Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Societies

Tony Waters

Department of Sociology

California State University, Chico

September 2014

(Prepared for the Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd ed., 2015)

Abstract
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Societies refer to the traditions of German
sociologists Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber who drew contrasts between a
modern society dominated by the rational calculations in the "Gesellschaft," and
the traditional affectual values of the "Gemeinschaft." Both saw a strong contrast
between the two types of society, and saw the transitions between the two types of
society as being at the heart of the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century.
Tönnies viewed this shift as a positive development in which the Gesellschaft
would eventually overwhelm the Gemeinschaft. In contrast, Weber was the two
coexisting but repelling each other as society became more modern but banal.

Introduction

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are two German words which are difficult to translate

into English, and roughly mean “community” and “market society.” However, the two

words, while not opposites, do typically define each other in German, particularly as they

have been used since the classical sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies highlighted the

distinction in his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Community and Society) in 1887.

Tönnies asserted that pre-modern society was dominated by Gemeinschaft ties, while

modern industrial capitalist society featured more Gesellschaft ties.

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 The terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are particularly important for understanding

the origin of German social theory, particularly theories that emerged from the ideas of

first Tönnies, and later Max Weber. Both classical theorists used the two words to

describe how modern society emerged from older sentimental values rooted in emotions,

affection, and family relations.

Tönnies Description of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Societies

Tönnies was the first sociological writer to use the German terms Gemeinschaft and

Gesellschaft as complementary analytical categories. In doing this, he defined an older

traditional Gemeinschaft world in which relationships emerged out of social interactions

of a personal nature and personal emotional attachments, which he called a “natural

will.” Such relationships were important in the traditional world of feudalism and

reflected recognition of shared characteristics, especially personal loyalty to family,

ethnic relationships, professional memberships, shared religious community, and feudal

rank. Thus, high-ranking nobles identified only with each other, low-status peasants

identified with only each other, as did members of the baker guild, militia members and

other such feudal groupings. These Gemeinschaft relations were maintained in the

context of private sentiment and loyalty, rather than simply productivity in the

marketplace. In contrast, in more modern Gesellschaft societies, interactions were more

“rational,” and reflected impersonal relationships mediated by money, and in particular

cash wages, or what Tönnies calls “rational will.” These relationships typically meant

that people calculate the value relationships. Such calculations were made by evaluating

cash wages, prices, votes, and other measures of individual advantage.

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 In other words, Gemeinschaft-based relationships tend to be affectual, while

Gesellschaft relationships tend to be instrumental.

Tönnies thought of the development of the modern world as being an evolutionary

one, in which European societies emerging from the Industrial Revolution of the

nineteenth century and became more rational and “Gesellschaft”-like, overwhelming

older forms of Gemeinschaft society. He believed that this new modern society, while

retaining elements of an emotion-laded Gemeinschaft, would become more and more

impersonal. Tönnies’ formulation assumed that the new Gesellschaft society was superior

because the material advantages of modern life would eventually overwhelm the older

forms of Gemeinschaft, with all its sentimentality, family-based favoritism, tribal

organization, and economic inefficiencies. Tönnies saw the domination of Gesellschaft as

a form of progress in in which a better society, that of Gesellschaft, would eventually

dominate (See Cahnmann 1968/1995:101-102, Tönnies 1957:37-102).

As for the older traditional pre-modern Gemeinschaft, Tönnies saw it as being

absorbed into a more modern rational Gesellschaft society and modernity, so that there

logically would be a time when the affectual, emotional, and traditional bases of the

Gemeinschaft were overwhelmed by the more modern rational bases of the Gesellschaft.

Later writers would claim that the newer life would naturally replace older traditional

forms of life completely; in this respect Tönnies logic is like that of his contemporaries

who celebrated the evolutionary “survival of the fittest” understandings of both biological

and socio-economic life of theorists like Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.

Arthur K. Davis (1959:269) summarized Tönnies dichotomy in as including social

organization which “includes such elements as family relationships, traditional folk

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customs, close-knit neighborhood ties, and face-to-face contacts.” He added that a

society is “Gesellschaft-like to the extent that it involves such elements as rationality,

formalized conventions, and limited-purpose contractual relationships.”

Or, as Tönnies himself emphasized, the social group has characteristics of the

Gemeinschaft, “so far as the members think of such a grouping as a gift of nature or

created by supernatural will.” About the Gesellschaft, Tönnies added that social classes

have “the basic characteristic of the Gesellschaft” (1957:255, 256).

Tönnies introduction of the terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as a pair was an

innovation for German sociology of the 1880s. Notably, the distinction was not used in

the same way by earlier German-language writers, such as Karl Marx and Friedrich

Engels who, while using both words, never drew the contrasts that Tönnies did. Nor for

that matter did Franz Kafka in his 1920 essay “Gemeinschaft” which is titled

“Fellowship” in English.

Tönnies and the classical French Sociologist Emile Durkheim both quibbled with the

concept in their own languages. And while they quibbled over details, Durkheim’s

dichotomy between the pre-modern “mechanical solidarity” and “organic solidarity,” and

Tönnies concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft were indeed similar (see e.g. Aldous,

Durkheim, and Tönnies 1972).

After publishing his book Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft at age 32, Tönnies became a

major figure in the German-speaking sociological world. What is more, the dichotomous

nature of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft became taken-for-granted, including by Tönnies

contemporary Max Weber, but especially in 1950s German sociology. Indeed, in

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common everyday use, German speakers still often continue to see the terms as a

matched pair.

Reception of Tönnies Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in the English-speaking World

But, Tönnies distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft became important in

the English-speaking world only after Tönnies book was finally published in English by

Charles Loomis in 1957 with the bilingual title Community and Society (Gemeinschaft

und Gesellschaft). Notably, Loomis left Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft untranslated in

both the title, and in the text. As a result, many English-speaking sociology students of

the 1960s and 1970s learned the two German words. However, reference to the terms

peaked in the 1970s, as did Tönnies’ influence on the English-speaking world, as the

classical works of sociologists Karl Marx and Max Weber became more important than

those of Tönnies.

Tönnies distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in particular resonated

with American sociologists in the 1960s who were interested in assisting the United

States government develop programs in the former European colonies of Asia, Africa,

and Latin America. In particular, Tönnies framework meshed well with the

“modernization theorists” who viewed economic development as a process of gradual

modernization in which “old-fashioned” Gemeinschaft-style society was displaced by

rationalized efficient forms, especially market capitalism and democracy. Such values

also meshed well with American political goals during the Cold War of the 1960s and

1970s, and in this context Tönnies’ approach came to be associated with American

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foreign policy and its emphasis on “survival of the fittest” in both economic systems (i.e.

capitalism) and political systems (i.e. democracy).

Max Weber’s Use of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

Tönnies use of the terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft was admired by Max Weber

when he was writing his master work Economy and Society in the 1910s (see Weber

1920/1968: 4, 41; and Radkau 2009:413-415). Like Tönnies, Weber explicitly puts the

distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft at the heart of his sociology, while

also pointing out that he used the terms in a slightly different fashion. In particular,

Weber sought to better explain how the traditional world during the nineteenth century

became the modernity of twentieth century industrial Europe. He saw this new society as

being enormously productive, but also soulless and heartless, i.e. not necessarily “better”

than older Gemeinschaft society.

Weber followed explicitly in Tönnies’ footsteps when using the terms Gemeinschaft

and Gesellschaft. But he did this in a fashion that is less mechanistic than Tönnies had

with the “overtones of harmony and warmth.” Instead Weber adapted the concepts to

reflect “the unruliness of historical reality” (Radkau 2009:414).

Thus Weber agreed with Tönnies that Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft were good

analytical categories. However, Weber disagreed with the assertion that development of

rationalized capitalism and democracy was inherently superior to the earlier

Gemeinschaft society, or that the Gesellschaft-dominated society was inevitable. Weber

instead viewed modern life as banal, and believed that there was an on-going tension

between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft which would never be quite resolved. To

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emphasize this tension, Weber introduced two German gerunds (i.e. “verbal nouns”)

Vergemeinschaftung and Vergesellschaftung, that emphasized a fluidity and ever-

changing interactive relationship. Roughly put, they could be translated as “Gesellschaft-

ing,” and “Gemeinschaft-ing,” in which Gemeinschaft-ing is about an increasing attention

to emotion and human sentiment, while Gesellschaft-ing is about an increasing attention

to the logic of rationalized market forces.

For Weber, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft co-exist like oil and water, repelling each

other while also mixing, rather than the unidirectional historical process described by

Tönnies (Cahnmann 1995:109-110). So while Weber accepted Tönnies basic

distinctions, he also emphasized that both types of society always coexisted, albeit

uncomfortably. Weber saw this coexistence in pre-modern societies where the

Gesellschaft was small and the Gemeinschaft all-encompassing. But most particularly

Weber saw coexistence in modern society where the Gesellschaft seemingly

overwhelmed underlying Gemeinschaft values. As an example, Weber pointed to labor

unions which emerge to protect the market position of labor as an example of how such

tensions play. Labor unions he said, emerged to address specific economic issues of the

marketplace and therefore were Gesellschaft organizations in their immediate purpose.

But often labor unions eventually develop into club-like “brotherhoods” to which

members develop the emotional commitments of a Gemeinschaft. This tension between

the cold calculated values of the rational market on the one hand, and the sentiment

associated with a “brotherhood” resulted, Weber believed, in alienation, disenchantment,

and objectification. These are of course concerns Weber shared with Marx, Nietzsche,

Kafka and many others.

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Reception of Weber in the English-speaking World

Weber’s essays about Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft were first translated into English

in the 1940s by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills (1944 and 1947). In their influential

writings, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft were translated as “community” and “society”

respectively, and not left in German as was to happen when Tönnies’ writings were

published in English in 1957. As a consequence, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

disappeared as concepts in Weber’s sociology for English readers. Scholars instead were

much more focused on Weber’s definitions of modern bureaucracy, politics, capitalism,

and ethics. In contrast, for German-reading audiences of Economy and Society,

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft were always critical for understanding the transition from

feudal societies rooted in personal loyalties, into modern industrial societies rooted in

markets.

The terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft were re-introduced to understandings of

Weber in 2010 with publication of new translations of Weber’s essay “Class, Stände,

Parties” by Dagmar Waters, Tony Waters, and others (see Waters and Waters 2010,

Weber 2010, and Waters and Waters 2015). It remains to be seen if this emphasis on

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft will re-emerge in the sociological understandings of

Weber in the English-speaking world.

Twenty-First Century Uses of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft continue to be common words in modern German,

irrespective of whether or not people know about what Tönnies and Weber wrote. For

example, the German word for “corporation” which is a group formed specifically to

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conduct business in the marketplace is “Gesellschaft,” and is usually translated today as

such in this context. The word Gemeinschaft is used in German to describe many

relationships which include affective sentiments. It is even used to describe the European

Union which in German is called the “Europäische Gemeinschaft.” The fact that

Gemeinschaft (and not Gesellschaft) is part of the German-language description of the

European Union apparently reflects the fact that Germans see the European Union as a

more broad-based “community,” than a “corporation” with a narrower economic purpose.

Thus in many ways the distinctions that Tönnies and Weber focused on in their sociology

of the transition to modernity continue to be relevant to the modern German language.

References

Aldous, Joan, Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tonnies (1972). “An Exchange Between
Durkheim and Tonnies on the Nature of Social Relations, with an Introduction by Joan
Aldous.” American Journal of Sociology Vol. 77(6):1191-1200

Cahnmann, Werner (1995) Weber and Toennies: Comparative Sociology in Historical

Perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Cahnmann, Werner (1968/1995) “Toennies and Social Change.” Social Forces 47:136-
144. Reprinted in Cahnmann, Werner (1995) Weber and Toennies: Comparative
Sociology in Historical Perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Davis, Arthur (1959). Book Review of Community and Society: Gemeinschaft und
Gesellschaft, by Ferdinand Toennies (1957). Translated and edited by Charles P.
Loomis. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, in Science and
Society 23(3):269-271.

Kafka, Franz (1920? ) “Fellowship (Gemeinschaft)”

http://summer2010slforum.wikispaces.com/file/view/Kafka_the+fellowship.pdf

Toennies, Ferdinand (1957) Community and Society: Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, by

Ferdinand Toennies . Translated and edited by Charles P. Loomis. East Lansing,
Michigan: Michigan State University Press.

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Weber, Max. (2010). Translation of Max Weber’s Essay “Class, Status, Party.” Journal
of Classical Sociology (Translated by Dagmar Waters, Tony Waters, Elisabeth Hahnke,
Maren Lippke, Eva Ludwig-Glück, Daniel Mai, Nina Ritzi-Messner, Christina Veldhoen
and Lucas Fassnacht).

Waters, Tony and Dagmar Waters (2010). “Introduction to the New Zeppelin University
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Waters, Tony and Dagmar Waters (2015), Translators and Editors, Weber’s Rationalism
and Modern Society. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Weber, Max (1968/1978) Economy and Society. Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus
Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Weber, Max (2015). “Class, Staende, Parties” in Weber’s Rationalism and Modern
Society, Edited and Translated by Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters.

Weber Max (1978/1968). Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California

Press.

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