Max Weber1864-1920

Katie GeneserHayden 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)