ABSTRACT
Max weber has been best known to American political scientists and sociologists for his legitimacy—of publicly accepted belief systems enjoining obedience to the established order. Weber, in fact, argues that the ethic of absolute ends is specifically inappropriate to politics. Because "politics operates with very special means, namely power backed up by violence", there is an irreducible tension between the requirements of political action and absolute ethical values. Chiliasts may take the alternative direction of a nihilism that regards violence and banditry to be of exemplary value in constantly "rekindling the flame of protest against the injustice of the social order". Weber did not foresee the peculiar blend of charismatic and bureaucratic elements in totalitarian appeals for legitimacy. The power worship of the totalitarian apparatchik is not accounted for by the familiar argument that ruthless means corrupt those who use them and thus defeat noble ends, although this occurs often enough in reality.
