The road to serfdom before Hayek (Knight, Lippmann, and a note on Weber today) — Eric Schliesser

So, here's my hypothesis. The road to serfdom thesis was if not inspired by Lippmann, at least prompted, in part, by him. But Lippmann did not hold the thesis; it is articulated by Knight in his review of Lippmann and (mistakenly) ascribed to Lippmann. Knight, however, thinks there is nothing inevitable about the thesis because he thinks the future is still very much open. I cannot prove that Hayek read Knight's review of Lippmann. (Knight was later a somewhat ambivalent referee for The University of Chicago Press of Road to Serfdom.) But Knight articulated several major challenges to liberal self-reflection in his review of Lippmann. And some of Hayek's major contributions to the liberal self-imagine, for good and ill, can be fruitfully interpreted as responses to that review.

Digressions&Impressions
The road to serfdom before Hayek (Knight, Lippmann, and a note on Weber today)
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Robert Paul Wolff — The Deep State

Robert Paul Wolff is largely correct here, but "the deep state" cannot be equated with bureaucracy as a political factor ensuring constancy and stability, as Max Weber described.

He apparently did not so a search on the term "deep state," which seems to have originated with respect to Turkish state and intelligence services and senior administration under Kemal Ataturk. In Russia is this is known as the siloviki (senior career intelligence and military) and nomenklatura (senior administrative bureaucracy). In China, the deep state is the senior level of the CCP. 

These are special cases of a state within a state as the locus of power in a nation-state, and not all deep states resemble each other closely. However, the family resemblance is arguably close enough to provide a context for at least a semi-analytical the use of the concept of a deep state in political science. However, the meaning should be carefully specified to avoid ambiguity, conflation, and confusion.

In the US the "deep state" has several meanings, given by different analysts. The most restricted is the senior career intelligence, military, and government service that persists across administrations. It also means those that control the military-intelligence-industrial-financial-government apparatus that is based on the revolving door that provides continuity between the public and private sectors insuring effective control by unelected elites. NGOs such as think tanks but not limited to them constitute another factor mediating the connection of public and private, state and non-state, government and shadow government.

The post describes something that is related to the these factors but is not coterminous with it. The US government bureaucracy is huge since it includes all the civil servants. The deep state is something different. It is partially a subset of the bureaucracy but not limited to it, and the revolving door makes it dynamic, uniting the public and private sectors.

US deep state is also more amorphous than the government bureaucracy, since it is a shadow organization rather than one with institutional arrangements, including a foundation in law. Because it lacks institutional arrangements, many deny its existence as an entity. And that is the way the deep state likes it.

But RPW's point that bureaucracies provide continuity that can inhibit change, including reform, owing to the iron law of oligarchy, is well-taken. A deep state can be viewed as a aspect of bureaucracy that is concentrated and entrenched at the top, providing elite control.

The deep state is also a subset of the Establishment, but also different from it. The Establishment is made up of the entrenched elite and their cronies and minions. The deep state is a concentrated subset of the Establishment, characterized by occupying positions of power and influence.

The Philosopher's Stone
The Deep State
Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Eric Schliesser — A note on Weber's famous definition

The state is the form a human community that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical violence within a given territory. --- Max Weber, "Politics as Vocation," (33), translated Rodney Livingstone.

In context, Weber claims that the monopoly is a consequence of a historical process in which intermediary powers and institutions lose their capability for independent use of physical violence. He leaves it a bit ambiguous if it is appropriate to call earlier 'states,' which lacked the monopoly, 'states' or if the use of 'state' has shifted (and that his definition is, thus, context specific). While the idea of a monopoly of physical violence arguably goes back to Bodin or Hobbes, I suspect Weber is the first to use the economic language; this is no coincidence. Throughout the famous lecture, Weber treats the corporation and the state as analogies (in the way that Hobbes uses the family as the relevant analogy for the state). Weber does not address the question why such a political monopoly is a good thing....

Digressions&Impressions
A note on Weber's famous definition
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

See also

While the summary doesn't mention it, this applies to stereotypes and stereotypical thinking, which is a form of cognitive-affective bias.

Imperfect Cognitions — Blog on delusional beliefs, distorted memories, confabulatory explanations, unrealistically optimistic predictions, and implicit biases
Conceptual Centrality and Implicit Bias
Posted by Kathy Puddifoot

Also

1. Persian Empire
2. Roman Empire
3. Mongol Empire
4. Caliphate
5. British Empire

The author draws lessons for the inchoate American Empire that emerged post WWII.

The National Interest
These Are the 5 Most Powerful Empires of All Time
Akhilesh Pillalamarri

Peter Feuerherd — John Calvin: The Religious Reformer Who Influenced Capitalism

Short backgrounder.

Why is this significant? At the time that capitalism was rising in Europe, religion was the dominant cultural and institutional influence. Capitalism needed religion's blessing and Calvin played an important role in this.

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber argued for Calvin's key role, but some contemporary scholars view this perspective as somewhat exaggerating Calvin's role. 

The fundamental difference at the time of Weber was over Marx' view of capitalism as based on a shift of the primary mode of production that determines economic infrastructure and Weber's sociological view that emphasized the role of culture and institutions, especially the role of religion as a cultural and institutional phenomenon.

JSTOR Daily
John Calvin: The Religious Reformer Who Influenced Capitalism
Peter Feuerherd | professor of journalism at St. John's University in New York

Max Weber on power as institutional

LAW exists when there is a probability that an order will be upheld by a specific staff of men who will use physical or psychical compulsion with the intention of obtaining conformity with the order, or of inflicting sanctions for infringement of it. The structure of every legal order directly influences the distribution of power, economic or otherwise, within its respective community. This is true of all legal orders and not only that of the state. In general, we understand by "power" the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action.…

Max Weber
Class, Status, Party
Translated and Edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills
Politics, October 1944, pp. 271

Jason Smith — Managing by wandering around

Must-read by Jason Smith. It's fun.

Information Transfer Economics
Managing by wandering around

Jason Smith

Matias Vernengo — What makes capitalism capitalism?

Are you sure you know? Take the test.

Naked Keynesianism

What makes capitalism capitalism?

Matias Vernengo