The Sociology of Authority: A Materialist Approach
Jonathan Brown
Abstract
This article advances a materialist theory of authority against the idealist frameworks of classical sociology associated with figures such as Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. Rather than treating authority as a problem of legitimacy, belief, or consent, it defines authority as an objective social relation rooted in the material organization of labor and the division of labor. Authority emerges from the necessity of coordination within collective production and develops historically alongside surplus generation, specialization, and class division. The article systematizes authority through its core functions(coordination, regulation, mediation, allocation, decision-making), traces its dialectical development from natural necessity to institutionalized political power, and analyzes its concrete dimensions: form, locus, scale, scope, and depth. It argues that variations in authority are structured by the complexity of production networks, cross-sectoral interdependence, synchronization demands, and systemic risk, not by abstract moral principles. Finally, the article explains how authority reproduces itself through coercion, material inducement, and ideological legitimation, and through corresponding modes of compliance such as fear, economic necessity, and conviction. Authority persists because it is embedded in material conditions, not merely because it is believed in. The central political question, therefore, is not whether authority should exist, but whose authority governs social production and toward what ends.
Keywords
authority, division of labor, materialism, social coordination, surplus production, class power, social reproduction, ideology, political authority, Jonathan Brown
