Weber’s Sociological Writings
Background (1864-1920)
-Weber was a liberal
-wanted to establish sociology as a profession and science
-to accommodate radical (Marxists) and conservatives
- within a “value free” social science
-Weber was a tortured soul
-his mother was a devote ascetic protestant
-his father was an authoritarian, Prussian politician
-studied law, politics, and economics
-Ph.D. in 1889, A Contribution to the History of Medieval Business Organizations
-Roman Agrarian History and its Significance for Public and Private Law (1891); and an extensive analysis of German agricultural labor and the stock exchange (1892)
-Professor of economics at Frieburg (1893); Professor of political science at Heidleberg (1894)
-nervous breakdown in 1897; unable to teach, research, or write until 1903
-never really recovered, but visited U.S. in 1904 and then published furiously from 1905-1920
see Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (Doubleday, 1962);
see also H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Oxford University Press, 1946)
Sociological Topics
-social action (defined: p. 228)
-types (pp. 3-6)
-relationships (pp. 6-9, 16-23)
-conflict (pp. 13-16)
-power (pp.23-27)
-social organization: domination and stratification
-types of legitimate authority (pp.28-59)
-bureaucracy: (pp. 59-107)
-class, status, and party (pp. 108-150)
Questions for consideration:
Why do people engage in social action (join groups, etc.)?
Why do people join organizations?
How do organizations recruit members?
-rationalization in economy, religion, and law
-capitalism as rational system (p. 151)
-prerequisites (pp. 152-153)
-crises (pp. 153-7)
- policies (pp.157-159)
-western capitalism (pp.159-161)
-spirit of capitalism (pp. 161-173)
-religion and socio-economic rationality (pp. 173-204)
-religious resistance (pp. 163-6, 175; 179-84, 190)
-religious facilitation
-opposition to magic (p. 167-8)
-the calling (171-2)
-asceticism versus mysticism (170-3)
-worldiness (pp. 194, 197, 200-204)
-rationality and the law (pp. 205-227)
-substantive rationality
-formal rationality
Method
-interpretation: verstehen (p. 232, 238, 240)
-ideal types (pp. 246-7, 263-276)
-historical-comparative (p.235)
-objectivity (p. 259)
-value judgements (p. 262, 271, 275 [on Marx])
-science as a vocation
-in U.S. (p. 297)
-role of values: 298-299
Questions for consideration:
Why do people obey authority?
On what basis is authority legitimated?
Why and how has society become “more rational”?
Why are Western Occidental societies “most rational”?
How are we (sociologists) to analyze society?
-methods?
-values?
-professionalism?
Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
In the introduction Weber argues (p. 13), “Only in the West does science exist at a stage of development which we recognize to-day as valid.” He then goes on to argue that it was Protestantism that facilitated the development of not just science but capitalism. This was a controversial thesis (as Robert Merton later noted) in that it claimed an institutional or organizational affinity between belief systems that were (and still are) frequently in conflict. Protestantism is today at the base of “creationist science” and is thus embroiled in a political conflict with “positivist science” (particularly evolutionary theories). Just as Christ was, reportedly, highly critical of money-changers, Luther was also critical of his contemporary businessmen. Nevertheless, Weber argued that Protestantism, especially Luther’s concept of the calling and the Calvinist ideal of worldly asceticism, combined with predestination, facilitated the development of capitalism by fostering “the spirit of capitalism.”
In the course of this analysis, Weber illustrates his interactive model, his use of ideal types (p. 66), his critique of Marxism ( pp. 55-6, 75, 91) and all other deterministic theories, the indeterminate nature of his interactive contingency model (pp. 90-91, 182-183), and even his commitment to value free sociology (pp. 90, 182).
Questions
What is the spirit of capitalism? How does this relate to instrumental or value rational behavior (pp. 53, 62)? Is Franklin’s advice instrumental or value rational (p. 51)?
What is the effect of Lutheranism in removing barriers to capitalist development (pp. 59-60, 63, 83)?
What is worldly asceticism (p. 106)? What is the significance of predestination (pp. 110, 115, 141)?
How did asceticism foster the spirit of capitalism (p. 172)?
How has capitalism (or asceticism) become an iron cage (pp. 180-181)?