This paper aims to analyze Marcuse’s reading of Max Weber’s sociology, focusing on his remarks about the changes in the political sphere by the end of capitalism’s liberal phase. From an immanent critique of Weberian thought, Marcuse correlates the overlap between the form of rational-bureaucratic domination and charismatic type of leadership to the objective bases ofadvanced industrial societies. More than just comment on a classic of sociology, it is possible to reconstruct aspects of his social theory through these criticisms of Weber’s thought. In addition, if the same instrumental rationality colonizes various fields of social life, the marcusean diagnosis moves away from a one-dimensional understanding of late modernity, emphasizing the role of its contradictions and antagonisms.
German sociology; Critical theory; Max Weber; Herbert Marcuse; Rationality; Policy