Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber (German pronunciation: [ˈmaks ˈveːbɐ]; 21 April 1864 – 14
June 1920) was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social
theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself.[1] Weber's major works dealt with
the rationalization and "disenchantment" he associated with the rise of capitalism and
modernity.[2] Weber was, along with his associate Georg Simmel, a central figure in the
establishment of methodological antipositivism, which presents sociology as a non-empiricist
field which must study social action through interpretive means based upon understanding the
meaning and purpose that individuals attach to their own actions.[a] He is typically cited, with
Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as one of the three principal architects of modern social
science.[3][4][5]
Weber is most famous for the thesis in economic sociology which he elaborated in his book The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In this text, Weber argued that ascetic
Protestantism was one of the major "elective affinities" associated with the rise of capitalism,
bureaucracy and the rational-legal nation-state in the Western world. Against Marx's "historical
materialism," Weber emphasized the importance, for understanding the development of
capitalism, of cultural influences embedded in religion.[6] The Protestant Ethic formed the
earliest work in Weber's broader project in the sociology of religion: he would go on to examine
the religions of China, the religions of India, and ancient Judaism, with particular regard to the
apparent non-development of capitalism in the corresponding societies and to their differing
forms of social stratification.
In another major work, Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity which
successfully claims a "monopoly on the legitimate use of violence", a definition that became
pivotal to the study of modern Western political science. His analysis of bureaucracy in his
Economy and Society is still central to the modern study of organizations. Weber was the first to
recognize several diverse aspects of social authority, which he respectively categorized
according to their charismatic, traditional, and legal forms. His analysis of bureaucracy
emphasized that modern state institutions are based on a form of rational-legal authority. Weber's
thought regarding the rationalizing and secularizing tendencies of modern Western society
(sometimes described as the "Weber Thesis") led to the development of critical theory,
particularly in the work of later thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas.
After the First World War, Weber was among the founders of the liberal German Democratic
Party. He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament and served as advisor to the committee
that drafted the ill-fated democratic Weimar Constitution of 1919. After contracting the Spanish
flu, he died of pneumonia in 1920, at the age of 56.
Contents
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1 Biography
o 1.1 Early life and family background
o 1.2 Education
o 1.3 Early work
o 1.4 Later work
o 1.5 Political involvements
o 1.6 Last years
2 Weber's thought
o 2.1 Inspirations
o 2.2 Methodology
o 2.3 Rationalisation
o 2.4 Sociology of religion
 2.4.1 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
 2.4.2 The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism
 2.4.3 The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism
 2.4.4 Ancient Judaism
o 2.5 Politics and government
 2.5.1 Social stratification
o 2.6 Economics
 2.6.1 Economic calculation
3 Legacy
4 Critical responses to Weber
5 Notes
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and family background
Weber was born in 1864, in Erfurt, Thuringia.[3] He was the eldest of the seven children of Max
Weber Sr., a wealthy and prominent civil servant and member of the National Liberal Party
(Germany), and his wife Helene Fallenstein, who descended from French Huguenot immigrants
and held strong moral absolutist ideas.[3][7] Weber Sr.'s involvement in public life immersed his
home in both politics and academia, as his salon welcomed many prominent scholars and public
figures.[3] The young Weber and his brother Alfred, who also became a sociologist and
economist, thrived in this intellectual atmosphere. Weber's 1876 Christmas presents to his
parents, when he was thirteen years old, were two historical essays entitled "About the course of
German history, with special reference to the positions of the Emperor and the Pope," and
"About the Roman Imperial period from Constantine to the migration of nations."[8] In class,
bored and unimpressed with the teachers —who in turn resented what they perceived as a
disrespectful attitude— he secretly read all forty volumes of Goethe.[9][10] Before entering the
university, he would read many other classical works.[10] Over time, Weber would also be
significantly influenced by the marital tension between his father, "a man who enjoyed earthly
pleasures," and his mother, a devout Calvinist "who sought to lead an ascetic life."[11][12]
Max Weber and his brothers, Alfred and Karl, in 1879
[edit] Education
In 1882 Weber enrolled in the University of Heidelberg as a law student.[13] After a year of
military service he transferred to University of Berlin.[9] After his first few years as a student,
during which he spent much time "drinking beer and fencing," Weber would increasingly take
his mother side in family's arguments and grew estranged from his father.[11][12][14]
Simultaneously with his studies, he worked as a junior barrister.[9] In 1886 Weber passed the
examination for Referendar, comparable to the bar association examination in the British and
American legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, Weber continued his study of law and
history.[9] He earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a dissertation on legal history entitled
The History of Medieval Business Organisations; his advisor was Levin Goldschmidt, a
respected authority in commercial law.[13][15] Two years later, Weber completed his
Habilitationsschrift, The Roman Agrarian History and its Significance for Public and Private
Law, working with August Meitzen.[16][15] Having thus become a Privatdozent, Weber joined
University of Berlin's faculty, lecturing and consulting for the government.[17]
[edit] Early work
In the years between the completion of his dissertation and habilitation, Weber took an interest in
contemporary social policy. In 1888 he joined the Verein für Socialpolitik, [18] a new professional
association of German economists affiliated with the historical school, who saw the role of
economics primarily as finding solutions to the social problems of the age and who pioneered
large scale statistical studies of economic issues. He also involved himself in politics, joining the
left-leaning Evangelical Social Congress.[19] In 1890 the Verein established a research program
to examine "the Polish question" or Ostflucht: the influx of Polish farm workers into eastern
Germany as local labourers migrated to Germany's rapidly industrialising cities.[3] Weber was
put in charge of the study, and wrote a large part of the final report,[3][18] which generated
considerable attention and controversy and marked the beginning of Weber's renown as a social
scientist.[3] From 1893 to 1899 Weber was a member of the Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-German
League), an organization that campaigned against the influx of the Polish workers; the degree of
Weber's support for the Germanization of Poles and similar nationalist policies is still debated by
modern scholars.[20][21]
Max Weber and his wife Marianne in 1894
Also in 1893 he married his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger, later a feminist activist and
author in her own right,[3][22] who was instrumental in collecting and publishing Weber's journal
articles as books after his death, and her biography of him is an important source for
understanding Weber's life.[23][24] They would have no children.[14] The marriage granted longawaited financial independence to Weber, allowing him to finally leave his parents'
household.[12] The couple moved to Freiburg in 1894, where Weber was appointed professor of
economics at the university,[16][17] before accepting the same position at the University of
Heidelberg in 1896.[16][17] There Weber became a central figure in the so-called "Weber Circle,"
composed of other intellectuals such as his wife Marianne, Georg Jellinek, Ernst Troeltsch,
Werner Sombart, Marc Bloch, Robert Michels, and György Lukács.[3] Weber also remained
active in Verein and the Evangelical Social Congress.[3] His research in that period was focused
on economics and legal history.[25]
In 1897 Max Weber Sr. died, two months after a severe quarrel with his son that was never
resolved.[3][26] After this, Weber became increasingly prone to depression, nervousness and
insomnia, making it difficult for him to fulfill his duties as a professor.[9][16] His condition forced
him to reduce his teaching and leave unfinished his course in the fall of 1899. After spending
months in a sanatorium during the summer and fall of 1900, Weber and his wife traveled to Italy
at the end of the year and did not return to Heidelberg until April 1902. He would again
withdraw from teaching in 1903, and not return to it till 1919.[3]
[edit] Later work
After Weber's immense productivity in the early 1890s, he did not publish any papers between
early 1898 and late 1902, finally resigning his professorship in late 1903. Freed from those
obligations, in that year he accepted a position as associate editor of the Archives for Social
Science and Social Welfare,[27] where he worked with his colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Werner
Sombart.[3][28] His new interests would lie in more fundamental issues of social sciences and it
was is works from this latter period that is of primary interest to modern scholars.[25] In 1904,
Weber began to publish some of his most seminal papers in this journal, notably his essay The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which became his most famous work[29] and laid
the foundations for his later research on the impact of cultures and religions on the development
of economic systems.[30] This essay was the only one of his works from that period that was
published as a book during his lifetime. Some other of his works written in the first one and a
half decades of the 20th century —published posthumously and dedicated primarily from the
fields of sociology of religion, economic and legal sociology— are also recognized as among his
most important intellectual contributions.[3]
Also in 1904, he visited the United States and participated in the Congress of Arts and Sciences
held in connection with the World's Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) in St. Louis. Despite
his partial recovery, Weber felt that he was unable to resume regular teaching at that time and
continued on as a private scholar, helped by an inheritance in 1907.[17][27] In 1909, disappointed
with the Verein, he co-founded the German Sociological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Soziologie, or DGS) and served as its first treasurer.[3] He would, however, resign from the DSG
in 1912.[3] In 1912, Weber tried to organize a left-wing political party to combine socialdemocrats and liberals. This attempt was unsuccessful, in part because many liberals feared
social-democratic revolutionary ideals.[31]
[edit] Political involvements
Max Weber in 1917
During the First World War, Weber served for a time as director of the army hospitals in
Heidelberg.[27][32] In 1915 and 1916 he sat on commissions that tried to retain German supremacy
in Belgium and Poland after the war. Weber's views on war, as well as on expansion of the
German empire, changed throughout the war.[31][32][33] Early on he was a vocal supporter of the
nationalist rhetoric and the war —believing in particular that a "liberal imperialism" along the
lines of the the British model would help Germany to grow a more mature political class— but in
time Weber became one of the most prominent critics of German expansionism and of the
Kaiser's war policies.[3] He publicly attacked the Belgian annexation policy and unrestricted
submarine warfare, and later supported calls for constitutional reform, democratization, and
universal suffrage.[3]
He joined the worker and soldier council of Heidelberg in 1918. In the same year, Weber became
a consultant to the German Armistice Commission at the Treaty of Versailles and served as an
advisor to the Confidential Committee for Constitutional Reform, charged with drafting the
Weimar Constitution.[27] Motivated by his understanding of the American model, he advocated a
strong, popularly elected presidency as a counter-balance to the power of the professional
bureaucracy.[3] More controversially, he defended the provisions for emergency presidential
powers which became Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution.[34] These provisions were later
used by Adolf Hitler to subvert the rest of the constitution and institute rule by decree, thereby
allowing his regime to suppress opposition and gain dictatorial powers.
Weber also ran, unsuccessfully, for a parliamentary seat, as a member of the liberal German
Democratic Party, which he co-founded.[3][35] He opposed both the leftist German Revolution and
the Treaty of Versailles, a principled position which defied the political alignments in Germany
at that time.[3] He commanded widespread respect, but relatively little influence.[3] Weber's role
in German politics remains a controversial subject to this day.
[edit] Last years
Frustrated with politics, Weber resumed teaching during this time, first at the University of
Vienna, then, after 1919, at the University of Munich.[3][17][27] His lectures from that period were
collected into major works, such as the General Economic History, Science as a Vocation and
Politics as a Vocation.[3] In Munich, he headed the first German university institute of sociology,
but never held a professorial position in sociology. Many colleagues and students in Munich
attacked his response to the German Revolution of 1918–19 and some right-wing students held
protests in front of his home.[31] Max Weber contracted the Spanish flu and died of pneumonia in
Munich on 14 June 1920.[3] At the time of his death, Weber had not finished writing his magnum
opus on sociological theory: Economy and Society. His wife Marianne helped prepare it for
publication in 1921–22.
[edit] Weber's thought
[edit] Inspirations
Weber was significantly influenced by German idealism, Kantian ethics and philosophy of
Friedrich Nietzsche.[3] Weber was familiar with neo-Kantianism from Heinrich Rickert, his
colleague at Freiburg.[3] He saw the Kantian thought as partially obsolete in the Nietzsche age,
and thus Weber's works can be seen as an attempt to bridge Kantian moral imperatives (such as
ethic of duty) and Nietzschean interpretation of the modern world.[3]
[edit] Methodology
Unlike some other classical figures (Comte, Durkheim) Weber did not attempt, consciously, to
create any specific set of rules governing social sciences in general, or sociology in particular.[3]
Compared to Durkheim and Marx, Weber was more focused on individuals and culture, and this
is clear in his methodology.[9] Whereas Durkheim focused on the society, Weber concentrated on
the individuals and their actions (see structure and action discussion), and whereas Marx argued
for the primacy of the material world over the world of ideas, Weber valued ideas as motivating
actions of individuals, at least in the big picture.[9][36][37] His methodology was collect "ethical as
it was epistemological".[3]
Weber was concerned with the question of objectivity and subjectivity.[3] Weber distinguished
social action from social behavior, noting that social action must be understood through how
individuals subjectively relate to one another.[3][38] Study of social action through interpretive
means (Verstehen) must be based upon understanding the subjective meaning and purpose that
the individual attaches to their actions.[3][25] Social actions may have easily identifiable and
objective means, but much more subjective ends, and the understanding of those ends by a
scientists is subject to yet another layer of subjective understanding (that of the scientist).[3]
Weber noted that the importance of subjectivity in social sciences makes creation of full-proof,
universal laws much more difficult than in natural sciences, and that the amount of objective
knowledge that social sciences may achieve is precariously limited.[3] Overall, Weber supported
the goal of objective science, but he noted that it is an unreachable goal – although one definitely
worth striving for.[3]
There is no absolutely "objective" scientific analysis of culture... All knowledge of cultural
reality... is always knowledge from particular points of view. ... an "objective" analysis of
cultural events, which proceeds according to the thesis that the ideal of science is the reduction
of empirical reality to "laws," is meaningless... [because]... the knowledge of social laws is not
knowledge of social reality but is rather one of the various aids used by our minds for attaining
this end.
—Max Weber "Objectivity" in Social Science c.1897[39]
The principle of "methodological individualism," which holds that social scientists should seek
to understand collectivities (such as nations, cultures, governments, churches, corporations, etc.)
solely as the result and the context of the actions of individual persons, can be traced to Weber,
particularly to the first chapter of Economy and Society, in which he argues that only individuals
"can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action."[38][40] In other words,
Weber argued that social phenomena can be understood scientifically only to the extent that they
are captured by models of the behavior of purposeful individuals, models which Weber called
"ideal types," from which actual historical events will necessarily deviate due to accidental and
irrational factors.[40] The analytical constructs of an ideal type never exist in reality, but provide
objective benchmarks against which real-life constructs can be measured.[41]
We know of no scientifically ascertainable ideals. To be sure, that makes our efforts more
arduous than in the past, since we are expected to create our ideals from within our breast in the
very age of subjectivist culture.
—Max Weber, 1909[42]
Weber's methodology was developed in the context of a wider debate about methodology of
social sciences, the Methodenstreit.[25] Weber's position was close to historicism, as he
understood social actions as being heavily tied to particular historical contexts, and its analysis
required the understanding of subjective motivations of individuals (social actors).[25] Thus
Weber's methodology emphasizes the use of comparative historical analysis.[43] Therefore,
Weber was more interested in explaining how a certain outcome was the result of various
historical processes rather than predicting an outcome of those processes in the future.[37]
[edit] Rationalisation
Many scholars have described rationalisation, or more specific, the question of the place of
individual freedom in an increasingly rational society, as the main, or one of main themes of
Weber's work.[3][44][45][46] This question was situated in the context of understanding the
relationship between psychological motivation of actors, cultural values and beliefs (primarily,
religion) and the structure of the society (usually determined by the economy).[37]
By rationalization, Weber understood both individual cost-benefit calculation, the wider,
bureaucratic organization of the organizations, and finally, in the more general sense as the
opposite of understanding the reality through mystery and magic (disenchantment).[46]
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by
the "disenchantment of the world"
—Max Weber[47]
Weber began his studies of the subject in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in
which he argued that the redefinition of the connection between work and piety in Protestantism,
and especially in ascetic Protestant denominations, particularly Calvinism,[48] shifted human
effort towards rational efforts aimed at achieving economic gain. In Calvinism in particular, but
also in Lutheranism, Christian piety towards God was expressed through or in one's secular
vocation. Calvin, in particular, viewed the expression of the work ethic as a sign of "election".
The rational roots of this doctrine, he argued, soon grew incompatible with and larger than the
religious, and so the latter were eventually discarded.[49]
Weber continued his investigation into this matter in later works, notably in his studies on
bureaucracy and on the classification of authority into three types—legitimate, traditional, and
charismatic—of which the legitimate (or rational) is the dominant one in the modern world.[3] In
these works Weber described what he saw as society's movement towards rationalization.[3]
Similarly, rationalization could be seen in the economy, with the development of highly rational
and calculating capitalism.[3] Weber also saw rationalization as one of the main factors setting
the European West apart from the rest of the world.[3] Rationalization relied on deep changes in
ethics, religion, psychology, and culture; changes that first took place in the Western
civilization.[3]
What Weber depicted was not only the secularization of Western culture, but also and especially
the development of modern societies from the viewpoint of rationalization. The new structures of
society were marked by the differentiation of the two functionally intermeshing systems that had
taken shape around the organizational cores of the capitalist enterprise and the bureaucratic state
apparatus. Weber understood this process as the institutionalization of purposive-rational
economic and administrative action. To the degree that everyday life was affected by this
cultural and societal rationalization, traditional forms of life – which in the early modern period
were differentiated primarily according to one's trade – were dissolved.
—Jürgen Habermas Modernity's Consciousness of Time, [2]
Features of rationalization include increasing knowledge, growing impersonality, and enhanced
control of social and material life.[3] Weber was ambivalent towards rationalization; while
admitting it was responsible for many advances, in particular, freeing humans from traditional,
restrictive and illogical social guidelines, he also criticized it for dehumanizing individuals as
"cogs in the machine", and curtailing their freedom, trapping them in the bureaucratic iron cage
of rationality and bureaucracy.[3][44][50][51] Related to rationalization is the process of
disenchantment, in which the world is becoming more explained and less mystical, moving from
polytheistic religions to monotheistic ones, and finally to the Godless science of modernity.[3]
Those processes affect all of society, removing "sublime values... from public life", and making
art less creative.[52]
In a dystopian critique of rationalization, Weber notes that modern society is a product of an
individualistic drive of the Reformation, yet at the same time, the society created in this process
is less and less welcoming of individualism.[3]
How is it at all possible to salvage any remnants of 'individual' freedom of movement in any
sense given this all-powerful trend?
—Max Weber[3]
[edit] Sociology of religion
Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion started with the essay The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism (which grew out of heavy "field work" among Protestant sects in
America) and continued with the analysis of The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism,
The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism, and Ancient Judaism. His work
on other religions was interrupted by his sudden death in 1920, which prevented him from
following Ancient Judaism with studies of Psalms, Book of Jacob, Talmudic Jewry, early
Christianity and Islam.[53] His three main themes in the essays were the effect of religious ideas
on economic activities, the relation between social stratification and religious ideas, and the
distinguishable characteristics of Western civilization.[54]
Weber saw religion as one of the core forces in the society.[43] His goal was to find reasons for
the different development paths of the cultures of the Occident and the Orient, although without
judging or valuing them, like some of the contemporary thinkers who followed the social
Darwinist paradigm; Weber wanted primarily to explain the distinctive elements of the Western
civilization.[54] In the analysis of his findings, Weber maintained that Calvinist (and more widely,
Protestant) religious ideas had had a major impact on the social innovation and development of
the economic system of the West, but noted that they were not the only factors in this
development. Other notable factors mentioned by Weber included the rationalism of scientific
pursuit, merging observation with mathematics, science of scholarship and jurisprudence,
rational systematization and bureaucratization of government administration, and economic
enterprise.[54] In the end, the study of the sociology of religion, according to Weber, focused on
one distinguishing part of the Western culture, the decline of beliefs in magic, or what he
referred to as "disenchantment of the world".[54]
Weber also proposed a socioevolutionary model of religious change, showing that in general,
societies have moved from magic to polytheism, then to pantheism, monotheism and finally,
ethical monotheism.[55] According to Weber, this evolution occurred as the growing economic
stability allowed professionalization and the evolution of ever more sophisticated priesthood.[56]
As societies grew more complex and encompassed different groups, a hierarchy of gods
developed, and as power in the society became more centralized, the concept of a single,
universal God became more popular and desirable.[57]
[edit] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Die protestantische Ethik und
der Geist des Kapitalismus) is his most famous work.[29] It is argued that this work should not be
viewed as a detailed study of Protestantism, but rather as an introduction into Weber's later
works, especially his studies of interaction between various religious ideas and economic
behaviour as part of the rationalization of the economic system.[58] In The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber put forward the thesis that Calvinist ethic and ideas influenced
the development of capitalism.[58] He noted the post-Reformation shift of Europe's economic
center away from Catholic countries such as France, Spain and Italy, and toward Protestant
countries such as the Netherlands, England, Scotland and Germany. Weber also noted that
societies having more Protestants were those with a more highly developed capitalist
economy.[59] Similarly, in societies with different religious, majority of most successful business
leader were Protestant as well.[58] Weber thus argued that Roman Catholicism impeded the
development of the capitalist economy in the West, as did other religions such as Confucianism
and Buddhism elsewhere in the world.[58]
The development of the concept of the calling quickly gave to the modern entrepreneur a
fabulously clear conscience — and also industrious workers; he gave to his employees as the
wages of their ascetic devotion to the calling and of co-operation in his ruthless exploitation of
them through capitalism the prospect of eternal salvation.
—Max Weber
Christian religious devotion had historically been accompanied by rejection of mundane affairs,
including economic pursuit.[60] Weber showed that certain types of Protestantism – notably
Calvinism – were supportive of rational pursuit of economic gain and worldly activities
dedicated to it, seeing them as endowed with moral and spiritual significance.[48] Weber argued
that there were many reasons to look for the origins of modern capitalism in the religious ideas
of the Reformation.[61] In particular, the Protestant ethic (or more specifically, Calvinist ethic)
motivated the believers to work hard, be successful in business, and reinvest their profits in
further development rather than frivolous pleasures.[58] The notion of calling meant that each
individual had to take action in order to be saved; just being a member of the Church was not
enough.[62] Predestination also reduced antagonizing over economic inequality, and further, it
meant that a material wealth could be taken as a sign of salvation in the afterlife.[58][63] The
believers thus justified pursuit of profit with religion, as instead of being fueled by morally
suspect greed or ambition, their actions were motivated by a highly moral and respected
philosophy.[58] This Weber called the "spirit of capitalism": it was the Protestant religious
ideology that was behind—and inevitably lead to—the capitalist economic system.[58] This
theory is often viewed as a reversal of Marx's thesis that the economic "base" of society
determines all other aspects of it.[48]
Weber abandoned research into Protestantism because his colleague Ernst Troeltsch, a
professional theologian, had begun work on the book The Social Teachings of the Christian
Churches and Sects. Another reason for Weber's decision was that Troeltsch's work already
achieved what he desired in that area: laying the groundwork for a comparative analysis of
religion and society.[64]
The phrase "work ethic" used in modern commentary is a derivative of the "Protestant ethic"
discussed by Weber. It was adopted when the idea of the Protestant ethic was generalised to
apply to the Japanese people, Jews and other non-Christians and thus lost its religious
connotations.[65]
[edit] The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism
Main article: The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism
The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism was Weber's second major work on the
sociology of religion. Weber focused on those aspects of Chinese society that were different
from those of Western Europe and especially contrasted with Puritanism, and posed a question
why capitalism did not develop in China.[66] He focused on the issues of Chinese urban
development, Chinese patrimonialism and officialdom, and Chinese religion, as the areas in
which Chinese development differed most distinctively from the European route.[66]
According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism are mutually exclusive types of rational
thought, each attempting to prescribe a way of life based on religious dogma.[67] Notably, they
both valued self control and restraint, and did not oppose accumulation of wealth.[67] However, to
both those qualities were just means to the final goal, and here they were divided by a key
difference.[63] Confucianism's goal was "a cultured status position", while Puritanism's goal was
to create individuals who are "tools of God".[67] The intensity of belief and enthusiasm for action
were rare in Confucianism, but common in Protestantism.[67] Actively working for wealth was
unbecoming a proper Confucian.[63] Therefore, Weber states that it was this difference in social
attitudes and mentality, shaped by the respective, dominant religions, that contributed to the
development of capitalism in the West and the absence of it in China.[67]
[edit] The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism
Main article: The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism
The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism was Weber's third major work
on the sociology of religion. In this work he deals with the structure of Indian society, with the
orthodox doctrines of Hinduism and the heterodox doctrines of Buddhism, with modifications
brought by the influence of popular religiosity, and finally with the impact of religious beliefs on
the secular ethic of Indian society.[68] Like Confucianism in China, for Weber, hinduism in India
was a barrier for capitalism.[63] The Indian caste system made it very difficult for individuals to
advance in the society beyond their caste.[63] Activity, including economic activity, was seen as
unimportant in the context of the advancement of the soul.[63]
Weber ended his research of society and religion in India by bringing in insights from his
previous work on China to discuss similarities of the Asian belief systems.[69] He notes that the
beliefs saw the meaning of life as otherwoldy mystical experience.[69] The social world is
fundamentally divided between the educated elite, following the guidance of a prophet or wise
man, and the uneducated masses whose believes are centered on magic.[69] In Asia, there was no
Messianic prophecy to plan and meaning to the everyday life of educated and uneducated
alike.[69] Weber juxtaposed such Messianic prophecies, notably from the Near East region to the
exemplary prophecies found on the Asiatic mainland, focused more on reaching to the educated
elites and enlightening them on the proper ways to live one's life, usually with little emphasis on
hard work and material world.[69] It was those differences that prevented the countries of the
Occident from following the paths of the earlier Chinese and Indian civilizations. His next work,
Ancient Judaism was an attempt to prove this theory.[69]
[edit] Ancient Judaism
Main article: Ancient Judaism (book)
In Ancient Judaism, his fourth major work on the sociology of religion, Weber attempted to
explain the factors which resulted in the early differences between Oriental and Occidental
religiosity.[70] He contrasted the innerworldly asceticism developed by Western Christianity with
mystical contemplation of the kind developed in India.[70] Weber noted that some aspects of
Christianity sought to conquer and change the world, rather than withdraw from its
imperfections.[70] This fundamental characteristic of Christianity (when compared to Far Eastern
religions) stems originally from ancient Jewish prophecy.[71]
Weber noted that Judaism not only fathered Christianity and Islam, but was crucial to the rise of
the modern Occident state; Judaism's influence was as important as Hellenistic and Roman
cultures.
Weber's premature death in 1920 prevented him from following his planned analysis of Psalms,
the Book of Jacob, Talmudic Jewry, early Christianity and Islam.
[edit] Politics and government
In political sociology, one of Weber's most significant contributions is his Politics as a Vocation
essay. Therein, Weber unveils the definition of the state that has become so pivotal to Western
social thought: that the state is that entity which possesses a delegatable monopoly on the
legitimate use of physical force.[72] Weber wrote that politics derives from power, as is to be
understood as any activity in which the state might engage itself in order to influence the relative
distribution of force. A politician must not be a man of the "true Christian ethic", understood by
Weber as being the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount, that is to say, the injunction to turn the
other cheek. An adherent of such an ethic ought rather to be understood to be a saint, for it is
only saints, according to Weber, that can appropriately follow it. The political realm is no realm
for saints. A politician ought to marry the ethic of ultimate ends and the ethic of responsibility,
and must possess both a passion for his vocation and the capacity to distance himself from the
subject of his exertions (the governed).[73]
Weber distinguished three ideal types of political leadership, domination, legitimization and
authority:
1. charismatic domination (familial and religious),
2. traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonialism, feudalism), and
3. legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy).[74]
In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they
can be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[75] He notes that the instability of
charismatic authority forces it to "routinize" into a more structured form of authority.[50] In a pure
type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a ruler can lead to a "traditional revolution". The
move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic structure, is
inevitable in the end.[76] Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social
evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the
inevitability of a move in this direction.[50]
Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally domination through knowledge
—Max Weber[77]
Weber described many ideal types of public administration and government in his masterpiece
Economy and Society (1922). His critical study of the bureaucratisation of society became one of
the most enduring parts of his work.[50][77] It was Weber who began the studies of bureaucracy
and whose works led to the popularization of this term.[78] Many aspects of modern public
administration go back to him, and a classic, hierarchically organized civil service of the
Continental type is called "Weberian civil service".[79] As the most efficient and rational way of
organizing, bureaucratization for Weber was the key part of the rational-legal authority, and
furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the ongoing rationalization of the Western
society.[50][77]
Weber listed several precondititions for the emergence of the bureaucracy:[80] The growth in
space and population being administered, the growth in complexity of the administrative tasks
being carried out, and the existence of a monetary economy—these resulted in a need for a more
efficient administrative system.[80] Development of communication and transportation
technologies made more efficient administration possible (and popularly requested), and
democratization and rationalization of culture resulted in demands that the new system treat
everybody equally.[80]
Weber's ideal bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical organization, by delineated lines of
authority in a fixed area of activity, by action taken (and recorded) on the basis of written rules,
by bureaucratic officials needing expert training, by rules being implemented neutrally, and by
career advancement depending on technical qualifications judged by organizations, not by
individuals.[77][80]
The decisive reason for the advance of the bureaucratic organization has always been its purely
technical superiority over any other form of organization
—Max Weber[79]
While recognizing bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organization, and even
indispensable for the modern state, Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms, and the
ongoing bureaucratization as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing
rationalization of human life traps individuals in the aforementioned "iron cage" of bureaucratic,
rule-based, rational control.[77][81] In order to counteract bureaucrats, the system needs
entrepreneurs and politicians.[77]
[edit] Social stratification
Weber also formulated a three-component theory of stratification, with Social class, Social status
and Political party as conceptually distinct elements.[82]



Social class is based on economically determined relationship to the market (owner,
renter, employee etc.).
Status class is based on non-economical qualities like honour, prestige and religion.
Party class refers to affiliations in the political domain.
All three dimensions have consequences for what Weber called "life chances" (opportunities to
improve one's life).[82]
[edit] Economics
Weber regarded himself primarily as a "political economist,"[83][84][85] and all of his professorial
appointments were in economics, though today his contributions in that field are largely
overshadowed by his role as a founder of modern sociology. As an economist, Weber belonged
to the "youngest" German historical school of economics.[86] The great differences between that
school's interests and methods on the one hand and those of the neoclassical school (from which
modern mainstream economics largely derives) on the other, explain why Weber's influence on
economics today is hard to discern.[87]
Though his research interests were always in line with those of the German historicists, with a
strong emphasis on interpreting economic history, Weber's defense of "methodological
individualism" in the social sciences represented an important break with that school and an
embracing of many of the arguments that had been made against the historicists by Carl Menger,
the founder of the Austrian School of economics, in the context of the academic Methodenstreit
("debate over methods") of the late 19th century.[40] Unlike other historicists, Weber also
accepted the marginal theory of value and taught it to his students.[88][89]
The phrase "methodological individualism," which has come into common usage in modern
debates about the connection between microeconomics and macroeconomics, was coined by the
Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1908 as a way of referring to the views of
Weber.[40] According to Weber's theses, social research cannot be fully inductive or descriptive,
because understanding some phenomenon implies that the researcher must go beyond mere
description and interpret it; interpretation requires classification according to abstract "ideal
(pure) types".[86] This, together with his antipositivistic argumentation (see Verstehen), can be
taken as a methodological justification for the model of the "rational economic man" (homo
economicus), which is at the heart of modern mainstream economics.[40][86]
In terms of concrete research, Weber's best known work in economics concerned the relations
between religion and capitalism, which he explored in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism as well as in his other works on the sociology of religion.[86] Other contributions
include his early work on the economic history of Roman agrarian society (1891) and on the
labor relations in Eastern Germany (1892), his analysis of the history of commercial partnerships
in the Middle Ages (1889), his critique of Marxism, the discussion of the roles of idealism and
materialism in the history of capitalism in his Economy and Society (1922), and his General
Economic History (1923), a notable example of the kind of empirical work associated with the
German Historical School.[86]
Though today read primarily by sociologists and social philosophers, Weber's work did have a
significant influence on Frank Knight, one of the founders of the neoclassical Chicago school of
economics, who translated Weber's General Economic History into English in 1927.[90] Knight
also wrote in 1956 that Max Weber was the only economist who dealt with the problem of
understanding the emergence of modern capitalism "from the angle which alone can yield an
answer to such questions, that is, the angle of comparative history in the broad sense."[89]
[edit] Economic calculation
Weber, like his colleague Werner Sombart, regarded economic calculation, and especially the
double-entry bookkeeping method of business accounting, as one of the most important forms of
rationalization associated the development of modern capitalism.[91] Weber's preoccupation with
the importance of economic calculation led him to develop a critique of socialism as a system
that lacked a mechanism for allocating resources efficiently in order to satisfy human needs.[92]
In his introduction to his Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion (1920), Weber argues that
Exact calculation —the foundation of everything else— is only possible on the basis of free
labor. And just as (and just because) the world outside of the modern West has known no rational
organization of labor, so (in consequence) it has known no rational socialism either.[93]
In his capital work on sociological theory, Economy and Society Weber elaborates on this
point.[92][94] Socialist intellectuals like Otto Neurath had realized that in a completely socialized
economy, prices would not exist and central planners would have to resort to in-kind (rather than
monetary) economic calculation.[92][95] According to Weber, this type of coordination would be
inefficient, especially because it would be incapable of solving the problem of imputation (i.e. of
accurately determining the relative values of capital goods).[92][95] Weber wrote that, under full
socialism,
In order to make possible a rational utilization of the means of production, a system of in-kind
accounting would have to determine "value" – indicators of some kind for the individual capital
goods which could take over the role of the "prices" used in book valuation in modern business
accounting. But it is not at all clear how such indicators could be established, and in particular,
verified; whether, for instance, they should vary from one production unit to the next (on the
basis of economic location), or whether they should be uniform for the entire economy, on the
basis of "social utility," that is, of (present and future) consumption requirements [...] Nothing is
gained by assuming that, if only the problem of a non-monetary economy were seriously enough
attacked, a suitable accounting method would be discovered or invented. The problem is
fundamental to any kind of complete socialization. We cannot speak of a rational "planned
economy" so long as in this decisive respect we have no instrument for elaborating a rational
"plan."[94]
This argument against socialism was made independently, at about the same time, by Ludwig
von Mises.[92][96] Weber himself had a significant influence on Mises, whom he had befriended
when they were both at the University of Vienna in the spring of 1918,[97] and, through Mises, on
several other economists associated with the Austrian School in the 20th century.[98] Friedrich
Hayek in particular elaborated the arguments of Weber and Mises about economic calculation
into a central part of free market economics's intellectual assault on socialism, as well as into a
model for the spontaneous coordination of "dispersed knowledge" in markets.[99][100][101]
[edit] Legacy
"The prestige of Max Weber among European social scientists would be difficult to overestimate. He is widely considered the greatest of German sociologists and... has become a
leading influence in European and American thought."
—Hans Heinrich Gerth and Charles Wright Mills From Max Weber: essays in sociology 1991[4]
Whereas Durkheim, following Comte, worked in the positivist tradition, Weber created and
worked –like Werner Sombart, his friend and later the most famous representative of German
sociology– in the antipositivist, hermeneutic, tradition.[102] These works pioneered the
antipositivistic revolution in social sciences, stressing (as in the work of Wilhelm Dilthey) the
difference between the social sciences and natural sciences.[102]
Weber's most famous work relates to economic sociology, political sociology, and the sociology
of religion. Along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim,[84] he is regarded as one of the founders
of modern sociology.
Weber presented sociology as the science of human social action; action which he separated into
traditional, affectional, value-rational and instrumental.[103] This typology of social action has
been referred to as "now-famous".[104]
[Sociology is] the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby
give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it
produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent that
the agent or agents see it as subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be
either (a) the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical
occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the
meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In
neither case is the 'meaning' to be thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some
metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as
sociology and history, and any kind of a priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or
aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.
—Max Weber The Nature of Social Action 1922, [105]
In his time, however, Weber was viewed primarily as a historian and an economist.[84][85] The
breadth of Weber's topical interests is apparent in the depth of his social theory:
The affinity between capitalism and Protestantism, the religious origins of the Western world,
the force of charisma in religion as well as in politics, the all-embracing process of
rationalization and the bureaucratic price of progress, the role of legitimacy and of violence as
the offspring of leadership, the 'disenchantment' of the modern world together with the neverending power of religion, the antagonistic relation between intellectualism and eroticism: all
these are key concepts which attest to the enduring fascination of Weber's thinking.
—Radkau, Joachim Max Weber: A Biography 2005[106]
Many of Weber's works famous today were collected, revised, and published posthumously.
Significant interpretations of his writings were produced by such sociological luminaries as
Talcott Parsons and C. Wright Mills. Parsons in particular imparted to Weber's works a
functionalist, teleological perspective; this personal interpretation has been criticised for a latent
conservatism.[107]
Weber has influenced many later thinkers, such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, György
Lukács, and Jürgen Habermas.[3] Different elements of his thought were acclaimed by Carl
Schmitt, Joseph Schumpeter, Leo Strauss, Hans Morgenthau, and Raymond Aron.[3] According
to Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, who had met Weber during his time at the University
of Vienna,
The early death of this genius was a great disaster for Germany. Had Weber lived longer, the
German people of today would be able to look to this example of an "Aryan" who would not be
broken by National Socialism.[108]
According to his friend, the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, Weber was "the greatest
German of our era" and his untimely death felt to him "as if the German world had lost its
heart."[109]
[edit] Critical responses to Weber
In general, Weber's explanations are highly specific to the historical periods he analyzed.[110]
This makes it more difficult to generalize from his analysis and modify his theories for other
circumstances.[110]
Further, many scholars have disagreed with specific claims Weber makes in his historical
analysis. For example, the economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism did not begin
with the Industrial Revolution but in 14th century Italy.[111] In Milan, Venice, and Florence the
small city-state governments led to the development of the earliest forms of capitalism.[112] In the
16th century Antwerp was a commercial center of Europe. It was also noted that the
predominantly Calvinist country of Scotland did not enjoy the same economic growth as the
Netherlands, England, and New England. In addition, it has been pointed out that the
Netherlands, which had a Calvinist majority, industrialized much later in the 19th century than
predominantly Catholic Belgium, which was one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution on
the European mainland.[113]
Emil Kauder expanded Schumpeter's argument by arguing the hypothesis that Calvinism hurt the
development of capitalism by leading to the development of the labor theory of value. Kauder
writes "Any social philosopher or economist exposed to Calvinism will be tempted to give labor
an exalted position in his social or economic treatise, and no better way of extolling labor can be
found than by combining work with value theory, traditionally the very basis of an economic
system."[114] In contrast, Catholic areas that were influenced by the late scholastics were more
likely to adhere to the subjective theory of value.
[edit] Notes
a ^ Weber wrote his books in German. Original titles printed after his death (1920) are most
likely compilations of his unfinished works (of the 'Collected Essays...' form). Many translations
are made of parts or sections of various German originals, and the names of the translations often
do not reveal what part of German work they contain. Weber's work is generally quoted
according to the critical Gesamtausgabe (collected works edition), which is published by Mohr
Siebeck in Tübingen. For an extensive list of Max Weber's works see list of Max Weber works.
[edit] See also




Interpretations of Weber's liberalism
Max Weber bibliography
Sociology of law
Speeches of Max Weber
[edit] References
1.
^ "Max Weber." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica
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^ a b Habermas, Jürgen, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Polity Press
(1985), ISBN 0-7456-0830-2, p2
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at
au av aw Kim, Sung Ho (24 August 2007). "Max Weber". Stanford Encyclopaedia of
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^ a b Max Weber; Hans Heinrich Gerth; Bryan S. Turner (7 March 1991). From
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^ Radkau, Joachim and Patrick Ca miller. (2009). Max Weber: A Biography.
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^ a b Dirk Käsler (1988). Max Weber: an introduction to his life and work.
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[edit] Further reading
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Ankerl, Guy (1972) (in French). Sociologues allemands. Avec le dictionnaire de
"l'Ethique protestante et l'esprit du capitalisme" de Max Weber. Neuchâtel:: A la
Baconnière..
Bruun, Hans Henrik (2007). Rethinking classical sociology.. Aldershot, Ashgate. p. 298.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0754645290 Science, values, and politics in Max
Weber's methodology.
Green, Robert, ed (1959). Problems in European Civilization, Protestantism and
Capitalism: The Weber Thesis and Its Critics. Boston: Heath.
Haidenko, Piama; Translated by H. Campbell Creighton, M.A. (Oxon) (1989) "The
Sociology of Max Weber" in Kon, Igor (DOC, DjVu) A History of Classical Sociology
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Moscow: Progress Publishers pp. 255–311 ISBN 5-01-001102-6 http://sultd.mylivepage.ru/file/2715/6547_Kon_History_of_Classical_Sociology.zip
Korotayev, Andrey; Malkov, A.; Khaltourina, D. (2006) "Chapter 6: Reconsidering
Weber: Literacy and "the Spirit of Capitalism"" (Google Books) Introduction to Social
Macrodynamics Moscow: URSS ISBN 5-484-00414-4
http://books.google.com/books?id=tyoryrjrzUMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:548400
4144&hl=ru&ei=6UpITYb8BoaZOvyaydAE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum
=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Mitzman, Arthur (1985) [1970]. The Iron Cage: An Historical Interpretation of Max
Weber. New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Books. ISBN 0878559841.
Quensel, Bernhard K. (2007), Max Webers Konstruktionslogik. Sozialökonomik zwischen
Geschichte und Theorie, Nomos, ISBN 9783832925178 [Revisiting Weber's concept of
sociology against the background of his juristic and economic provenance within the
framework of "social economics"]
Radkau, Joachim (2005), Max Weber [The most important Weber biography on Max
Weber's life and torments since Marianne Weber.]
Radkau, Joachim (2005/2009). Max Weber: A Biography. Translated into English by
Patrick Camiller. Polity Press. ISBN 139780745641478
Ritzer, George (1996) (ed). "Sociological Theory" (Fourth Edition). Max Weber, Chapter
4, Pages:109–154. New York: McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-114660-1
Roth, Guenther (2001), Max Webers deutsch-englische Familiengeschichte, J.C.B. Mohr
(Paul Siebeck), ISBN 3-16-147557-7.
Shils, Edward and Rheinstein, Max. (1964) Max Weber Law in Economy and Society,
,Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-55651-8; ISBN 0674556518; ISBN
9780674556515.
Stapelfeldt Gerhard (2004) Kritik der ökonomischen Rationalität.
Swatos, William H., ed (1990). Time, Place, and Circumstance: Neo-Weberian Studies in
Comparative Religious History. New York: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-26892-4.
Swedberg, Richard. (1998), Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-07013-X
Swedberg, Richard. (1999). "Max Weber as an Economist and as a Sociologist",
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, October 1999.
Weber, Marianne (1926/1988), Max Weber: A Biography, New Brunswick: Transaction
Books, ISBN 0-471-92333-8.
[edit] External links
Find more about Max Weber on Wikipedia's sister projects:
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Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Texts of his works:
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Large collection of the German original texts
Large collection of the German original texts
Large collection of English translations
Another collection of English translations
A comprehensive collection of English translations and secondary literature
Notes on several of Weber's works, merged into one text file
Max Weber Reference Archive
Analysis of his works:
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Protestant Ethic Thesis by the Swatos' Encyclopedia of Religion and Society