politics as a vocation?

Given Weber's historical context, post-WWI Germany, I might be more inclined to agree with his assertion that the state (as we conceptualize it) holds the only legitimate right to use violence. Weber would certainly have a strong argument regarding a state's legitimate use of violence in international affairs, but it's pretty clear that his intimation is that the state reserves the legitimate use of violence in compelling its own subjects or citizens. Today (and by today I mean since the sixties or so), however, the state's legitimation apparatus seems far less predicated on the threat of violence, to the extent that our state (the U.S.) is often and roundly criticized when it does resort to violence against it's citizens (i.e. Rodney King, virtually every case of police violence since, Ohio state, Guantanamo, etc etc). To be fair, Weber does not imply that violence is the sole means of compelling obedience or channeling behavior. at the same time, it seems as if the legitimacy with which Weber annoints the state's use of power has become more and more questionable, and all the while the rational-legal apparatus hasn't totally fallen app art. Again, perhaps Weber had no such evidence at the time to compel his conclusion, but his assertion does paint a fairly grim portrait of human social behavior, if not a sweeping assumption of the negativity of social behavior.

Another rather dark and mopey assumption Weber makes, is that the ethic of responsibility, or the ethic of the saint simply have no place in politics; they by their own virtue cannot survive in the political arena. Weber argues that the ethic of responsibility/the saint is and ethic of extreme personal sacrifice, of "indignation" were it to be subscribed to by anyone other than a saint. While I don't mean to imply Christian ideals ought to be followed as Weber describes them (or at all), I do think ideals of social responsibility and a general caring for others can and ought to have a greater role in politics. Again, Weber was speaking before the advent of the welfare state, but I still think Weber's ascertation of what can compel social behavior is limiting. If we fail to imagine a state of affairs that is better than the one we observe around us, we can only criticize in vain. But then, Weber isn't exactly criticizing anything.