Procedural interest motivated legitimacy in China
Today I googled ‘Dingxin Zhao’ and ‘procedural interest’
Today I googled ‘procedural interest’. I was the #1 result. Wow. Aussie turtle too!
Click ‘Procedural Self-Interest And The Good Society’ for direct link.
Earlier in the day I had discovered Dingxin Zhao’s 2015 prize-winning The Confucian-Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History [includes Michael Mann rave review] which emphasizes Weberian functionality of “procedural” motives and legitimation by formal “procedure” in China. I will, of course, eventually exhibit it here at SSF.
Coincidentally, I had been thinking about procedural legitimacy while reading about the early states (e.g. recent exhibits Mesopotamia, Egypt). The concept of procedural interest, which I really do appear to have invented, is important. For example, it could assist efforts to understand the processes whereby power is legitimized in old societies, as in early state efforts to maintain order in a territory. Example: the people comprising a population within a territory — each with their unique individual mix of status/ideal/material interests — might finally just ask themselves: ‘is life easier or more difficult under these kings as compared with foraging or pastoralism on the periphery?’.
Below you can read the original less chatty version of procedural interest in my book, where I wrote:
Switching Tracks:
… Obviously the rational ideologist must have in mind the goal of satisfying interests. No ideology can effectively transmit knowledge and opinions unless it incorporates a rational calculation of the interests of the persons it seeks to persuade. When their ideas are well adapted to the times, intellectual entrepreneurs can shape understandings of the world as it is and as it could be, and they can influence the nature and pace of institutional change. As ideologists they can legitimize the aspirations of groups that are relatively deprived, or that are victims of injustice. But ideologists must appeal directly to many people’s self-interest. They are likely to fail if they want people to accept ideas that appeal only to some conception of common interest. Weber based his critique of socialism partly on the irrationality of assuming the existence of common economic interests.
It is of course true that economic action which is oriented on purely ideological grounds to the interests of others does exist. But it is even more certain that the mass of men do not act in this way, and it is an induction from experience that they cannot do so and never will. (Weber 1978: 203)
On the assumption that people may act upon a variety of interests simultaneously, we need to broaden the concept of interest. For example, a successful ideology cannot rely only on appeals to material interest. Once ideologists and policymakers understand the complex sets of interests, they will be better able to calculate their own action motives as well as the motives of those who respond to their actions in terms of rational assumptions about the diversity of individual and group interests in society. Using broadly Weberian conceptual criteria, four relevant types of interest motive can be classified – status, ideal, material, and procedural. Although status interests normally fall under the heading of ideal and material interests, their special impact on institutional change means they deserve separate discussion. The category of ‘procedural interest’, it can be noted, is a new one. I will suggest that the concept of ‘procedural interest’ can tell us a great deal about the reasons for the importance of impersonal procedural norms in the modern institutional system.
Status interest
Status, which can be a positive or negative motivational factor in state decision making, refers to a person’s standing, esteem, or rank within a group or organization. Status can be a means of obtaining or preserving a position of power, privilege, or wealth. Political power status can create opportunities for material advantage. Depending on the existing rules of the game, advantages might include job security, promotion, or bribes. However, status can be a source of gratification in its own right. Weber wrote: ‘Man does not strive for power only in order to enrich himself . . . [it] may be valued for its own sake’ (1978: 926). Aside from power, the rewards of status can include prestige, respect, glory, honour, reputation, or a style of life. All those who have ‘vested interests in the political structure tend systematically to cultivate [the] prestige sentiment’ (ibid.: 912).
A characteristic of status honour is that it ‘always rests upon distance and exclusiveness’ (ibid.: 935). As observed [earlier], the cultivation of status groups within the state is a frequent cause of dysfunctional governance. Exclusion of outsiders means that the status group is monopolistic. It exists to protect its members from competition or control by outsiders. Entry is controlled according to particularistic criteria of convention, tradition, or vocation rather than universalistic criteria of achievement, merit, or skill. In contrast to commercial classes in the market, a status group arises in an organizational framework. The exclusiveness of status groups in the state is antithetical to market capitalism, since status groups are threatened when groups and persons are able to obtain honour or acquire goods and services through purely economic actions. Bureaucratic status groups of the state maintain their power against the market and are alienated from the market, while economic groups seek power through the market. In defence of their status privileges, public officials characteristically limit market exchange of some goods and services, or create discriminatory entitlements to public monies and services.
More positively, the distance and exclusiveness of status groups in the state can be the source of autonomy, insulation, and esprit de corps that facilitates a reform effort. Group closure within the state on the basis of positive status rewards could, for example, be a way to obtain shelter from group interests that oppose capitalist transitions. For this ‘detachment’ to be beneficial we assume a prior ideological commitment, the existence of countervailing types of interest inside the state that reproduce or reinforce desirable styles of life, and the predominance of meritocratic criteria that define power, reputation, honour, respect, prestige, or glory in terms commensurable with the reform objectives.
Finally, it is also possible for status interest to motivate positive nationalism and the satisfaction of belonging to a rich or otherwise successful society. The sentiment of nationalistic status could legitimize an economic policy which requires for its implementation that all or part of a population postpone some gratification. People might work tirelessly and long for little remuneration if their sacrifice will promote the prestige of the nation. Such is the nature of status, however, that it is rarely the dominant motivation of a group or individual.
Ideal interest
Ideal interest may be defined as value motivation or spiritual motivation, by combining the English noun ‘ideal’ (a moral principle or standard of behavior) with the German adjective ‘ideell’ (denoting non-material or spiritual). Ideal interest is, then, motivation based on the intrinsic value of action rather than the instrumental purpose of action. Ideal interests could be otherworldly religious premiums, or they could be educational, moral, and political motivational principles as distinct from material motives. It is also possible for social values to shape economic action. We may select a mode of profit making because, by our chosen standard, it seems ethical. I will show in the next section how an ideal interest in the intrinsic value of a policy differs fundamentally from a rational calculation of how values might instrumentally determine the success of that policy.
The question of greatest importance in the present context is the distinction between ‘ideal interest’ and ‘ideology’. Ideology is inherently instrumental. It is a motivational mechanism for implementing, among many other things, ideal interests. It can aim to legitimize or give cognitive validity to a system of moral values. Ideology is one means, in other words, for expressing or satisfying an ideal interest. But an ideology is much more than belief in the intrinsic value of a mode of life, a behaviour, or a spiritual goal. It is the end result of many calculations of means to ends, not all of which involve ideal interests. With a single ideology it may be possible to pursue ideal interests quite separately from other interests. To give some relevant examples: There may be no conflict whatsoever between maintaining an ideal interest in community or charity and forming a practical interest in competitive market freedom and impersonal institutional order. Capitalist transition can be materially motivated without any compulsion to forsake an ideal interest in honesty or fraternity. No person renounces their ideal interests in ethics, honesty, community, or public peace and generalized prosperity by adopting a capitalist ideology. It is simply a case of being persuaded that other ideological ends, e.g. socialism, could not satisfy all of these interests simultaneously.
Material interest
In common parlance ‘interest’ often means material interest, and this may indeed reflect the actual weighting of different interests. Weber spoke of ‘the “true” or economic interest’ (1978: 601). It is not surprising that economic want satisfaction is ‘always the result of struggles between different interests’, or that ‘determination of action in terms of pure self-interest . . . is characteristic of modern economic life’ (ibid.: 351, 43). It should also be noted, however, that ‘economic motives . . . operate wherever the satisfaction of even the most immaterial need or desire is bound up with the application of scarce material means’ (Weber 1949: 65). That motivational principle certainly applies to political action. Furthermore, in relation to the processes by which groups form, there are circumstances in which ‘purely ideological group existence is a less effective lever than economic interest’ (Weber 1978: 345). Political parties founded on the propaganda of shared ideals find that their economic interests eventually become vital to survival. Even voluntary associations may compete for membership by offering economic benefits and advantageous economic connections. The modern state first evolved because of the commercial benefits it gave to interest groups. The ‘special institutions’ that were ‘well suited for the emerging modern capitalism . . . produced a variety of bodies of law corresponding to the needs of different concrete [economic] interest groups’ (ibid.: 688). A legal order of property rights was initially the result of monopolistic interest-group closure (ibid.: 342). On the other hand, money-grabbing self-interest is rarely a sufficient explanation of economic action. The desire for ‘utilities’ is at the root of all economic action. Utilities are ‘concrete, real or imagined, advantages’. The varied sources of utility, according to Weber, include goods and services, as well as social relationships, constellations of interests, customs, or a legal order (ibid.: 63–9). Values or ideologies can influence how people identify and prioritize these disparate utilities.
Procedural interest
Procedural interest can be defined as the interest of individuals and groups in the procedural practicality and ease of an activity. It is debatable whether ‘procedural utility’ is most usefully defined as the ‘non-instrumental pleasures and displeasures of processes’ (Frey 2008: 107). In fact, the instrumental outcomes of processes may carry more weight with ordinary people. Or, procedural interest could simply be instrumental, intrinsically ideal, and pleasurable in more or less equal measures. The ease or practicality with which action is undertaken may be reason enough for gratification. But, as well as the pleasures so derived in relation to subjective feelings of self-worth or ‘innate needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence’ (ibid.: 107–26), gratification might just as likely result from satisfaction of an ideal interest in the moral or spiritual principle embodied by the procedure, or from a status interest in the honour of being granted a particular procedural privilege.
It is generally found, however, that the sense of process gratification extends to satisfaction in the outcome (material or otherwise) that has been facilitated by the procedure. In many instances, it is very likely that a means-end action would not be undertaken at all were it not for the likelihood that the procedure is relatively easy (convenient, expeditious, etc.) in practical terms. If it is just too difficult in procedural terms to pursue a status, ideal, or material interest, then a person is unlikely to be able fully to satisfy those interests and may abandon the effort altogether. The satisfaction of conventional interests depends initially on being able to satisfy this ‘procedural’ interest.
Predictability, calculability, reliability, and impartiality are the typical characteristics of a procedure that motivates or satisfies. Behavioural norms and known rules of action generate greater certainty about how things should be done in a situation, and about the likely expectations and responses of other people involved in the action situation. Formal procedures exist for passport applications, enrolments in universities, registering with a medical practitioner, and voting in an election. Informal procedures exist for making and keeping friends, serving and eating food, and for celebrating and grieving. All these forms of procedure are routine instruction frameworks for achieving a goal expeditiously and in a socially acceptable manner. They are so common in life that we hardly recognize them as interests. Yet without them life becomes impractical. A procedural interest is an interest in the rule structure that provides some certainty about agency outcomes. The procedural interests of individuals or groups differ according to the nature or objective of an activity.
In the study of capitalist transitions the important procedural interests have to do with the impartiality and calculability of formal state institutional procedural norms, which are not only fair but also efficacious and efficient in a variety of instrumental ways [MGH: see page 38 passim in Zhao’s book on China for same idea and words]. Relevant examples of areas where state regulation affects the ease and practicality of everyday procedures are listed on the contents page of [World Bank] Doing Business 2008: ‘starting a business’, ‘dealing with licenses’, ‘employing workers’, ‘registering property’, ‘getting credit’, ‘protecting investors’, ‘paying taxes’, ‘trading across borders’, ‘enforcing contracts’, and ‘closing a business’. Arguably, the entire world has a procedural interest in improving the ease of ‘doing business’ in developing countries.
To paraphrase Weber (1978: 1116–17), in their rational determination of means and ends, the broad masses accept or adapt themselves to the technical resultants of bureaucratic orders which are of practical significance for their interests. By changing the bureaucratic orders it is possible to change the people and the conditions and opportunities of that adaptation. In conclusion, since each type of interest can be an encouragement or a hindrance to the construction of capitalist institutions, we should study people’s attitudes towards institutional reform in terms of their respective sets of status, ideal, material, and procedural interests. By breaking up ‘interest’ into these four categories it is possible to move beyond the broad aggregates of competing interest groups and to include conflicting and compatible interests within and between each group.
The Sources:
Michael G. Heller, Capitalism, Institutions, and Economic Development, Routledge 2009
Max Weber, Economy and Society, University of California 1978
Bruno Frey, Happiness: A Revolution in Economics, MIT Press 2008
Evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.