Max Weber
1864-1920
Katie Geneser
Hayden George
Background
 Born 1864, Thuringia
 Father was wealthy civil servant who was highly involved
in both politics and academics
 For Christmas one year he wrote two analytical essays to
give to his parents as gifts
 Attended law school
 Spent some time in the military
Background
 In 1893 he married Marianne Schnitger a feminist
activist and author
 Took a job as a professor eventually ending up at the
University of Heidelberg
Early Work
 Early on took an interest in contemporary social
policy
 Felt that the role of economics was the primary
source of solving social problems
Influences
 Strongly influenced by German Idealism
 Linked romanticism and Enlightenment politics
 Kant, Freud, and Simmel
 Strongly influenced by Marx’s ideas of socialism and
active politics
 Differed on the idea of utopian society
Concepts and Contributions
 Bureaucracy
 Pre-conditions

Growth in space and population

Growth in complexity of the administrative tasks being carried out

Existence of monetary economy, requires a more efficient
administrative system
Concepts and Contributions
 Bureaucracy

Communication and transportation policies make more efficient
administration possible

Hierarchical organization

Delineated lines of authority in a fixed area of activity

Rules are implemented by neutral officials, not the power elite

Advancements depend on technical qualifications from organizations
not individuals

Can be a threat to individual freedom
Concepts and Contributions
 Rationalization
 “The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and,
above all, by the ‘disenchantment of the world’”

Instead of the power elite holding society back, it is the laws,
rules and regulations capitalism requires

Curtails people’s freedoms and traps them in bureaucratic
society

Process is less welcome of individualism and “dehumanizes
people”
Concepts and Contributions
 Rationalization
 Zweckrational (i.e., formal) rationality. The rationality of
means-ends relationships, wherein an identifiable goal is
sought by pursuing reasonably defined means.

Wertrational (i.e., substantive) rationality. The rationality of
non-goal oriented behavior, wherein behavior is pursued
independently of the prospects of success.
Concepts and Contributions
 Verstehen
 German word for interpretive understanding

Looking at society from your own point of view rather than
from that of the indigenous culture

How people give meaning to the social world around them

Gives a subjective understanding about individual and group
behavior
Concepts and Contributions
 The Protestant Ethic
 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

Emphasizes hard work, frugality, and prosperity as a display as
a person’s salvation in the Christian faith

Societies that are more Protestant tend to be more
bureaucratic than capitalist and to Weber this is a good thing

Workers are more likely to be devoted to their craft and are
less alienated
Views on Society
 Bureaucratic Society
 Rather than capitalism or communism, Weber thought society
should be run through a system of well organized institutions

Society can be understood through empirical observation
rather than quantitative research

Power is not just in the hands of the elite
Relevancy
 Influenced Parsons, Habermas, and many others
 Presented sociology as the “science of human social
action”
 Developed antipositivism; stressing the differences
between social and natural sciences
 Weber Bureaucracies: showed how there are
bureaucratic elements of every part of society
Limitations
 His specific explanations for society in his time are
hard to generalize for other circumstances in society
 Failed to see all the positive aspects of rationalization
and deemed society to be doomed and trapped in an
“iron cage” of its own making
 Bureaucratic features of Weber’s ideal society might
actually be inefficient (argued by Merton)