Politics as a Vocation

"The leadership of a state or of a party by men who (in the economic sense of the word) live exclusively for politics and not off politics means necessarily a ‘plutocratic’ [rule of the wealthy, after the Roman god of wealth and the underworld, Pluto—Prof.] recruitment of the leading political strata. To be sure, this does not mean that such plutocratic leadership signifies at the same time that the politically dominant strata will not also seek to live ‘off’ politics, and hence that the dominant stratum will not usually exploit their political domination in their own economic interest (pp. 85-6)" Max Weber 

     This quote is talking about we need politicians that are either independently wealthy or they get their money only from politics.  Weber says that this is important because government is so big and difficult to run that you need people that are completely invested in politics to run a country.  Politicians that are not full time and have other commitments to deal with can not be effective at their job as a politician.  

     I choose this quote because besides the reason that Weber has for a full time politician I feel that we need both types of people in politics the wealthy and the one that needs the money.  Any country has wealthy people and people that need to work hard to earn a living.  Both of these types of people need to be in politics in order for the government to understand its people's problems.  If there was only one type of politician in government then not all the people would be represented and the ones that are not represented would suffer.   

Article 159

"The right to form unions and to improve conditions at work as well as in the economy is guaranteed to every individual and to all occupations. All agreements and measures limiting or obstructing this right are illegal."

      This article always workers to come together and demand to be treated with respect and given proper working conditions.  Without this right major companies that only care about their bottom line would take advantages of the workers, by not paying them a proper paycheck, not having a safe place to work because it cost to much money to make it safe, and other causes similar to this.  The article also says that it is illegal to stop a union from forming or existing.  These rights are still protected in America and they have done very well.  For example sport leagues have unions for their players.  The NFL players union almost had a lock out a few years ago because they thought they were being taken advantage of  by the owners of the teams. 

Article 62

"No state is represented by more than one delegate in the committees formed by the Reichsrat."

     The Reichsrat is similar to the congress of the United States in that it represents the people of the country in the government.  This article is to make sure that no one state has more of a representation in the government.  This is important because if states have more representation that means they will have more power, with more power they could make laws that benefits their state and not the rest of the country.  This still protected in the Senate of the American government is set up that no one state has more than two representatives in government.      

Luxemburg's Quote

"One thing is certain. The world war is a turning point. It is foolish and mad to imagine that we need only survive the war, like a rabbit waiting out the storm under a bush, in order to fall happily back into the old routine once it is over. The world war has altered the conditions of our struggle and, most of all, it has changed us. Not that the basic law of capitalist development, the life-and-death war between capital and labor, will experience any amelioration. But now, in the midst of the war, the masks are falling and the old familiar visages smirk at us. The tempo of development has received a mighty jolt from the eruption of the volcano of imperialism. The violence of the conflicts in the bosom of society, the enormousness of the tasks that tower up before the socialist proletariat – these make everything that has transpired in the history of the workers’ movement seem a pleasant idyll." 

     In this passage Rosa Luxemburg is telling people that people that WWI was not going to change their fate by itself.  The party had to be proactive in changing their fate for the better or else they would just fade away after the war. This is a very nihilistic theme in the way that Luxemburg is telling the people that they need break away from what they were doing before the war.  Her criticism with capitalism is that if you do not change your way of life, you are left out to dry and it turns people into "working masses of all zones into wage slaves."  Changing to capitalism does not only effect Germany but also the entire world as she wrote: "In Africa and Asia, from the northernmost shores to the tip of South America and the South Seas, the remnant of ancient primitive communist associations, feudal systems of domination, patriarchal peasant economies, traditional forms of craftsmanship are annihilated, crushed by capital; whole peoples are destroyed and ancient cultures flattened." 

We want an authoritarian leader?....NO!

In the past three films we watched I feel that the all three films try to show that the people of Germany do not want an authoritarian leader.  In the first two films the two authority figures Dr. Caligari and Professor Rath in the start of the films they are in charge and in control of all the situations they are in.  As these two films progress these authority figures start losing control of their surroundings and their minds.  I feel that this shows the want to take away the authority figures in Germany.  For the third film, there is no real one authority figure.  Rather for the first time you have the police with a major role.  You have the judges at the end of the film discussing Becert's sentence.  I feel that this shows the want and need for a liberal-democratic society.  The people of Germany wanted to have a say in the decision of the government as shown in the last scene of M, when the judges do not say a sentence but rather leave it unfinished so the public could decide. 

We want an authoritarian leader

     In the film M by Fritz Lang, there is a killer tracking down children.  Beckert is found by the police to be the killer and they try to capture him.  Before the police can capture Beckert another group of criminals catch Beckert, but they do this by breaking the law, torturing  someone, etc.  This mob sets up a mock trial to judge Beckert, but right before they were going to kill him the police come and save him.  To me this movie showed that the people of Germany wanted an authority leader that can bring order to the country.  There were many killers in Germany at the time and the German people wanted the police to start being more active.  The people of Germany also were looking for a liberal-democratic society.  This is shown by the last scene where the judges are deciding whether or not to kill Beckert.   This shows a discussion between the heads of the courts and by not telling the outcome of the discussion I feel Fritz Lang want the public to also be involved in the results and make up the ending in their own heads.  For the question of does Beckert deserve to die, that depends on a case by case situation.  Some people can not be helped in jail and will always be evil, while other people could be helped in jail.  For some reason I feel that Beckert would be able to be helped in jail, so I feel that he should not be killed.

Blue Angel

In the second scene of the movie before Professor Rath enters the class the students are having fun talking with each other.  When the professor is on his way all the students rush to their seats and as he walks in they stand up for him.  This shows that they are afraid of the professor. I believe the professor is representing the government and the class is the public.  The public is scared of the government because they punish people without knowing for sure if they are punishing the correct person.  This is shown when the professor tells a student to clean his book cover for drawing on it even though he did not draw on it.  He also punishes the whole class for one student not knowing how to pronounce a specific word.  This is also to represent the government punishing a group of people as a whole rather than punishing a specific person.  Professor Rath makes the students stand up and sit down for no apparent reason other than to flex his power.  This is a symbol for the government always wanting the public to feel under its power.  They use a fat professor to show that government is fat with power and always wants more.  There are no women in the class which shows that women were not given the chance to be educated and they were looked down upon.  When a student has a picture of Lola he is punished for this.  It says that the culture at the time looked down at women in that type of professions.  I feel the reason the director uses a classroom to show the picture is because some people at the time thought these types of women were bringing down the higher class and society.