Lesson 6
Max Weber
Robert Wonser
SOC 368 – Classical Sociological Theory
Spring 2014
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max“ Weber
 Born in Erfurt, Germany in 1864
 eldest of seven children
 father was a lawyer, judge, politician, and stern
patriarch
 family moved to Berlin in 1869
 the family values generally revolved around hard-work,
asceticism, and personal morality
 the contradictory behavior of Weber’s parents created
a tension within Max that would guide his life and work
 Weber became very ill at age two and was a very
small child; thus, he was less physically active, but
more intellectually engaged than his peers
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 1882 Weber enrolled in the University of
Heidelberg, studying economics, philosophy,
theology, and history, and joined his father’s
fraternity
 1883 year of military service from which he
enrolled in, and graduated from, the
University of Berlin – lived at home and came
to identify more with his mother
 Weber maintained a very strict work ethic,
and was by modern terms a “workaholic.”
 Weber pursued both the legal profession as
well as maintaining an academic appointment
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Weber had a serious breakdown after the
death of his father (1897) in which he was
incapacitated for about five years
1905 Weber publishes The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
1906-1914 Weber published several
volumes on the religions of the world
Weber became a hospital administrator
during WWI
Weber died of influenza in 1920
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Intellectual Influences: Karl Marx
 the “silent debate” with Marx
 similarities:
1) emphasis on the importance of material
basis of society
2) both are “systems” theorists
3) both explored the way in which
capitalism limited individual freedom
4) argued that human decision making was
important in shaping human history
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Intellectual Influences: Karl Marx
 differences:
1) the nature of science – importance
of “value-free” science
2) historical inevitabilities
3) economic determinism
4) argued that societies are filled with
solidarity and conflict
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The Methodenstreit (Methodological
Debate over Approaches to Economics)
Historical Approach
(Schmoller)
Induction or Deduction
Induction (Weber)
Universality or Relativity of Relative and idiographic
findings
(Weber)
Degree of rationality or
Rational and nonrational
nonrationality in human
(Weber)
action
Ethical focus or Scientific Ethical
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Theoretical Approach
(Menger)
Deduction (Weber)
Universal and nomothetic
Focus on the rational actor
(Weber)
Scientific (Weber)
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Intellectual Influences: Wilhelm Dilthey
argued there are some fundamental
differences between the natural sciences
and the social sciences
the key difference is the “inner
nature”/consciousness of social action and
human subjects and requires a distinct
methodological orientation
this will become Weber’s notion of
verstehen
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Intellectual Influences: Heinrich Rickert
also explored the difference between the
natural and social sciences
however, he suggested that the science of
history was similar to the physical
sciences because both relied upon
“concept formation.”
This notion of concept formation formed
the basis for Weber’s “ideal types.”
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The Sociological Theory of Max Weber
 “Sociology … is a science concerning itself with
the interpretive understanding of social
action and thereby with a causal explanation
of its course and consequences. We shall
speak of ‘action’ insofar as the acting individual
attaches a subjective meaning to his behavior
– be it overt or covert, omission or
acquiescence. Action is ‘social’ insofar as its
subjective meaning takes account of the
behavior of others and is thereby oriented in
its course.”
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Weber’s Goals
Weber’s theoretical project has two
components:
understand the nature of origin of modern
western societies
develop a set of concepts (ideal types)
which can be used in understanding social
action.
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“Value-free” Sociology
 Weber advocates a “value-free” or objective
sociology.
 sociological investigations should be “rationalized”:
 clearly formulated concepts
 proper rules
 logical inferences
 values however can be used to choose a topic for
research, but not the method
 there is no need to search for universal laws – this
eliminates unique events from analysis
 Who's he talking back to here?
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Ideal Types
Ideal Types – “a system of concepts of
such universal scope as to be consistent
with even the most diverse value
attitudes.”
A concept created by social scientists on
the basis of his or her interests and
theoretical orientation, to capture the
essential features of some social
phenomenon.
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Types of Ideal Types
 historical ideal types – relate to phenomena
found in some particular historical epoch (ex:
modern capitalistic marketplace)
 General sociological ideal types – cut across a
number of historical periods (ex: bureaucracy)
 Action ideal types – pure types of action based
on the motivations of the actor
 Structural idea types – forms taken by the
causes and consequences of social action (ex:
traditional domination)
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The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism
 Weber’s most famous work.
Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des
Kapitalismus
 This is a work of historical analysis and
hypothesis testing
 Weber is attempting to do at least three things in
PESC:
 refute Marxist conflict theory
 explain why capitalism emerged in the west
 demonstrate that cultural values can direct social action as
well as material conditions.
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Reflects a quasi-experimental method to
answer the question: why did capitalism
emerge in the west and not in other parts
of the world?
In Weber’s research he finds that
Protestantism and capitalism are
associated, and that capitalist economic
success is tied to Protestantism.
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Class, Status and Party
 Class is not necessarily the most important
aspect of conflict
 Class is a group of people whose shared
situation is a possible, and sometimes frequent,
basis for action by the group. They share a
class position.
 A class situation exists when:
1) Life chances in common
2) This component is represented by economic interests,
possessions of goods and opportunities for income
3) Represented under conditions of the commodity or
labor markets
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Class, Status and Party
“status situation” is where “every typical
component of the life of men is determined
by a specific, positive or negative, social
estimation of honor.”
Status is associated with style of life.
Status relates to consumption of goods
produced, class relates to economic
production.
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Class, Status and Party
Classes exist in the economic order,
statuses exist in the social order, parties
can be found in the political order.
To Weber, parties “are always structures
struggling for domination.”
Parties usually, but not always, represent
class and/or status groups.
Oriented to the attainment of power.
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Structures of Authority
 Domination as the “probability that certain specific
commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a
given group of persons.” (Weber 1921/1968:212)
 Authority is a legitimate form of domination. Three
types:
Rational – “belief on the legality of enacted rules and the
right of those elevated to authority under such rules to
issue commands.”
Traditional – “established belief on the sanctity of
immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those
exercising authority under them.”
Charismatic – devotion of followers to the exceptional
sanctity, exemplary character, heroism or special powers
of the leader and the normative order they’ve sanctioned
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Legal Authority and the Ideal-Typical
Bureaucracy
 The bureaucracy was “the purest type of exercise of legal
authority”
 Ideal-typical bureaucracy
 “From a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy is
capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency, and is
in this sense formally the most rational known means of
exercising authority over human beings. It is superior to
any other form in precision, in stability, in the stringency of
its discipline, and in its reliability. It thus makes possible a
particularly high degree of calculability of results for the
heads of the organization and for those acting in relation to
it. It is finally superior both in intensive efficiency and in the
scope of its operations and is formally capable of
application to all kinds of administrative tasks (1921/1968,
p. 223).”
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 Weber feared that the
rationalization that dominates all
aspects of bureaucratic life was
a threat to individual liberty:
 “No machinery in the world
functions so precisely as this
apparatus of men and,
moreover, so cheaply. . ..
Rational calculation . . . reduces
every worker to a cog in this
bureaucratic machine and,
seeing himself in this light, he
will merely ask how to transform
himself into a somewhat bigger
cog. . . . The passion for
bureaucratization drives us to
despair" (1921/1968: p. IV).
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On Bureaucracy
"The principles of office hierarchy and of
levels of graded authority mean a firmly
ordered system of super- and
subordination in which there is a
supervision of the lower offices by the
higher ones" (1946/1958, p. 197)
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Major Characteristics of the Ideal-Typical
Bureaucracy
1. Clear levels with assignments flowing
downward and accountability flowing
upward (official functions bound by rules)
2. A division of labor (specific sphere of
competence) arranged hierarchically
3. Written rules
4. Written communications and records
5. Impersonality and Replaceability
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 "...it is still more horrible to think that the world could one
day be filled with nothing but those little cogs, little men
clinging to little jobs and striving toward bigger ones--a
state of affairs which is to be seen once more, as in the
Egyptian records, playing an ever-increasing part in the
spirit of our present administrative systems, and
especially of its offspring, the students. This passion for
bureaucracy...is enough to drive one to despair. It is as if
in politics. . . we were to deliberately to become men
who need "order" and nothing but order, who become
nervous and cowardly if for one moment this order
wavers, and helpless if they are torn away from their
total incorporation in it. That the world should know no
men but these: it is in such an evolution that we are
already caught up, and the great question is therefore
not how we can promote and hasten it, but what can we
oppose to this machinery in order to keep a portion of
mankind free from this parceling-out of the soul, from this
supreme mastery of the bureaucratic way of life."
(1909/1944, pp. 127-128).
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Any Alternatives?
 Bureaucratic rationalization isn’t going
anywhere: "The needs of mass administration
make it today completely indispensable. The
choice is only between bureaucracy and
dilettantism in the field of administration"
(1921/1968, p. 224).”
 There is no hope for a better world.
 Socialism would be even worse: "would mean a
tremendous increase in the importance of
professional bureaucrats" (1921/1968, p. 224).
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Ever the optimistic ray of sunshine…
 "When those subject to bureaucratic control
seek to escape the influence of existing
bureaucratic apparatus, this is normally possible
only by creating an organization of their own
which is equally subject to the process of
bureaucratization" (1921/1968, p. 224).
 "Not summer's bloom lies ahead of us, but rather
a polar night of icy darkness and hardness, no
matter which group may triumph externally now"
(1946/1958, p. 128).
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He was particularly concerned with the
process of rationalization, the application
of economic logic to all human activity,
due to the development of bureaucracies
throughout society.
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The Iron Cage of Rationality
 Too much rationalization  iron
cage of rationality
 Cloak to iron cage
 “In Baxter’s view the care for
external goods should only lie on
the shoulders of the 'saint like a
light cloak, which can be thrown
aside at any moment.' But fate
decreed that the cloak should
become an iron cage."
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Rationalization
Practical rationality – the way of life that
views and judges the world in relation to
the individual’s purely pragmatic and
egoistic interests.
Theoretical rationality – cognitive effort to
master reality through increasingly
abstract concepts rather than through
action.
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Rationalization
Substantive Rationality (like practical
reality but not theoretical rationality) –
directly orders action into patterns through
clusters of values
Formal Rationality – means-end
calculation. Universally applied rules, laws
and regulations.
This is the one Weber cared most about
Arose only in the West (unlike the other three)
with the coming of industrialization
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Formal Rationality
1)
2)
3)
4)
Calculability
Efficiency
Predictability
From human technology to nonhuman
technology (like computers)
5) Control over uncertainty
6) Irrational consequences
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Disenchantment
 As a result of formal rationality Weber believed
that contemporary life was filled with
disenchantment, the inevitable result of the
dehumanizing features of bureaucracies that
dominated modern societies, an irrationality
associated with the increasing rationality.
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