalism had led to the unrestrained expansion of purposive rationality, which made it possible for The development of rationalism has led to the unbridled expansion of purposive reason, making people who pursue their own liberation and freedom become slaves of reason in the process of pursuing their own liberation and freedom.

These two very different Weberian images basically constitute the two poles of the core argument of Weber's social theory: one pole is that rationalisation is equal to modernisation, and that rationality leads to freedom; while the other pole is that rationalisation is equal to alienation and objectification, and that rationality leads to unfreedom. But perhaps everyone has a different Weber in his heart, this is not the key point of the problem, the key point of the problem is that, for the complex system of Weber's social theory, Weber's theory itself is not a rigorous unity, we have to "disenchantment" Weber himself when we understand Weber and interpret Weber's text, and take into account Weber's temporal variability, experimental and exploratory nature of Weber's text, in order to reconstruct our respective images of Weber, to continue Weber's thinking and to develop Weber's questions, so that the image of Weber is the image of Weber with our own sense of problems, as someone said, "After all, the real followers of Weber are not to create a school of Weber, but rather, to ask questions together with Weber! ".

Both images of rationalisation are present in Weber's text, and the coexistence of these two images perhaps aptly illustrates the complexity of Weber's social theory in relation to the era in which Weber lived. In Weber's time, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Alexander's so-called "dream of reason" was in transition, the concept of social progress was no longer dominant, and irrationality as well as various kinds of "post-scholarships" gradually emerged to form a reflection on the concept of social progress. The complexity of Weber's proposition of rationalisation is in fact an epochal common theme shared by the social theorists of that generation, who actually experienced the process of transition from the dream of rationality to the nightmare of rationality. Not only Weber, but also the most influential and creative social theorists of the present generation, such as Turgot, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, all of their doctrines contain the aspect of the transformation of the dream of rationality.

Weber's problem domain has been focused on the question of how the fractured transition from tradition to modernity could produce such an original proposition, and in particular how modernisation could be achieved in the process of constructing the nation-state in Germany. He had great expectations for rationalisation and rationalism, or rather, he carried out his study of Protestant ethics and the spiritual proposition of capitalism with such expectations. In this sense, Weber did have the optimism of a "liberal" towards rationalisation, but it seems that the problem is not so simple. Due to the complex social background and the pulsations of the times, he seems to have maintained some kind of vigilance or pessimism towards rationality at the same time. This vigilance and pessimism also made him confused and disappointed with rationalism and the rationalisation of society. This confusion and disappointment led him to note that rationalism had led to the bureaucratisation, hierarchisation, programming, legalisation and efficiency of the entire social stratum, a trend that could not be changed and had become the destiny of modern man. This was also the theoretical destiny of Weber's generation of social thinkers: when Weber wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century that "the rose-coloured flush of the Enlightenment (rationality) is irretrievably fading", he had already sketched out the bleakness that constituted an entire generation.

Weber's gloomy feelings about rationalisation and rationalism come to a head at the end of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, when he argues that modern societies, having rationalised the 'social order' by means of the Protestant Ethic, the rationalising ethic, have gradually achieved (to borrow Luhmann's phrase) autopoiesis ('the social order'), and "no longer needs the support of this spirit (Protestant ethic)". For modern man, after rationalisation, has transformed the once "light cloak" that could be readily removed from the shoulders of the Puritans into the "iron cage" (StahlhartesGehäuse) that confronts modern man. This is Weber's famous metaphor of the "iron cage of reason". The metaphor of the "iron cage of reason" is a fundamental concept in Weberian social theory, as is "alienation" in early Marxian texts, "objectification" in Lukács' theory, or "colonisation of the lifeworld" in Habermas' context. This metaphor not only symbolises the helplessness of human beings in the face of the shift from "religious and ethical choices" to "economic necessity" as the driving force of their career choices, but also symbolises the inability to break free from the "vast order of the modern economy", which dominates all human beings. It also symbolises the helplessness of all human beings who are dominated by the "vast order of the modern economy" and are unable to break free from it. In addition, from the capitalist economic order, the whole modern society is full of "iron cages", especially the hierarchical bureaucracy and formal Socio-Legal in the legal and political fields, which are the institutional elements for the existence and development of the capitalist economic order.

In addition to his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber used this metaphor in his discussion of serfdom, bureaucracy, and the welfare state: "The iron cages towards a new slavery are everywhere, and the 'benevolentfeudalism' in the United States is the only one of its kind, the so-called 'welfare provision' in Germany and even the factory system in Russia"; "Can this possibly mean that modern industrial labour will smash through the iron cage? No! Rather it means that business operations which take the form of state ownership or some form of 'communaleconomy' will also be bureaucratised".

It may be debatable how pessimistic Weber was when he used the metaphor of the "iron cage" to express his concern for a rationalised modern society, but it is here that the sense of the problem in Weber's vision can be shared by all who think about modernity. When "God is dead," human-based rationalism replaced religious-god-based rationalism, which not only meant "demystification," but also implied the fate of modern man. Since then, the development of rationalism has been completely stripped of its religious garb, and the division of professions has created a group of "soulless experts"; and the modern man in the dust of the world has lost the support of his soul and mind, which makes his whole state of life in the "floating state" with no roots. "and become "indulgers without heart and soul". The operation of capitalist society, which is completely marketised, professionalised and depersonalised, has enslaved modern man to the economic order of "making money for the sake of making money", and at the same time to the universalisation of the bureaucratic system, whereby man has not only become a walking corpse that cares only about making money, but has also become an inanimate screw in the organisational machine. （Mr. Power and Ms. Money form the "iron cage" of modern man's rationality, or (to borrow Habermas's words) the economic and political system's all-encompassing domination (colonisation) of the lifeworld.

The iron cage of rationality in Weber's vision is like Marx's concern for social alienation and commodification, which is the concentration of the theoretical dilemma after the emergence of the modernity problem; and the proposition of the iron cage of rationality itself also constitutes one of the key points of the complexity of Weber's social theory, which is also referred to as "ambivalence"in Weber's treatment of rationality by Karl Löwith. Karl Löwith also takes Weber's "ambivalence" towards reason as the central theme of his comparison between Weber and Marx. The outbreak of a world war further deepened Weber's examination of the proposition of the iron cage of reason, which was also the second "breakthrough" in Weber's academic career. Perhaps, as scholars say, Weber did not "discover any previously undiscovered problem domains, or he did not discover such problem domains on his own" in his explanation of the fate of modern Western society since the Enlightenment, but the depth of Weber's understanding and interpretation of rationality and rationalism is one of the reasons why his social theories became one of the three classic traditions of sociology. sociological classical traditions.

3. The two sides of sectional bureaucracy

After the process of what Weber called "demystification" and rationalisation, people in the modern world are no longer haunted by the mysterious, esoteric and magical things that used to pervade their lives and confuse them, but the result of rationalisation has not led to a solution to the problem of modernity. Weber lived in an era when capitalism was developing from the stage of liberal capitalism to the stage of state monopoly capitalism, but, as mentioned earlier, social theorists of this era were perplexed by the shift from the dream of rationality to the nightmare of rationality, and this perplexity came from the fact that all the aspects of social life in this era showed unbridgeable divisions, conflicts, contradictions and tensions. Weber's confusion stems from the tension between formal and substantive reason, between purposive and value reason, in the vein of humanistic rationalism in modern society. If the conflict between the market economy (the circulation economy of formal rationality) and the planned economy (the regulating economy of substantive rationality) noted by Weber is a manifestation of the rationality dilemma in the economic field, then the duality of the sectional bureaucracy and the dilemma of the modern rule of law (as discussed in Part 5 below) is a concentrated manifestation of Weber's "iron cage of rationality" dilemma in the legal and political fields.

As noted above, there is a confrontation between the "most rational" and the "least rational" views of modern society, and similarly there is a confrontation between the most efficient and the least efficient systems, which are considered to be apt descriptors of modern society, and even when they are criticised, all political factions can damn them. as Beetham puts it, "there is scarcely an evil that cannot, in some degree, be reckoned to its account". And while the modern bureaucracy endures all these curses, it survives stubbornly, and while we can dislike it, we cannot ignore its existence.

Weber was not the first scholar to discuss bureaucracy, and certainly not the last, but in terms of influence and controversy aroused, there is no equal. Sectional bureaucracy in Weber's context is an important proposition of his political sociology and is closely related to the theory of justified types of rule. Using his ideal-type methodology, Weber distinguishes three types of legitimacy (Geltung) rule: juridical rule based on rationality, traditional rule based on habitus and constancy, and chrismatic rule based on charismatic personalities. While the first two types of rule do not require a hierarchical bureaucratic management staff (a bureaucratic class), in modern societies, juridical rule has gradually become a form of superior rule, in which people are no longer subordinated to a particular person (based on a particular status or charisma), but rather are subordinated to a set of rational, objective, and dehumanised legal rules; they are subordinated to those who rule from a certain position, but the scope of subordination is limited to that position's jurisdiction. Thus, modern bureaucracy (as opposed to traditional bureaucracy with its traces of family property) is a model of proper rule by means of a hierarchical managerial staff that carries out orders, the most important features of which are the separation of the public and private spheres, legally defined competences, hierarchies of authority and appointment of subordinates by superiors, paperwork and regulations, specialised divisions of labour, dehumanised management, and comprehensive social security and retirement benefits. The modern hierarchical bureaucracy is pervasive throughout society, both public and "private," "in churches, in the state, in the military, in political parties, in profit-making enterprises, in interest groups, in foundations, in clubs, and so on. It is, of course, the bureaucracy, as the administrative organisation of the political system, which constitutes the core concept of Weber's political sociology, that Weber focuses on the most intensively, and with the greatest intensity, as the administrative organisation of the political system.

According to Weber, the process of modernisation in Europe, that is, the process of rationalisation, has led to the full realisation of the "rationalisation" of social life in modern man. Not only is the whole of life an "action system" governed by "purposive rationality", which is "distinguished from the kind of action that follows traditionalism or custom by a clear definition of purpose and by a calculation of the increasingly precise and most effective ways of achieving it"; but the system of action of modern man is also "controlled by clear rules ", involving the application of specialised concepts and knowledge, and being "systematically arranged into coherent wholes".

Thus, according to Weber, the bureaucracy is the very "paradigm" that embodies the rational life of the modern man, and "the degree of development of the bureaucracy" "provides the decisive measure for the modernisation of the state", and "is the decisive measure for the modernisation of the state". "is the universal destiny of modern society". This is the first facet of bureaucracy in Weber's vision, in the image of a purely bureaucratic type of managerial organisation - i.e., the sectional bureaucracy with its monolithic leadership, "which is the most rational of the known ways of exercising dominion over mankind"; in terms of clarity, stability, strictness of discipline, and trustworthiness; it is superior to other forms of organisation; anyone can calculate the consequences of its actions; and it is superior to other types of organisation in terms of pure technology, efficiency, and breadth of operation. Weber, in his exhaustive enumeration of the virtues of the bureaucracy, saw its development as the root of the construction of the modern Western state.

But this is far from being the whole face of bureaucracy in Weber's eyes, and perhaps behind all the praise lies his deep concern. Bureaucracy is far from being a mere technical tool for the "rationality" and "efficiency" of modern society. It has an inherent tendency to develop beyond its instrumental function, to make itself a separate force in society, and thus to exert a countervailing influence on society. According to Bitham's reading, Weber already recognised the separateness of bureaucratic organisations in terms of empirical phenomena: "Bureaucratic organisations constitute a separated group of powers in government and a separated class of identities in society".

Thus a second aspect of bureaucracy emerges, which may be "transgressive", "alienating", transforming itself from a "rational", "efficient" technical tool into a "rational", "efficient", "efficient", "efficient", "efficient", "efficient", "efficient", "efficient", "efficient", "efficient" and "efficient" technical tool. It may "transgress" and "alienate" itself from a "rational" and "efficient" technological tool to an "iron cage" for the control of the members of society. In his interpretation of the meaning of bureaucracy, Schluchter states that in Weber's context, "Bureaucracy in the broadest sense of the word can exist in any space and time, as long as a group of managerial employees - regardless of their internal structure - succeeds in hiding behind a legitimate ruler or openly acquires a position of authority over the people of the country. bureaucracy in the narrower sense simply means that "the managerial staff, selected on the basis of their professional qualifications, whose official position is physically separated from the technical resources of management, and who are bound by regulations, succeeds in arrogating to themselves the power of the legitimate rulers". In the third type of deformed bureaucracy, political behaviour is actually expressed only in the central administration, while the rest of the social sphere is more or less relegated to the status of an "object of manipulation". Reading between the lines of Schluchter's text, there is a certain concern that the bureaucracy, defined in this way, is no longer a symbol of efficient rationality, but rather a machine for the manipulation of power. In the words of Habermas, "the whole of social reality seems to degenerate into an organisational reality that is objectified and disconnected from normative ties" and "they are indifferent to culture, society and the individual". Thus, as Weber analyses it, "the continuous management of professionals" is "almost an illusion". Professionalism itself is alienated from "trustworthiness" to "dependence"; it is either the "bureaucratisation" of professionalism or the "amateurisation" of professionalism. Either "bureaucratisation" of specialisation, or "amateurisation" of the dilemma of the modern man under the rule of hierarchical bureaucracy.

Behind Weber's smile of pleasure at the rational character of the bureaucracy, which he repeats so painstakingly in his tireless discussion of the bureaucracy, lies a hidden worry about its iron cage: first, the bureaucracy separates a group or class of people from the nation-state, which usurps too many political functions, exceeds its limitations as a tool of management, and becomes alienated or usurped, with disastrous consequences for the government or other governing organisations. alienation or usurpation, with disastrous consequences for the government or other governing organisations, and even the collapse of the entire bureaucracy in the event of political problems.

Secondly, once the sectional bureaucracy is formed, it will become a self-created system with an anti-democratic tendency; the inevitable tendency of sectional bureaucratisation, the lack of vitality to form a formalistic, utilitarian, huge and comprehensive bureaucratic organisation, how is it possible that the freedom of the modern man will be shrouded in this bureaucratic network? In Weber's own words, "How on earth can the legacy of individual freedom of action be truly preserved in the face of the unstoppable trend towards sectional bureaucratisation?"

Once again, the bureaucracy uses its expertise (technology) and knowledge of the bureaucracy (the way to be a bureaucrat) to fuel its own demands for profit, and one of the essential features of the bureaucracy is its "secrecy", whereby bureaucrats monopolise information in the name of "secrecy", thus avoiding the need to accept the bureaucracy's demands for information. Bureaucrats will, in the name of "secrecy", monopolise certain information so as to avoid monitoring from outside the bureaucracy (the public). The more the hierarchical bureaucracy develops, the higher the degree of secrecy, and even the concept of "job secrets" itself is a "special invention" of the bureaucracy. This is in tension with the democratisation of modern society, the openness of administration, and even the right to information of members of society.

Weber sighed helplessly in this regard: if bureaucracy "differs from other historical vehicles of modern and rational ways of organising life, the difference is that bureaucracy is much more difficult to escape from."

Through a process of rationalised demythologisation, people seek to control their external environment in order to enhance their own freedom, but often at the same time they contribute to the forces that bind them. Weber's discussion of the two sides of bureaucracy is the best interpretation of his theory of the "iron cage of rationality", the paradox of the "irrationalisation of rationalization", and the alienation of means into ends. The paradox of "irrationalisation of rationalisation" is also an example of the alienation of means into ends.

Weber's description of the two sides of bureaucracy is aimed at modern capitalist society. On the one hand, the emergence of bureaucracy is a manifestation of the rationalisation of social life, whereby the economy becomes a system that achieves a "combination of fixed capital, free labour, specialisation in rational work, and rational work", and on the other hand, bureaucratisation is a symbol of the transition from early liberal capitalism to an "age of brick walls". On the other hand, the bureaucratisation of the bureaucracy symbolised the transition from early liberal capitalism to an "age of brick walls". As mentioned earlier, capitalism became a self-created system, divorced from religious ethics, and formal rationality, along with the "nationalisation", "cartelisation" and "economic clerkship" brought about by bureaucratisation, began to destroy liberalism. "began to destroy the premises of liberalism. Weber noted, moreover, that this tendency towards rational bureaucratisation was irreversible, which made him sceptical of the popular socialists' assertion that "rational" socialism could bring the tendency towards bureaucratisation to a standstill. Weber pointed out that the ideals of the socialists prevented them from realising that "perhaps this tendency to sectional bureaucratisation will be intensified even more after the transition to socialism"; "if people who are controlled by the bureaucracy attempt to escape the influence of the existing bureaucratic organisation, it is generally only possible to create another organisation. This organisation, however, will be equally bureaucratised"; "Socialism, in fact, requires a higher form of bureaucratisation than capitalism", but "the separation of the worker from the means of production resulting from the capitalist mode of production to which socialist theory ascribes is the product of the functioning of the bureaucracy. is precisely the product of bureaucratic operations". Weber also argued that a society in which economic provision is entirely dominated by public ownership and state planning will experience "economic stagnation" and "slavery", and that the more the state bureaucracy encroaches on the market, the more it becomes a force for economic stagnation.

Ideology aside, Weber's thesis is not in fact a complete rejection of Marx; from a historical point of view, he agrees with Marx's discussion of the relationship between capitalism and bureaucratisation, and the potentially revolutionary impact that bureaucratisation can have on the total domination of society as a whole, and, in fact, exemplifies Marx's notion of alienation, in that bureaucracy, the social force that mankind has used to escape from a state of inefficiency, has gradually developed into a force for economic stagnation. state, gradually develops into a social force that makes man subservient. More importantly, some of his worries about socialism were indeed prophetic in the course of socialist practice in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Weber also sought a way out of the rigid tendencies of the bureaucracy, "how to ensure that the bureaucracy is honestly subordinated to the authority of the politician in terms of administrative efficiency and power - power that serves a defined purpose and is accountable". In his voluminous work, Weber contemplated, in Albro's summary, "a large number of mechanisms for limiting the scope of authority in general, and of bureaucracy in particular", which were classified as "collegiality", "separation of powers", "non-departmentalisation". These mechanisms are divided into five categories: "collegiality", "decentralisation", "lay management", "direct democracy", and "representative government". The most important of these is Weber's analysis of the resistance of parliamentary democracy to bureaucracy.

Although, the bureaucracy is inherently self-created to resist outside interference, when confronted with parliament, the bureaucracy, based on "its power instincts, tries to thwart any attempts by parliament to obtain expertise from the stakeholders in its own way (e.g., through the so-called 'parliamentary power of enquiry')". ". Poverty of information and ignorance and incompetence are the images of parliament that the sectional bureaucracy is happy to see, as well as, of course, other external images, including the lay monarch, and the general public. Weber analyses two types of parliaments, a "symbolic" constitutional system, such as in Russia and Germany, which is weak and "can neither produce talent nor train political leaders", a "parliament utterly powerless" (parliament utterly powerless). "The other is a strong parliament, such as in Britain, where "the government is legally responsible to Parliament, and the members of Parliament are the normal source of government officials". In Weber's eyes, parliament is supposed to be strong, to recruit and nurture leaders, and thus to provide a modicum of control over the bureaucratic government, and, according to Weber, it is "the only feasible way to conform to the conditions of democracy in our time". Of course, Weber seems to have been a little premature in saying whether this was necessarily the only feasible way, and the irrational elements and informal organisation within the bureaucracy that Weber ignored seem to have had a counterproductive effect on the rationalised formal organisation, and to have become a variable to be reckoned with in the dynamics of bureaucratic ossification; a half-century after his death, countries such as the United States embarked on the vigorous New Public Management movement to transform the sectional bureaucracy; scholars such as Habermas also reconstructed rationalism and legitimised the operation of political power with theories such as the proceduralist law paradigm and communicative power. These developments in practice and theory were perhaps unforeseen by Weber.

Of course, Albro's generalisation seems to overlook Weber's fascination with Kisma, whose cyclical appearance is, in Weber's vision, a 'revolutionary force' against the iron cage of rationality represented by the bureaucratic hierarchy. Of course, this is not only about bureaucracy, but also about the fate of the formal rule of law in the modern state.

4. The dilemma of the modern rule of law

If hierarchical bureaucracy is the characteristic of the organisational form of modern society, then the rule of law is the characteristic of the behavioural mode of modern society, which, together with the capitalist market economic order that gives priority to efficiency, constitutes the basic orientation of the construction of the modern Western social order in Weberian perspective, and has become a unique way of life in the human world.There has been a very prosperous discussion in the twentieth century on the development of the rule of law in the modern era, and its dilemma and way out. In the twentieth century, discussions on the development of the modern rule of law and its dilemma and the way out flourished. Some of the more famous ones are Unger's "customary law", "bureaucratic law" and "legal order", Nonet and Selznick's "repressive law", "autonomous law" and "legal order". Nonnette and Selznick's "repressive law", "autonomous law" and "responsive law"; Toibner's formal (purposive) rationality, substantive rationality and "reflexive law" (reflective rationality). "Habermas' "Formal Law Paradigm", "Welfare Law Paradigm" and "Proceduralist Law Paradigm", as well as the various "democratic substantive rule of law theories". However, the source of these discussions lies in Weber, in the final analysis, the above discussion is in the new era background and academic vein to rethink Weber in the late 19th century and the early 20th century: how to solve the crisis of the formal rationality in modern Socio-Legal and the related formal rationality of the law, that is, modern rule of law, how to break free from the "rationality of the iron cage" bondage? How can the modern rule of law break free from the "iron cage of reason"?

In Weber's discussion of rationality, there are two pairs of categories of particular importance, one is the purpose of rationality and value rationality, and the second is the formal rationality and substantive rationality. Many scholars have confused these two pairs of categories, equating purposive rationality with formal rationality and value rationality with substantive rationality. In fact, however, there is a subtle difference between these two pairs of categories, which appear in different problem domains of Weberian social theory.

Purpose and value rationality are closely related to Weber's rationality of social action. Of Weber's four types of social action, traditional action (action determined by deep-seated habits) and affective action (action determined by the emotional and sensory states of the moment) belong to the community (Vergemeinschaftung), while purposive action (action determined by expectations of the external environment and the actions of others, which are treated as "conditions" or "means" of the ends pursued and rationally calculated by the actor) and value rational action (action determined by conscious expectation of the actions of others, which are treated as "conditions" or "means" of the ends pursued and rationally calculated by the actor). (action determined by expectations of the external environment and the actions of others, which are treated as "conditions" or "means" for the ends pursued and rationally calculated by the actor) and value-rational action (action determined by the conscious conviction that certain specific behaviours have an ethical, aesthetic or moral value). --ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other forms of self-worth, purely on the basis of faith, and not on the basis of expectations of success or failure) belong to the social (or conjunctive, Vergesellschaftung), although the first two can be rationalised through "rationalisation", and the second through "rationalisation", as a "condition" or "means" of the end pursued and rationally calculated by the actor. Of course, the first two can be transformed into the second two actions through the processes of 'rationalisation' and 'demystification', which, according to Weber, are closely related to the processes of ethical and social rationalisation, and at the same time, the tension between them is closely linked to the tension between ethical rationalisation and social rationalisation. rationalisation. But it is in this process of rationalisation, in which tensions are intertwined, that, in addition to the tension between value reason and purposive reason, the position of value-neutrality in fact recognises the plurality of values, and thus creates a conflict between the different value rationalities, i.e. the 'war of the gods'; or even whether purposive reason also divides itself into a number of forms, which then create tensions between them? Even more, does purposive rationality divide into several forms, which then create tensions between them? In addition, it should be noted that the concepts of purposive rationality and value rationality in Weber's context are derived from the concepts of human action and motivation of action, which are mainly concerned with the subjective state of "man", whereas formal rationality and substantive rationality are mainly concerned with the objective orientations of rules, systems, or institutions, which do not directly correspond to the subjective action or motivation of man. Formal and substantive rationality, on the other hand, are mainly concerned with the objective orientation of rules, systems or institutions, and do not directly correspond to the subjective actions or motives of human beings.

Therefore, in political and legal sociology, it seems difficult to continue to use the pair of categories of value and purpose rationality as an analytical tool. Therefore, Weber tried to choose the pair of categories of formal and substantive rationality to solve the various "rational disputes" in modern society, especially in the construction of modern social order.

Weber's efforts began with the ideal type of law, and he used the concepts of formal/substantive and rational/non-rational to construct the internal logical structure of his sociology of law. The degree of formalisation of law (i.e. the degree of autonomy of the legal system) and the degree of rationalisation of law (i.e. the degree of universality and generalisation of the legal rules) became the mark of differentiation of the law, and thus four types of law were formed: the formal irrational law, the substantive irrational law, the substantive rational law, and the substantive rational law. irrational law, substantive rational law, and formal rational law (see Figure 1).

Although Weber's types of law are ideal classifications, in fact, in the grand narrative of comparative historical sociology, he adopted the evolutionary position of "proximity of choice" (Wahlverandschaft), and the four types of law seem to be able to find the trajectory of their transformations and changes in the course of history. According to Weber, theoretically speaking, law and litigation have gone through four stages: firstly, the "legal prophets" (legal prophets) "Krisma" style "apocalyptic law" stage, which is a combination of formalism and irrationality with strong theological colours; then the development of the legal family and the legal profession; and then the development of the legal family and the legal profession. This is a combination of formalism and irrationality with a strong theological flavour; then the legal honoratiores created or discovered laws based on experience, which is the stage of substantive irrationality, and abstract legal rules have not yet been formed, the most typical of which is the Islamic "qadi justice"; the third stage is the stage of theocracy and the implementation of law by secular hereditary monarchs, which is the stage of substantive rationality. The third stage is the theocracy and secular hereditary monarchs to implement the law, is the stage dominated by substantive rationality, of course, this stage may not be experienced by all Socio-Legal; the last stage, but also Weber's most respected stage, at this time, the rationality of logical formalism and the systematic dominance of the legal system with rigorous training in law specialised jurists to carry out systematic Socio-Legal and judicial trial work, into the formal rationality of the stage of the law. Weber's mind the most typical formal rational law is influenced by the Roman law of modern European civil code (especially the German civil code) and Germany's Pendleton jurisprudence, which is also Weber's vision of "jurisprudential rule", that is, the basis of the modern rule of law in the West. Although Weber gradually noticed in his later years that there was not only a rationalised form, but also a different form of rationality in Britain, and even in the far East, than in continental Europe, this did not lead Weber to rational relativism, and the modern Western rule of law, dominated by formal rational law, was the most admired mode of social order in Weber's mind, and it was only in the West (or even only in continental Europe) that there was a legal profession based on the formal rational law that was rationally formulated and applied. formal rational law formulated and applied by rationality. This is because the "calculable" character of the development of Western capitalism creates an urgent need for strict formal law and litigation, while the formation of the state bureaucracy required by the rationalisation of society also requires the systematisation or codification of law. It is the combination of ethical rationalisation and social rationalisation that has shaped the "unique" rule of law order of the modern West.

However, like the concern with the duplicity of bureaucracy, Weber was also anxious about the dilemma of the modern rule of law. This anxiety, as mentioned above, became the starting point for many scholars to continue to ask questions and think about it in the twentieth century.

Although Weber tried to use formal reason and substantive reason to replace purposive reason and value reason as the basic conceptual categories for analysing the modern Western rule of law order in the perspective of comparative historical sociology, although this pair of categories may be able to avoid many conflicts and tensions arising from purposive reason and value reason, at the same time, it also brings its own conflicts and tensions. But at the same time, it also brings its own conflict, "substantive" rationality, containing too many value factors, although Weber's sociology of law in the vision of the law, is an autonomous, self-contained, self-correcting system, such as analysing the concept of law in positivist jurisprudence, but still can not escape from the substantive value of the law of the "erosion" of the law. "Erosion", the pursuit of value and ultimate meaning, itself is the modern rule of law order should mean. As a way of arranging the order of human life, the "rule of law" or formal rational law itself is not the "end", but only "means", the real purpose, or the ultimate significance is to The real purpose, or ultimate meaning, is the pursuit of human emancipation (freedom) and happiness. Formal rational law provides the predictability and calculability of life, but it cannot provide the sense of meaning and value satisfaction of human life, just as capitalism, which has got rid of the Protestant ethic, has become a machine system that generates money by money, and human beings, the living organism, have lost their subjectivity in this machine system. So Weber repeatedly stressed the modern rule of law "anti-formal" became Weber had to face a phenomenon. Re-search for the substantive or value elements of law, become an important indicator of the transformation of the modern rule of law order.

The "iron cage of rationality" is becoming more and more intense in modern society. Liberal capitalism hopes that formal rationality will keep the power of the state in the smallest possible range, but the state obtains a source of legitimacy through the daily management of formal rationality, and the sectional bureaucracy is "legitimised by legitimacy" (legitimacy) by virtue of "the legitimacy of legitimacy" (legitimacy). By virtue of "legitimacy through legality", the bureaucracy pervades the whole society, not only consolidating the executive power, but also gradually depriving the parliament of its control over the legislative power in the name of enabling legislation. The desire to "minimise the state" was frustrated, the state became a Leviathan-like behemoth, and individual freedom became the freedom of the state to regulate in the name of the law. The political system of hierarchical bureaucracy and formal rational law, coupled with the efficiency-oriented market economy, have formed a three-pronged "iron cage" of power, money and law, which dominates the world of life, and human beings have become the slaves of power, money and law.

The expansion of state power actually deviates from the original intention of formal rational law, and the tendency of "anti-formalisation" (materialisation) in Weber's field of vision actually buries the seed of totalism, which Weber did not want to see, but could do nothing about it. Formal rational law produces the "rigidity of routinisation" and has to be substantiated. Only by adding the element of substantive values can the modern rule of law gain vitality, but the tendency to substantiate with the addition of substantive values leads to the expansion of the power of the state, and thus enters into a dilemma, which can be seen in Weber's critique of Marx and his criticism of socialism. From Weber's criticism of Marx and his concern for socialism, we can also see this dilemma and struggle in his heart.

5. Periodic appearance of "Krisma"

Weber's attempt to break out of the iron cage of rationality created by hierarchical bureaucracy, formal rationality, and the efficiency-first market economy is evidenced by the evolution of his concept of kisma. In the early days, Weber's concept of kisma mainly referred to a type of authority that existed in pre-modern societies, such as "heroes, prophets, saviours" associated with "witchcraft", doctors, judges, and other leading figures, or such as "brave warriors", and so on. However, Weber's concept of kisma in the later period is centred on "a source of creative action oriented towards an otherworldly form of personal ideal values", which is on a conception of kisma that is different from "conventionality", "routine", as opposed to "eventfulness", "creativity", "suddenness". The "instantaneous", "creative", and "sudden". Kisma-type authority can exist in pre-modern societies as well as in modern ones. Unlike the other two of Weber's three types of authority (domination), the juridical domination is a "rationally transformed version" of the traditional domination, both of which are structures of constancy, while the kisma is "transcendental" (Außeralltägliche). Kisma is an "Außalltägliche" (transcendental) structure, which, unlike the constant "tradition" or "rationality", is not subject to any "custom" or rule. In Socio-Legal, therefore, there is a tension between Krisma's qualities and the juridical rule of "formal rational law" and hierarchical bureaucracy, a pair of "constant" and "extraordinary", "changing" and "unchanging". It is a tension between the "usual" and the "extraordinary", between the "changing" and the "unchanging". Attention to this tension is an important part of Weber's treatment of the proposition of "iron cage of reason", and hope and worry leap out on the paper, becoming the "antinomical structure" in Weber's legal and political theory.

In Weber's writing, Krisma's appearance in modern society is a "revolutionary force" that breaks the iron cage of rationality formed by the modern rule of law based on formal rationality, hierarchical bureaucratic rule, and efficiency-prioritised market economy, etc., and it brings dynamic power to the operation of law and politics to fight against the conventionalised formal rationality and make the rigid system possible to change. It brings dynamic forces to the workings of law and politics, countering conventionalised formal rationality and making change possible in rigid institutions. "Krisma ...... crushes all rules and traditions and in doing so inverts all notions of sacredness. It transforms deference to what has been customary and therefore sacred in ancient times into a forced inner submission to what is unprecedented, absolutely unique, and therefore sacred." This theory, with its religious connotations, became one of the central elements of Weber's "iron cage of reason" concern. The most important type of modern kisma in Weber's vision is the "plebiscitarian leader democracy", in which a "dynamic and passionate leader who serves the national interest and has a strong personality" plays a key role. In this system, a "dynamic and passionate leader with a strong personality serving the interests of the nation" plays a dominant role, thus breaking through the iron cage of rationality and obtaining the "free space of movement" for modern human existence.

However, can this solution really free modern man from the iron cage of reason?

On the one hand, in the operation of this "Caesar-style" "leader's democracy", since the leader can hardly tolerate the existence of any independent power outside of him, then in fact this system will be transformed into a "free" system in which the leader's personal power is arbitrary, while for the general public, the "free" system will be a "free" system in which the leader's personal power is arbitrary. For the masses of the population, although escaping the shackles of conventionalisation, they are caught in a situation where they lose the possibility of individual thought through the cult of the Krisma leader, and thus actually lose their freedom, a danger that Weber noted was latent in Germany under Bismarck's rule; not only that, but also that, when such a leader takes the "state" and "nation" for granted, it is not easy to see how he can be a "free man", as he is not a "free man". Not only that, but also when such a leader, in the name of the "nation" and the "people", under the pretext of the "enemy" or the "war", replaces the "individual" by the "collective". In the name of the "state" and the "nation" and under the pretext of the "enemy" or "war", the "collective" is substituted for the "individual", and the "freedom of the state" for the "freedom of the individual", thus depriving the general public of their total freedom. The Nazi Germany after Weber's death and Hitler's rise to power to form a daunting fascist rule is a good portrayal of this.

On the other hand, the possibility of conventionalisation exists in Krisma itself. Once the kisma has entered the system, there is a tug-of-war between it and the modern rule of law and bureaucracy, which are formally rationalised, in what Weber called the 'discipline versus kisma', where 'the most irresistible of all is the discipline of reason, which eradicates not only the kisma of the individual, but also the hierarchical ranks of status and honour, or, at least, the hierarchical ranks of the hierarchy'. The most irresistible of all is the discipline of reason, which not only eradicates the individual kisma, but also removes, or at least rationally deforms, the hierarchy based on status and honour. As mentioned above, the kisma corresponds to "constancy" and its qualities are imbued with the characteristics of eventuality, which, in another way, is instability, which cannot be stable and lasting over time, but which will eventually become conventionalised: legalised or traditionalised. Such regularisation is not only necessary for the maintenance of a functioning community or society, but is also in the interest of the leader's followers, "followers, disciples, party workers or others", who wish to maintain the relationship on a "stable, everyday basis". Even if Christma's rule were to be sustained, the various relationships of succession between the old and new Christma would not escape routinisation.

Thus, Weber's solution to the "iron cage of reason" becomes an "opium" for the "desperate liberal". Firstly, the materialisation of formal rationality may well constitute a new dilemma; secondly, it seems too early to say whether strong parliaments are the only legitimate mode of countering sectional bureaucracies; and thirdly, the emergence of the kisma, or even the "cyclical emergence" of the kisma, constitutes a kind of cycle (cf. Fig. 2), perhaps a cycle that entails a great social cost, especially in the case of the "iron cage of reason" of Weber. Perhaps it is a cycle with a high social cost, especially in the phases of 'routinisation' and 'breaking the cage'. Weber promoted rationality, especially formal/purposeful rationality, and considered formal rational Socio-Legal and hierarchical bureaucracy dominated by formal/purposeful rationality (or also efficiency oriented capitalist market economy) as the basic elements of modern societies, but tolerated the irrational intervention of "Kisma"; he promoted the rule of law, but the dilemma of the rule of law requires the use of Kisma as the basis for the rule of law, and the rule of law as the basis for the rule of law. The dilemma of the rule of law needs to be solved by a Krisma-type leader, who has been called the "Machiavelli of Germany", caught in a circular maze of "rule of man" and "rule of law".

Themodern Western politics in the post-Weberian era is, as Weber predicted, tornbetween the "rule of law" of formal rationality and the democracy ofthe Kisma leader or the welfare state of substantive rationality, which provesthat Weber's worries about the "iron cage of rationality" are notjust a fantasy, but also confirms the helplessness of Weber's solutions. At thesame time, it also confirms the existence of Weber's solution to a variety ofhelplessness; and the post-Weber era of social theory and legal theory, Weber's"iron cage of reason" and its solution to continue to discuss,criticise, reflect and reconstruct, but also constitutes a bright landscape ofthe Western academic community. The series of theories (including but notlimited to) mentioned by the author at the beginning of this part are among thehighlights. In particular, Habermas continues the "unfinishedbusiness" of modernity theory on the basis of Weber's "iron cage ofreason" proposition. Habermas explains Weber's formal law of reason interms of the "formal law paradigm" dominated by "formallegitimacy" and the "welfare law paradigm" dominated by"substantive legitimacy". "Welfare law paradigm" to explainWeber's view of the "materialisation" of formal rational law and thepost-Weberian "welfare state". Like Weber's concern for the dilemmaof the modern rule of law, Habermas's critique of the formal law paradigm isbased on the indulgence of purposive rationality and formal equality; similarly,his critique of the post-Weberian welfare law paradigm, which Weber had alreadynoted but not discussed, is also flawed, for example, the state's variousrestrictions on individual liberty based on the purpose of"safeguarding" the individual, and the state's "protection"of individual liberty. For example, the state's "limitations" onindividual freedom for the purpose of "safeguarding" the individualare similar to Weber's "iron cage" metaphor, while the bureaucracy,in the welfare state (which Weber called "materialisation"), is evenlarger and achieves the same results as the welfare state. In the welfare state(what Weber called "materialisation"), the bureaucracy is much largerand "self-programming". Habermas argues that neither of theseparadigms of law can solve the dilemma of modernity, and that all paths frompurposive rationality are blocked, leading to the dilemma of colonisation(domination) of the lifeworld through the political and economic system of law,and therefore the need for an alternative way out. Habermas criticises Weber'stheory for 'indulging purposive rationality' and equating capitalism with therationalisation of society; he replaces 'subjectivity' with 'intersubjectivity'to dissolve the tension between participant and observer. The tension betweenparticipant and observer, the tension between rationality (between the twopairs of rational categories mentioned above) is dissolved by"communicative rationality" (and communicative action) orientedtowards mutual understanding, and the tension between "administrativepower" in the bureaucratic system is replaced by the presence of"communicative power". By replacing the dominance of"administrative power" in the hierarchical bureaucracy with the appearanceof "communicative power", and by reconstructing the theory ofconsultative democracy with the communication between the established publicsphere and the unestablished public sphere, Habermas puts forward his paradigmof proceduralist law, in order to search for the real basis of legal legitimacyand to solve the dilemma of the rule of law in the modern era and even ofmodernity as a whole.

Justas Habermas and Weber can constitute a group of dialogues, so can Weber andMarx, and these dialogues are of great significance in clarifying the vein ofsocial rationality, and their theoretical worries about modernity also reflectthe theoretical responsibility and social commitment as social theorists facingall kinds of blockages, conflicts, problems and dilemmas existing in the socialtransformation and development, and perhaps their solutions to the dilemma ofmodernity are different. Perhaps their solutions to the dilemmas of modernityare different, but their state of mind in interpreting and transforming the worldis similar. With regard to rationalism, Weber's and Marx's social theories showvery different academic styles and interests, but although Weber analysed manyproblems (such as legal problems) more systematically, he could always findcorresponding discussions in Marx's canon scattered in many writings; Weber'stheory's core issues, argumentation and value concerns are particularly closeto Marx's, and even his proposition of the rationality cage is almost identicalto Marx's theory of alienation. The core issues of Weber's theory areparticularly close to Marx's, and even his proposition of the iron cage ofreason and Marx's thesis of alienation are practically "the same". Ina sense, this is true, and he has been called the "bourgeois Marx" bylater generations. Weber himself said: "The honesty of the modern scholar,and especially of the philosopher, can be measured by his attitude towardsNietzsche and Marx. Whoever refuses to admit that an important part of his ownwork could not have been completed without reference to the work of these twowriters is deceiving himself. The world that each of us mentally experiencestoday is already a world deeply influenced by Nietzsche and Marx."

Marxbelieved that although the capitalists or bourgeoisie owned state power and themeans of production, and had the power to make laws, they themselves createdtheir own gravediggers, the proletariat, whose eventual awakening led to theultimate destiny of the development of modern society towards acommunist/socialist society, which would inevitably replace capitalist society.This intense optimism led to a climax of rationalism in his doctrines, and wesay that the later doctrines of Lenin and the Russian Revolution were productsof this climax of rationalism. The strong optimism that Marx felt about thefate of modern society was tinged with melancholy, with a more complexambivalence about the timing of the replacement of capitalism by socialism orcommunism. Marx believed that perhaps a socialist society was only possibleafter a highly developed capitalist society, and that socialism could hardlyemerge without a highly developed capitalism, which, of course, differed fromthe later ideas and practices of the Russian style or other 20th centurysocialist states. He highly eulogised socialism and communism, but saw the needfor a highly developed capitalism as a prerequisite, and although he wasstrongly critical of capitalism, he seemed to be a little bit helpless againstits development, or his proposition of modernity was to painfully endure andwait for the development of capitalism for the reason that there was no brightprospect of communism without a highly developed capitalism.

Thisis not the case with Weber, who on the one hand praises capitalist society asthe most rationalised society, while at the same time carries a certainquestioning of the ideal of socialism. But he was tinged with strong pessimism.In Weber's eyes, capitalist society is the inevitable trend of modern socialdevelopment, rationality is developed to the highest stage, and law andpolitics are characterised by sectional bureaucracy and the modern rule of law(legal rationality-type rule), but the metaphor of the iron cage of rationalityis the lingering shadow of the mind of the modern man, and people will bepinched by the iron cage of rationality to clamp down on freedom in the pursuitof liberty, and even this clamping down of liberty may be given to the noblereason. The later emergence of Nazi Hitler also confirms that Weber was not unfounded.

6. Conclusion: Weber andthe Contemporary Chinese Context

Thereis no doubt that Weber's problem domain, problem consciousness and way ofthinking are all Western. When the modern West realised the fracturedtransition from traditional to modern society through the Renaissance, theReformation, the Enlightenment, and a series of political revolutions (whetherrepublican or liberal, or even socialist), the problem of modernity became alingering problem domain for social theorists, and all the All social theoristshave developed their theoretical constructs around the problem of modernity dueto the fractured transformation of society. As one of the three classic writersof social theory, Weber's diagnosis of the problem of modernity in Westernsocieties is full of insight; and as a comparative civilisation scholar, Weberalso has a lot of misunderstandings and misinterpretations of various phenomenain non-Western civilisations. However, Weber's misunderstanding andmisinterpretation orientation in the comparison of civilisations is equallyreflected in our misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Weber's theories(and even of many aspects of Western society). As non-Western scholars, itseems that only in the context of the history of ideas can we engage in virtualdialogue and synchronous thinking with Weber; while in more contexts, ourthinking about the social situations we face cannot be replaced by Weber'stheories (and other Western theories), but rather we need to construct our ownsocial theories from our own social situations, which is the dilemma of thescholars of the late modern countries, which is full of pluralism. This is thedilemma of scholars from late-modernising countries, which is fraught with thetension between pluralism and universalism. In contemporary Chinese academia,"localisation/nativization" or "Sinolization/Chineselize"has become increasingly popular. The notion that the question of "East andWest" is no longer the same as the question of "ancient andmodern" has gradually begun to become clearer. In this sense, China'scontemporary sense of academic autonomy, national consciousness or Chinesescholasticism is gradually increasing. However, it seems that we have to askwhether the proposition of the "iron cage of reason" has ever existedin the land where we live, whether it is modern, or whether it will (inevitablyor possibly) appear in the future. In what sense is this proposition universal?Is it possible for China to avoid or dissolve the tensions and conflicts broughtabout by the "iron cage of reason" in the process of its own socialtransformation? Do the theories that have replaced Weber in the post-Weberianera also have the significance of replacing Weber in the Chinese context? DoWeber's concerns about the socialist system and the corresponding dilemmasexperienced by the former Soviet Union's bureaucracy still have a positivewarning significance in China, which is deeply influenced by the Soviet model?All these questions are actually the author's own questions in the process ofwriting this article. In this sense, the author's analysis of Weber's"iron cage of reason" proposition may be a stopgap for this article,but for the proposition itself, it is only a beginning.

ForChina, which is moving towards modernisation, the rule of law and theconstruction of a national state (national renaissance), rationalisation isstill an unfinished goal, and modern China, which is in the midst of "agreat change not seen in thousands of years", is experiencing even moredisruptive social transformations than Western societies. Although some of usdon't like it, a great deal of modernity in Western society has indeed becomethe vision of our nation. The mode of legislative control of the living worlddominated by "legal transplants" has also become the main mode ofoperation of our political and economic systems, and the vigorous developmentof globalisation has deeply penetrated into every aspect of our lives.Globalisation has penetrated deeply into every aspect of our lives, and allkinds of pre-modern, modern and post-modern elements are entangled andcondensed in the same space-time, constituting a " contemporaneityof noncontemporaneous " (Glechzeitigkeit der Ungleichzeitigen). In such asocial situation, we may have realised early that "God is dead, and reasonis a dream", but there is still no way to find a better model of socialorder than the Rule of Law (Formal Rational Law), the hierarchical bureaucracyand the Socio-Legal system; although "rationalisation" has not yetbeen fully realised, "rationalisation" has not yet been fullyrealised, and "rationalisation" has not yet been fully realised."has not yet been fully realised, but the bureaucracy has spread in allaspects of social life, even the operation of the legislative and judicialpowers are also eroded by the bureaucracy; although we are in pursuit of therule of law and human freedom under the rule of law, but we also know that whensuch a quest may lead us to become a slave of the law as a procedure and asystem, in exchange for all kinds of unfreedom; we We also know that themodernisation path of rationalisation that we have chosen now leads to thepossibility of the "iron cage of reason", and the tension betweenirrationality/rationality, formal rationality/substantive rationality,purposive rationality/value rationality, and all kinds of value (purposive)rationality are still social realities we have to face; and the procedural lawparadigm and the "procedural law paradigm" as envisaged by Habermasare not the same as the "procedural law paradigm". The paradigm ofprocedural law and "world internal affairs without world government"conceived by Habermas, in contemporary China, where the tension between theconstruction of the nation-state and globalisation is becoming more and moreobvious, will it be suspected of being a utopia, just like other solutions tomodernity? This is a realistic portrayal of the current Chinese society and adilemma for contemporary Chinese people!

Notonly that, but all the above, rule of law, rationalisation, sectionalbureaucratisation, market economy, are they the ends of human existence, or arethey the means adopted by human beings in order to achieve the ends? When wethink about what is the iron cage of rationality, what are the two sides ofbureaucratisation, and what is the dilemma of formal rational law, what is thepurpose of solving these problems? Is there some higher goal in the midst ofour lives, existence and careers? Liberation? Freedom? Dignity? Or somethingelse? As the novelist Schoenberg says in his novel What Keeps Sammy Running?says, it is the running itself that keeps him running, the constant pursuit of successhas become the goal of life for modern man. So what exactly is the purpose ofmodern man, especially modern Chinese man? Perhaps this question is a newstarting point for us to rethink Weber's propositions and engage in a virtualdialogue with him.

PerhapsWeber and his theories seem to have become the object of historical research inthe West, whether in intellectual, academic or social history, but in Chinatoday, Weber and his theory of the "iron cage of reason" about thedilemma of bureaucracy and the modern rule of law are still deeply embedded insocial reality and jurisprudential (academic) practice.