ABSTRACT
This chapter reconstructs from a wide variety of sources Weber’s analysis of the rise of modern Western democracy and egalitarianism. He views the inland industrial city of the High Middle Ages in northern Europe as a significant precursor. Comparisons to China and India assist identification of this city’s uniqueness, as do contrasts to the cities of the Middle East under Islamic rule. Western patrimonialism’s social “levelling” and the bureaucracy’s “passive democratization” are also examined, as well as the modern state’s ideal of legal equality and universalism. An empirical case – Puritanism’ impact upon the foundations of the singular American political culture and its influence on American democracy and social egalitarianism – is reconstructed.
