authority
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authority
authority
the established political rule within a community or STATE when this rule also possesses a grounding in one or more possible forms of political legitimacy. See LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY.Authority
in the broad sense of the word, the universally recognized informal influence of a person or organization in various spheres of social life (for example, education or science), based on knowledge, moral virtue, and experience (the authority of parents, doctors, and so forth). In the narrower meaning, it is one of the forms of exercising power. References are often made to the authority of the law or of certain rules or social norms; this means that the majority of the people among whom they operate accept their necessity.
Authority is expressed in the ability of the individual or group of individuals, the bearers of authority, to direct the actions or thoughts of another person or persons without resorting to force. The existence of authority is connected with man’s limited ability to evaluate rationally the many problems that arise because of the complexity of reality itself—hence, the necessity of accepting on faith the affirmations of the bearers of authority. This assumes the ability of the bearer of authority to substantiate his demands in principle.
In production, politics, and other spheres of social life, the activity of private individuals is largely determined by special bodies or officials who make decisions and control their execution. The right that they exercise and that their subordinates acknowledge constitutes authority; it is thus distinguished from other forms of exercising power, such as arbitrary rule.
The forms embodying authority and the spheres in which it operates depend on the historical level of society’s development and the ideological concepts that determine the sources and criteria for the legitimacy of the authority. In the tradition of the English philosopher Hobbes (1588–1679) and other utilitarians, the problem of authority emerges in the form of the dilemma of “freedom” versus “authority,” the latter term signifying only the authority of the supreme power, the “sovereign authority.” Hobbes saw in the “sovereign authority” the only means of saving society from anarchy, from the “war of all against all.” Anarchists, on the other hand, counterpose personal autonomy and the complete freedom of the individual from society against the notion of authority. The German sociologist M. Weber (1864–1920) proposed a typology under which authority may be based on rational arrangements—a formally defined system of rules concerning the means of gaining power and the limits of its use; traditions, in which case the legality of the system derives from the concept of it as something sacred and immutable; or so-called charisma, whereby authority involves personal devotion to the leader, who is endowed in the eyes of his followers with exceptional qualities of wisdom, heroism, or holiness. This sort of authority, according to Weber, is distinctive of prophets, apostles and political leaders. Tradition and charisma dominate in prebourgeois societies. Rational authority is established with the formation of the bourgeois society, although the other forms of authority do not disappear.
Analyzing the problem of authority, F. Engels called the views of anarchists and antiauthoritarians “antisocial”; he considered it “absurd . . . to depict the principle of authority as absolutely evil and the principle of autonomy as absolutely good” (“Ob avtoritete,” K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 18, p. 304). Engels argued that authority is necessary for any social system. “. . . Certain authority, however it is established, and on the other hand, certain subordination, are obligatory for us under those material conditions in which there is production and exchange of commodities regardless of the type of social organization” (ibid.). Engels noted that industry, transportation, or any form of organization is inconceivable without authority, without a dominant will represented by either one person or a defined body. In this regard, Engels emphasized that authority should be limited to those spheres of social life where it is indispensable (ibid.). At the same time, Marx and Engels decisively opposed “excessive faith” and “superstitious worship” of authority and also the cult of the personality (Marx and Engels, ibid., vol. 37, p. 384, and vol. 34, p. 241).
V. I. Lenin noted the necessity of authority and of discipline during labor (see Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 36, p. 203). Rejecting both the quasi-revolutionary attitude opposing all authority and the bureaucratic authority of bourgeois science and police-ridden politics, Lenin wrote that the working class needed authoritative leaders. The authority of such leaders, Lenin emphasized, should be based on their great knowledge and experience and their broad political and scientific outlook (see ibid., vol. 14, p. 226).
REFERENCES
Engels, F. “Lafargu ot 30 dek. 1871.” (Letter.) K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 33, p. 309.Engels, F. “Teoduru Kuno ot 24 ianv. 1872.” (Letter.) Ibid., p. 329.
Lenin, V. I. Ob avtoritete rukovoditelia: Sb. Moscow, 1963.
Weber, M. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sozial und Wirtschaftsge-schichte. Tubingen, 1924.
Strohal, R. Autorität, ihr Wesen und ihre Funktion im Leben der Gemeinschaft. Freiburg-Vienna, 1955.
Friedrich, C. J., ed. Authority. Oxford, 1958.
L. A. SEDOV
Authority
the ability to subject others to one’s will, to govern them, and to dispose of their actions.
Authority arose with the appearance of human society and, in one form or another, will always accompany its development. Authority is needed first of all to organize public production, which is unthinkable without subjugation of all its participants to a single will, as well as to regulate other human relations, connected with life and society. Before the appearance of classes and the state, authority had a social character: there was no administrative apparatus standing above society and no separate institutions of coercion. In the primitive clan society authority was exercised by all the members of the clan (tribe), who elected elders. With the appearance of classes and the state the consanguineous clan relations were destroyed, and the moral authority of the clan elders was replaced by the authority of public power, which separated itself from society and placed itself above it.
The term “authority” is used in various forms and aspects; there is parental authority, for example, and state authority, which in turn includes such concepts as supreme, constituent, legislative, executive, military, and judicial authority.
V. F. KOTOK