[고전 이야기] 프로테스탄티즘 윤리와 자본주의 정신 - 프로테스탄티즘 윤리와 자본주의 정신 The Protestant Ethic and

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[고전 이야기] 프로테스탄티즘 윤리와 자본주의 정신​

베버 "개신교도는 직업을 소명으로 여겨… 금욕 정신이 자본주의 출발"

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프로테스탄티즘 윤리와 자본주의 정신

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

▲ 독일어 초판본 표지. /위키피디아

즉 자본가와 기업가, 그리고 고급 숙련 노동자, 특히 기술적으로 또는 상업적으로 고도의 훈련을 받은 근대적 기업의 종업원들이 아주 현저하게 프로테스탄트적 성격을 지닌다는 것이다.

'프로테스탄티즘의 윤리와 자본주의 정신'은 독일의 사회학자 막스 베버(1864~ 1920)가 쓴 논문 두 편을 엮어 1920년 출간된 책이에요. 브레이크 없이 질주하는 오늘날의 자본주의에 경종을 울려주는 고전 중 고전이라고 할 수 있어요. "사회과학의 가장 위대한 지적 유산 가운데 하나"로 평가받는 명저(名著)이기도 합니다.

베버는 자본주의가 유럽에서 싹을 틔우고 또 성공적으로 안착할 수 있었던 이유는 기독교, 그중에서도 개신교에 있다고 생각했어요. 제목의 '프로테스탄티즘'은 개신교 정신을 의미해요. 처음에 베버는 자본주의가 유럽에서 '가톨릭(천주교)'이 널리 퍼진 지역보다는 '프로테스탄트(개신교도)'들이 많았던 지역을 중심으로 크게 발전했다는 점을 발견했어요. 이후 개신교가 지닌 어떤 정신이 자본주의 발달에 영향을 미쳤을지 연구했어요.

베버가 보기에 개신교도들은 근면하고 성실한 생활을 통해 돈을 버는 일을 도덕적이라고 여겼어요. 개신교도들은 자신의 직업을 신이 내린 소명이라고 믿었어요. 일에서 신의 존재 의미와 가치를 드러내려고 최선을 다했죠. 반면 당시 가톨릭에서는 돈을 버는 일은 신의 뜻에 어긋나는 세속적인 일이라고 여겨 부정적으로 생각했어요. 개신교도들은 소명을 갖고 성실하게 일하며 부를 축적했고, 이렇게 번 돈을 허튼 일에 쓰지 않고 계획적으로 투자해 산업을 발전시키는 자본주의로 이어갔다는 것이 베버의 생각이에요.

베버의 주장대로라면, 자본주의는 부(富)를 추구하되 절제할 줄 알고, 더더욱 개인이나 사회가 욕망에 휘둘리지 않도록 올바른 윤리를 제공하는 사회 시스템이라고 할 수 있어요. 또 자본주의를 이루는 근간은 비합리적인 충동을 억제하며 합리적 결정을 내릴 수 있는 정신이에요. 그리고 그런 정신의 출발은 개신교도들의 금욕 정신이었다는 것이죠. 무제한적 영리 추구로 비판을 받고 있는 오늘날의 자본주의는 베버가 말한 본래의 가치를 잃어버렸다고 할 수 있어요. 이런 주장은 출간 100년이 지난 지금까지도 지적 행위의 정점이자 꽃이라고 할 수 있는 '논쟁'과 '비판'을 전 세계 지식사회에 던져주고 있답니다.

장동석 출판도시문화재단 사무처장

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The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Cover of the German edition from 1934
Author	Max Weber
Original title	Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus
Country	Germany
Language	German
Genre	Economic sociology
Publication date	1905
Text	The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism at Wikisource

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (German: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus) is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1930.[1] It is considered a founding text in economic sociology and a milestone contribution to sociological thought in general.

In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated emergence of modern capitalism.[2] In his book, apart from Calvinists, Weber also discusses Lutherans (especially Pietists, but also notes differences between traditional Lutherans and Calvinists), Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, and Moravians (specifically referring to the Herrnhut-based community under Count von Zinzendorf's spiritual lead).

In 1998, the International Sociological Association listed this work as the fourth most important sociological book of the 20th century, after Weber's Economy and Society, Mills' The Sociological Imagination, and Merton's Social Theory and Social Structure.[3] It is the 8th most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950.[4]

Summary

Basic concepts

Although not a detailed study of Protestantism but rather an introduction to Weber's later studies of interaction between various religious ideas and economics (The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism 1915, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism 1916, and Ancient Judaism 1917), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism argues that Puritan ethics and ideas influenced the development of capitalism. The 'spirit of capitalism' does not refer to the spirit in the metaphysical sense but rather a set of values, the spirit of hard work and progress.[5]

Religious devotion, Weber argues, is usually accompanied by a rejection of worldly affairs, including the pursuit of wealth and possessions. To illustrate his theory, Weber quotes the ethical writings of Benjamin Franklin:

Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. [...] Remember, that money is the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding-sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.

Weber notes that this is not a philosophy of mere greed, but a statement laden with moral language. Indeed, Franklin claims that God revealed the usefulness of virtue to him.[6]: 9–12 

The Reformation profoundly affected the view of work, dignifying even the most mundane professions as adding to the common good and thus blessed by God, as much as any "sacred" calling (German: Ruf). A common illustration is that of a cobbler, hunched over his work, who devotes his entire effort to the praise of God.

To emphasize the work ethic in Protestantism relative to Catholics, he notes a common problem that industrialists face when employing precapitalist laborers: Agricultural entrepreneurs will try to encourage time spent harvesting by offering a higher wage, with the expectation that laborers will see time spent working as more valuable and so engage it longer. However, in precapitalist societies this often results in laborers spending less time harvesting. Laborers judge that they can earn the same, while spending less time working and having more leisure. He also notes that societies having more Protestants are those that have a more developed capitalist economy.[6]: 15–16 

It is particularly advantageous in technical occupations for workers to be extremely devoted to their craft. To view the craft as an end in itself, or as a "calling" would serve this need well. This attitude is well-noted in certain classes which have endured religious education, especially of a Pietist background.[6]: 17 

He defines the spirit of capitalism as the ideas and esprit that favour the rational pursuit of economic gain: "We shall nevertheless provisionally use the expression‎ 'spirit of capitalism' for that attitude which, in the pursuit of a calling [berufsmäßig], strives systematically for profit for its own sake in the manner exemplified by Benjamin Franklin."[6]: 19 

Weber points out that such a spirit is not limited to Western culture if one considers it as the attitude of individuals, but that such individuals – heroic entrepreneurs, as he calls them – could not by themselves establish a new economic order (capitalism).[7]: 54–55  He further noted that the spirit of capitalism could be divorced from religion, and that those passionate capitalists of his era were either passionate against the Church or at least indifferent to it.[6]: 23  Desire for profit with minimum effort and seeing work as a burden to be avoided, and doing no more than what was enough for modest life, were common attitudes.[7]: 55  As he wrote in his essays:

In order that a manner of life well adapted to the peculiarities of the capitalism… could come to dominate others, it had to originate somewhere, and not in isolated individuals alone, but as a way of life common to the whole groups of man.

After defining the "spirit of capitalism," Weber argues that there are many reasons to find its origins in the religious ideas of the Reformation. Many others like William Petty, Montesquieu, Henry Thomas Buckle, John Keats have noted the affinity between Protestantism and the development of commercialism.[8]

Weber shows that certain branches of Protestantism had supported worldly activities dedicated to economic gain, seeing them as endowed with moral and spiritual significance. This recognition was not a goal in itself; rather they were a byproduct of other doctrines of faith that encouraged planning, hard work and self-denial in the pursuit of worldly riches.[7]: 57 

Origins of the Protestant work ethic

Weber traced the origins of the Protestant ethic to the Reformation, though he acknowledged some respect for secular everyday labor as early as the Middle Ages.[6]: 28  The Roman Catholic Church assured salvation to individuals who accepted the church's sacraments and submitted to the clerical authority. However, the Reformation had effectively removed such assurances. From a psychological viewpoint, the average person had difficulty adjusting to this new worldview, and only the most devout believers or "religious geniuses" within Protestantism, such as Martin Luther, were able to make this adjustment, according to Weber.

In the absence of such assurances from religious authority, Weber argued that Protestants began to look for other "signs" that they were saved. Calvin and his followers taught a doctrine of double predestination, in which from the beginning God chose some people for salvation and others for damnation. The inability to influence one's own salvation presented a very difficult problem for Calvin's followers, who, in Weber's view, considered it an absolute duty to believe that one was chosen for salvation and to dispel any doubt about that: lack of self-confidence was evidence of insufficient faith and a sign of damnation. So, self-confidence took the place of priestly assurance of God's grace.

Worldly success became one measure of that self-confidence. Luther made an early endorsement of Europe's emerging divisions. Weber identifies the applicability of Luther's conclusions, noting that a "vocation" from God was no longer limited to the clergy or church, but applied to any occupation or trade. Weber had always detested Lutheranism for the servility it inspired toward the bureaucratic state. When he discussed it in the Protestant Ethic, he used Lutheranism as the chief example of the unio mystica that contrasted sharply with the ascetic posture. Later he would associate "Luther, the symbolic exponent of bureaucratic despotism, with the ascetic hostility to Eros — an example of Weber's sporadic tendency to link together bureaucratic and ascetic modes of life and to oppose both from mystical and aristocratic perspectives."[9]

However, Weber saw the fulfillment of the Protestant ethic not in Lutheranism, which was too concerned with the reception of divine spirit in the soul, but in Calvinistic forms of Christianity.[6]: 32–33  The trend was carried further still in Pietism.[6]: 90  The Baptists diluted the concept of the calling relative to Calvinists, but other aspects made its congregants fertile soil for the development of capitalism—namely, a lack of paralyzing ascetism, the refusal to accept state office and thereby develop unpolitically, and the doctrine of control by conscience which caused rigorous honesty.[6]: 102–104 

What Weber argued, in simple terms:

• According to the new Protestant religions, an individual was religiously compelled to follow a secular vocation (German: Beruf) with as much zeal as possible. A person living according to this world view was more likely to accumulate money.

• The new religions (in particular, Calvinism and other more austere Protestant sects) effectively forbade wastefully using hard earned money and identified the purchase of luxuries as a sin. Donations to an individual's church or congregation were limited due to the rejection by certain Protestant sects of icons. Finally, donation of money to the poor or to charity was generally frowned on as it was seen as furthering beggary. This social condition was perceived as laziness, burdening their fellow man, and an affront to God; by not working, one failed to glorify God.

The manner in which this dilemma was resolved, Weber argued, was the investment of this money, which gave an extreme boost to nascent capitalism.

Protestant work ethic in Weber's time

By the time Weber wrote his essay, he believed that the religious underpinnings of the Protestant ethic had largely gone from society. He cited the writings of Benjamin Franklin, which emphasized frugality, hard work and thrift, but were mostly free of spiritual content. Weber also attributed the success of mass production partly to the Protestant ethic. Only after expensive luxuries were disdained could individuals accept the uniform products, such as clothes and furniture, that industrialization offered.

In his conclusion to the book, Weber lamented that the loss of religious underpinning to capitalism's spirit has led to a kind of involuntary servitude to mechanized industry.

The Puritan wanted to work in calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. 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. (Page 181, 1953 Scribner's edition.)

Weber maintained that while Puritan religious ideas had significantly impacted the development of economic systems in Europe and United States, there were other factors in play, as well. They included a closer relationship between mathematics and observation, the enhanced value of scholarship, rational systematization of government administration, and an increase in entrepreneurship ventures. In the end, the study of Protestant ethic, according to Weber, investigated a part of the detachment from magic, that disenchantment of the world that could be seen as a unique characteristic of Western culture.[7]: 60 

Conclusions

In the final endnotes Weber states that he abandoned research into Protestantism because his colleague Ernst Troeltsch, a professional theologian, had begun work on 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, which is laying groundwork for comparative analysis of religion and society. Weber moved beyond Protestantism with his research but would continue research into sociology of religion within his later works (the study of Judaism and the religions of China and India).[7]: 49 

This book is also Weber's first brush with the concept of rationalization. His idea of modern capitalism as growing out of the religious pursuit of wealth meant a change to a rational means of existence, wealth. That is to say, at some point the Calvinist rationale informing the "spirit" of capitalism became unreliant on the underlying religious movement behind it, leaving only rational capitalism. In essence then, Weber's "Spirit of Capitalism" is effectively and more broadly a Spirit of Rationalization.

Reception

The essay can also be interpreted as one of Weber's criticism of Karl Marx and his theories. While Marx's historical materialism held that all human institutions – including religion – were based on economic foundations, many have seen The Protestant Ethic as turning this theory on its head by implying that a religious movement fostered capitalism, not the other way around.

Other scholars have taken a more nuanced view of Weber's argument. Weber states in the closing of this essay, "it is, of course, not my aim to substitute for a one-sided materialistic an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and history. Each is equally possible, but each if it does not serve as the preparation, but as the conclusion of an investigation, accomplishes equally little in the interest of historical truth." Weber's argument can be understood as an attempt to deepen the understanding of the cultural origins of capitalism, which does not exclude the historical materialist origins described by Marx: modern capitalism emerged from an elective affinity of 'material' and 'ideal' factors.[2]]

Table of contents

Table of contents from the 1958 Scribner's edition, with section titles added by Talcott Parsons:

• Part 1. The Problem

• I. Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification

• II. The Spirit of Capitalism

• III. Luther's Conception of the Calling. Task of the Investigation.

• Part 2. The Practical Ethics of the Ascetic Branches of Protestantism.

• IV. The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism

• A. Calvinism

• Predestination; Elimination of Magic; Rationalization of the World; Certainty of Salvation; Lutheranism vs. Calvinism; Catholicism vs. Calvinism; Monasticism vs. Puritanism; Methodical Ethic; Idea of Proof.

• B. Pietism

• Emotionalism; Spener; Francke; Zinzendorf; German Pietism.

• C. Methodism

• D. The Baptism Sects

• Baptist and Quaker; Sect Principle; Inner Worldly Asceticism; Transformation of the World.

• V. Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism

• Richard Baxter; Meaning of Work; Justification of Profit; Jewish vs. Puritan Capitalism; Puritanism and Culture; Saving and Capital; Paradox of Asceticism and Rich; Serving Both Worlds; Citizenry Capitalistic Ethic; Iron Cage of Capitalism.

Criticism

Methodology

Weber's causal claim that the Protestant ethic led to capitalism has been criticized for endogeneity problems and case selection problems.[10][11] Rather than Protestantism leading to capitalism, it may be the case that individuals and communities who were more prone to capitalism were also more likely to adopt Protestantism.[11]

Economic criticism

The economist and historian Henryk Grossman criticises Weber's analysis on two fronts, firstly with reference to Marx's extensive work which showed that the stringent legal measures taken against poverty and vagabondage was a reaction to the massive population shifts caused by factors such as the enclosure of the commons. And, secondly, in Grossman's own work showing how this "bloody legislation" against those who had been put off their land was effected across Europe and especially in France. For Grossman this legislation, the outlawing of idleness and the poorhouses they instituted physically forced people from serfdom into wage-labor. For him, this general fact was not related to Protestantism and so capitalism came largely by force and not by any vocational training regarding an inner-worldliness of Protestantism.[12] However, it is possible that the Protestant "work ethic" reinforced or legitimized these legal measures within a larger cultural context.

In a 2015 study, Davide Cantoni tested Weber's Protestant hypothesis on German cities over the period 1300–1900, finding no effects of Protestantism on economic growth.[13]

Historian Laurence R. Iannaccone has written that "Ironically, the most noteworthy feature of the Protestant Ethic thesis is its absence of empirical support", citing the work of Swedish economic historian Kurt Samuelsson[14] that "economic progress was uncorrelated with religion, or was temporally incompatible with Weber's thesis, or actually reversed the pattern claimed by Weber."[15]

Other recent scholarship has found some valid Protestant ethic effects both in historical and contemporary development patterns. Dudley and Blum, using city growth as a proxy for wages growth, write:

Evidence of falling wages in Catholic cities and rising wages in Protestant cities between 1500 and 1750, during the spread of literacy in the vernacular, is inconsistent with most theoretical models of economic growth. In The Protestant Ethic, Weber suggested an alternative explanation based on culture. Here, a theoretical model confirm‎s that a small change in the subjective cost of cooperating with strangers can generate a profound transformation in trading networks. … A re-examination of Weber’s Protestant Ethic indicates that what was important for long-term economic growth was not a greater propensity to save and work of individual Protestants but rather the manner in which a group of Protestants interacted compared with a group of Catholics.[16]

— Ulrich Blum, Leonard Dudley, Religion and Economic Growth: Was Weber Right? – Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Vol 11, issue 2, pp. 207–230

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their book Why Nations Fail reject the relationship between economic progress and Protestantism writing:

What about Max Weber’s Protestant ethic? Though it may be true that predominantly Protestant countries, such as the Netherlands and England, were the first economic successes of the modern era, there is little relationship between religion and economic success. France, a predominantly Catholic country, quickly mimicked the economic performance of the Dutch and English in the nineteenth century, and Italy is as prosperous as any of these nations today. Looking farther east, you’ll see that none of the economic successes of East Asia have anything to do with any form of Christian religion, so there is not much support for a special relationship between Protestantism and economic success there, either.[17]

Revisionist criticism

Hector Menteith Robertson, in his book Aspects of Economic Individualism (1933), argued against the historical and religious claims of Weber. Robertson pointed out that capitalism began to flourish not in Britain, but in 14th century Italy, so the rise of capitalism cannot be attributed to Adam Smith, the Protestant Reformation, etc. Robertson goes further, and states that what happened in Britain was rather a retrogression from what was achieved in Italy centuries earlier.

Robertson shows that Adam Smith and David Ricardo did not found economic science de novo. In fact, liberal economic theory was developed by French and Italian Catholics, who were influenced by the Scholastics. The British economic thought was rather a step backwards since it espoused the labor theory of value, which had already been proved incorrect by the School of Salamanca.[18]

Other criticism

It has recently been suggested that Protestantism has indeed influenced positively the capitalist development of respective social systems not so much through the "Protestant ethics" but rather through the promotion of literacy.[19] Sascha Becker and Ludger Wossmann of the University of Munich[20] showed that literacy levels differing in religious areas can sufficiently explain the economic gaps cited by Weber. The results were supported even under a concentric diffusion model of Protestantism using distance from Wittenberg as a model.[20]

Weber's conclusion has also been criticized for ignoring the ethnic dimensions. Weber focused on religion, but ignored the fact that Germany contained a large Polish minority (due to the partitions of Poland); and Poles were primarily Catholic and Germans, Protestant. As such, scholars have suggested that what Weber observed was in fact "anti-Polish discrimination" visible in the different levels of income, savings and literacy between Germans and Poles.[21]

The noted French historian Fernand Braudel, considered one of the greatest of the modern historians, vigorously criticized Weber's theory, noting its lack of foundation and veracity, stating:

All historians have opposed this tenuous theory, although they have not managed to be rid of it once and for all. Yet it is clearly false. The northern countries took over the place that earlier had so long and so brilliantly been occupied by the old capitalist centers of the Mediterranean. They invented nothing, either in technology or in business management. Amsterdam copied Venice, as London would subsequently copy Amsterdam, and as New York would one day copy London.[22]

Support​

In 1958, American sociologist Gerhard Lenski conducted an empirical inquiry into "religion's impact on politics, economics, and family life" in the Detroit, Mich., area. It revealed, among other insights, that there were significant differences between Catholics on the one hand and (white) Protestants and Jews on the other hand with respect to economics and the sciences. Lenski's data supported basic hypotheses of Weber's work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. According to Lenski, "the contribution of Protestantism to material progress have been largely unintended by-products of certain distinctive Protestant traits. This was a central point in Weber's theory." Lenski noted that more than a hundred years prior to Weber, John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist church, had observed that "diligence and frugality" made Methodists wealthy. "In an early era, Protestant asceticism and dedication to work, as noted both by Wesley and Weber, seem to have been important patterns of action contributing to economic progress. Both facilitated the accumulation of capital, so critically important to the economic growth and development of nations."[23]

German theologian Friedrich Wilhelm Graf notes: "Sociologists of religion like Peter L. Berger and David Martin have interpreted the Protestant revolution in Latin America as implicit support of basic elements of Weber's thesis. [...] At any rate, many pious persons there interpret their transition from the Roman Catholic church to Protestant Pentecostal congregations in terms of a moral idea that promises long-term economic gains through strong innerworldly asceticism. The strict ascetic self-discipline that has been successfully institutionalized in the Pentecostal congregations, the readiness to work more and with greater effort and to take less leisurely attitudes lead many Pentecostal Christians to believe that their new faith in God is supported by their economic successes."[24]

In a journal article published in 2019, scholar of religion Benjamin Kirby critiques Peter L. Berger's analysis for its over-emphasis on the influence of Holiness-oriented Pentecostal churches, neglecting the growing influence of neo-Pentecostal churches across the globe. Kirby argues that it is difficult to draw parallels between contemporary neo-Pentecostals and Weber's ascetic Protestants, specifically because the former group of practitioners, many of whom espouse Prosperity theologies, often do not exhibit the same commitment to "sober economic virtue" and "rational bourgeois economic life" as Weber's Calvinistic Puritans. Nevertheless, Kirby stresses that Weber's text remains important for understanding enduring affinities between Christianity and capitalism. Kirby posits a "new elective affinity" between contemporary Pentecostalism and neoliberal capitalism, suggesting that neo-Pentecostal churches may act as vehicles for embedding neoliberal economic processes, for instance by encouraging practitioners to become entrepreneurial, responsibilised citizens.[25]

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Max Weber 막스 베버

From Wikipedia, the fre encyclopedia

For other people named Max Weber, see Max Weber (disambiguation).

Max Weber
Portrait by Ernst Gottmann, 1918
Born	Maximilian Karl Emil Weber 21 April 1864 Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	14 June 1920 (aged 56) Munich, Bavaria, Weimar Republic
Alma mater	Friedrich Wilhelm University University of Göttingen Heidelberg University
Notable work	The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) The Religion of China (1915) The Religion of India (1916) "Science as a Vocation" (1917) "Politics as a Vocation" (1919) Ancient Judaism (1921) The City (1921) Economy and Society (1922) General Economic History (1923)
Spouse	Marianne Schnitger ​(m. 1893)​
School	Continental philosophyAntipositivismLiberalism
Institutions	Friedrich Wilhelm University University of Freiburg Heidelberg University University of Vienna University of Munich
Theses	On the History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages, Based on Southern European Documents (1889) Roman Agrarian History and Its Significance for Public and Private Law (1891)
Doctoral advisors	Levin GoldschmidtRudolf von GneistAugust Meitzen
Main interests	Historyeconomicssociologylawreligion
Notable ideas	List
Signature

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (/ˈveɪbər/; German: [ˈveːbɐ]; 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. He was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences, and his ideas profoundly influence social theory and research.

Born in Erfurt in 1864, Weber studied law and history in Berlin, Göttingen, and Heidelberg. After earning his doctorate in law in 1889 and habilitation in 1891, he married his cousin Marianne Schnitger and taught in Freiburg and Heidelberg. In 1897, he had a breakdown after his father died following an argument. Weber ceased teaching and travelled until the early 1900s. He recovered and wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. During the First World War, he supported Germany's war effort, but became critical of it and supported democratisation. He also gave the lectures "Science as a Vocation" and "Politics as a Vocation". After the war, Weber cofounded the German Democratic Party, unsuccessfully ran for office, and advised the drafting of the Weimar Constitution. Becoming frustrated with politics, he resumed teaching in Vienna and Munich. He possibly contracted the Spanish flu and died of pneumonia in 1920 at the age of 56. A book, Economy and Society, was left unfinished.

One of Weber's main intellectual concerns was in understanding the processes of rationalisation, secularisation, and disenchantment. He formulated a thesis arguing that such processes were associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity. Weber also argued that the Protestant work ethic influenced the creation of capitalism in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It was the earliest part in his broader consideration of the world religions, as he later examined the religions of China, India, and ancient Judaism. In terms of government, Weber argued that states were defined by their monopoly on violence and categorised social authority into three distinct forms: charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal. Weber was also a key proponent of methodological antipositivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive rather than purely empiricist methods. Weber made a variety of other contributions to economic sociology, political sociology, and the sociology of religion.

After his death, the rise of Weberian scholarship was slowed by the political instability of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany. In the post-war era, organised scholarship began to appear, led by Talcott Parsons, who used Weber's works to support his idea of structural functionalism. Over the course of the twentieth century, Weber's reputation rose due to the publication of translations of his works and scholarly interpretations of his life and works. He began to be regarded as a founding father of sociology, alongside Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim. As a result of these works, Weber is commonly regarded as one of the central figures in the development of the social sciences.

Biography

Early life and education

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was born on 21 April 1864 in Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Prussia, but his family moved to Berlin in 1869.[1] He was the oldest of eight children to Max Weber Sr. and his wife Helene Fallenstein.[2] Over the course of his life, Weber Sr. held posts as a lawyer, civil servant, and parliamentarian for the National Liberal Party in the Prussian Landtag and German Reichstag.[3] His involvement in public life immersed his home in both politics and academia, as his salon welcomed scholars and public figures such as the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, the jurist Levin Goldschmidt, and the historian Theodor Mommsen. The young Max Weber and his brother Alfred, who also became a sociologist, passed their formative years in this intellectual atmosphere.[4] Fallenstein was partly descended from the French Huguenot Souchay family [de], which had obtained wealth through international commerce and the textile industry.[5] Over time, Weber Jr. was affected by the marital and personality tensions between his father, who enjoyed material pleasures while overlooking religious and philanthropic causes, and his mother, a devout Calvinist who engaged in philanthropy.[6]

Max Weber (left) and his brothers, Alfred (center) and Karl (right), in 1879

Weber entered the Doebbelinsche Privatschule in Charlottenburg in 1870, before attending the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium between 1872 and 1882.[7] While in class, bored and unimpressed with his teachers, Weber secretly read all forty volumes by the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.[8] Goethe later exerted an important influence on his thought and methodology.[9] Before entering university, he read many other classical works, including those by the philosopher Immanuel Kant.[10] For Christmas in 1877, a thirteen-year-old Max Weber gifted his parents 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 Period". Two years later, also during Christmastime, he wrote another historical essay, "Observations on the Ethnic Character, Development, and History of the Indo-European Nations". All of these essays were non-derivative contributions to the philosophy of history and were derived from Weber's reading of "numerous sources".[11]

In 1882, Weber enrolled in Heidelberg University as a law student, later studying at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and the University of Göttingen.[12] Simultaneously with his studies, he practiced law and worked as a lecturer.[13] In 1886, Weber passed the Referendar examination, which was comparable to the bar association examination in the British and U.S. legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, Weber continued his study of law and history.[14] Under the tutelage of Levin Goldschmidt and Rudolf von Gneist, Weber earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a dissertation on legal history titled Development of the Principle of Joint Liability and a Separate Fund of the General Partnership out of the Household Communities and Commercial Associations in Italian Cities. It was a part of a longer work, On the History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages, Based on Southern European Documents, published in the same year.[15] Two years later, working with the statistician August Meitzen, Weber completed his habilitation, a post-doctoral thesis, titled Roman Agrarian History and Its Significance for Public and Private Law.[16] Having thus become a Privatdozent, Weber joined the faculty of Friedrich Wilhelm University, lecturing, doing research, and consulting for the government.[17]

Weber's years as a university student were dotted with several periods of military service, the longest of which lasted between October 1883 to September 1884. During this time, he was in Strasbourg and attended classes taught by his uncle, the historian Hermann Baumgarten.[18] Weber befriended Baumgarten and he influenced Weber's growing liberalism and criticism of Otto von Bismarck's domination of German politics.[19] During his first few years in university, he was a member of a fraternity and placed emphasis on drinking beer and fencing.[20] He was a member of the Burschenschaft Allemannia Heidelberg [de] and obtained several duelling scars on the left side of his face as the result of his duelling.[21] His mother was displeased by his behaviour and slapped him when he came home after his third semester ended in 1883. However, Weber matured, increasingly began to take his mother's side in family arguments, and grew estranged from his father.[22]

Marriage

Max Weber and his wife Marianne in 1894

Max Weber had a relationship and semi-engagement with Emmy Baumgarten, the daughter of Hermann Baumgarten, from 1887 until her declining mental health caused him to break off their relationship five years later.[23] Afterwards, he entered a relationship with his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger in 1893 and married her on 20 September.[24] The marriage granted long-awaited financial independence to Weber, allowing him to finally leave his parents' household.[25] They had no children.[26] Marianne was a feminist activist and an author in her own right.[27] She was instrumental in collecting, editing, and publishing Weber's writings in book form after his death, while her biography of him is an important source for understanding Weber's life.[28] In 1909, they befriended a former student of his, Else von Richthofen, and the pianist Mina Tobler. After a failed attempt to court Richthofen, Weber began an affair with Tobler in 1911.[29] Eight years later, he began a sadomasochistic affair with Richthofen. Meanwhile, she was simultaneously conducting an affair with his brother, Alfred. Weber's affairs lasted until his death in 1920.[30]

Early work and breakdown

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.[31] The Verein was an organisation of reformist thinkers who were generally members of the historical school of economics.[32] He also involved himself in politics, participating in the founding of the left-leaning Evangelical Social Congress in 1890. It applied a Protestant perspective to the political debate regarding the Social question.[33] In the same year, the Verein established a research program to examine the Ostflucht, which was the western migration of ethnically German agricultural labourers from eastern Germany and the corresponding influx of Polish farm workers into it. Weber was put in charge of the study and wrote a large part of the final report, which generated considerable attention and controversy, marking the beginning of his renown as a social scientist.[34]

From 1893 to 1899, Weber was a member of the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband), an organisation that campaigned against the influx of Polish workers; the degree of his support for the Germanisation of Poles and similar nationalist policies continues to be debated by modern scholars.[35] Weber and his wife moved to Freiburg in 1894, where he was appointed professor of economics at the University of Freiburg.[36] During his tenure there, in 1895, he gave a provocative lecture titled "The Nation State and Economic Policy", where he criticised the immigration of Poles and blamed the Junkers for perpetuating Slavic immigration to serve their selfish interests.[37] It influenced the politician Friedrich Naumann to create the National-Social Association, which was a Christian socialist and nationalist political organisation.[38] Weber was pessimistic regarding the association's ability to succeed, and it dissolved after winning a single seat in the Reichstag during the 1903 German federal election.[39] In 1896, Weber accepted an appointment to a chair in economics and finance at Heidelberg University.[40] There, Weber and his wife became the central figures in the eponymous Weber Circle, which included Georg Jellinek, Ernst Troeltsch, and Werner Sombart. Younger scholars, such as György Lukács and Robert Michels, also joined it.[41]

In 1897, Weber Sr. died two months after a severe quarrel with his son that remained unresolved.[42] After this, Weber became increasingly prone to depression, nervousness, and insomnia, which made it difficult for him to fulfill his duties as a professor.[43] His condition forced him seek an exemption from his teaching obligations, which he was granted in 1899. He spent time in a sanatorium in the Heilanstalt für Nervenkanke Konstanzer Hof in 1898 and a different one in Bad Urach in 1900. Weber also travelled to Corsica and Italy between 1899 and 1903 in order to alleviate his illness.[44] He fully withdrew from teaching in 1903 and did not return to it until 1918.[45] Weber's ordeal with mental illness was carefully described in a personal chronology that was later destroyed by his widow. The reason for its destruction was possibly because Marianne feared that Weber's work would have been discredited by the Nazis if his experience with mental illness were widely known.[46]

Later work

Max Weber in 1907

Once he had recovered from his illness, Weber accepted a position as an associate editor of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik in 1904, alongside his colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Werner Sombart. It facilitated his reintroduction to academia and became one of the most prominent social science journals as a result of his efforts.[47] Weber published some of his most seminal works in this journal, including his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which became his most famous work and laid the foundations for his later research on the impact of religion on the development of economic systems.[48] In it, he argued that the source for the spirit of capitalism was in the Reformation. More specifically, he traced it to the Puritan religions. They placed great importance on work, to a degree where other actions mattered less.[49] They had a religious calling to work that caused them to systematically obtain wealth. The Puritans wished to prove that they were members of the elect who were destined to go to Heaven.[50] Benjamin Franklin's personal ethic, as described in his "Advice to a Young Tradesman", was used as an example of the economic ethic that the Protestant sects had.[51] The thesis also contained themes that later proved central to his scholarship: rationalisation and the ideal type.[52] Rationalisation pertained to the increasing systemisation of life that ultimately caused religious influence to decline.[53] Rationalisation also caused Western society to be caught in the stahlhartes Gehäuse ("iron cage" or "steel-hard casing") that was the economic order that was created by modern capitalism.[54] The ideal types were representative figures, or case studies, that represented concepts.[55]

Also in 1904, Max Weber was invited to participate in the Congress of Arts and Sciences held in connection with the World's fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) in St. Louis, alongside his wife, Werner Sombart, Ernst Troeltsch, and other German scholars.[56] Taking advantage of the fair, the Webers embarked on a trip that began and ended in New York City and lasted for almost three months. They travelled throughout the country, from New England to the Deep South. Different communities were visited, including German immigrant towns and African American communities.[57] Among the places visited was North Carolina, where some of his relatives in the Fallenstein family had settled.[58] Weber used the trip to learn more about America and this experience played a role in the development of the Protestant work ethic. He used the trip to find social and theological conditions that could contribute to his thesis. Weber also used the trip to further his knowledge of the United States' social and economic conditions more generally.[59] After returning, 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.[60] In 1909, disappointed with the Verein, he co-founded the German Sociological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie) and served as its first treasurer. He resigned from the position in 1912.[61]

Political involvements

Later, during the spring of 1913, Weber holidayed in the Monte Verità community in Ascona.[62] While holidaying, he was advising Frieda Gross in her custody battle for her children. He opposed Erich Mühsam's involvement due to Mühsam's support for anarchism, arguing that the case needed to be dealt with by bourgeois reformers who were not "derailed".[63] A year later, also in spring, he again holidayed in Ascona.[64] In the community, there were several different expressions of the radical political and lifestyle reform movements that were in existence at the time. They included naturism, free love, and Western esotericism, among others. Weber was critical of the anarchist and erotic movements in Ascona, as he viewed their fusion as having been politically absurd.[65]

First World War

At the outbreak of First World War, Weber, aged 50, volunteered for service and was appointed as a reserve officer in charge of organising the army hospitals in Heidelberg, a role he fulfilled until the end of 1915.[66] Weber's views on the war and the expansion of the German Empire changed during the course of the conflict.[67] Early on, he supported nationalist rhetoric and the war effort, though with some hesitation, viewing the war as a necessity to fulfill German duty as a leading state power. In time, however, Weber became one of the most prominent critics of both German expansionism and the Kaiser's war policies.[68] Weber publicly criticised the Belgian annexation policy and unrestricted submarine warfare, later supporting calls for constitutional reform, democratisation, and universal suffrage.[69]

Max Weber (facing right) with Ernst Toller (facing camera) during the Lauenstein Conferences in 1917

He and his wife also participated in the 1917 Lauenstein Conferences that were held at Lauenstein Castle [de] in Bavaria.[70] These conferences were planned by the publisher Eugen Diederichs and brought together intellectuals, including Theodor Heuss, Ernst Toller, and Werner Sombart.[71] Weber's presence elevated his profile in Germany and served to dispel some of the romantic atmosphere of the event. After he spoke at the first one, he became involved in the planning for the second one, as Diederichs thought that the conferences needed someone who could serve as an oppositional figure. In this capacity, he argued against the political romanticism that was being espoused by Max Maurenbrecher, a former theologian. Weber also opposed what he saw as the excessive rhetoric of the youth groups and nationalists at Lauenstein, instead supporting the democratisation of Germany.[72] For Weber and the younger participants, the romantic intent of the conferences was irrelevant to the determination of Germany's future.[73]

In November, shortly after the second conference, Weber was invited by the Free Student Youth, a student organisation, to give a lecture in Munich. The resulting lecture was titled "Science as a Vocation".[74] In it, he described an inner calling as having been necessary for one to enter scholarship. Weber thought that only a particular type of person was able to have a career in academia. He used his own career as an example of a person whose career was in academia. Recalling the arguments that he made regarding the Protestant work ethic, he stated that the path forward in scholarship required the scholar to understand the potential for a lack of success and be methodical in their research. Specialisation was also an aspect of modern scholarship that a scholar needed to engage in.[75] A major aspect of his commentary on the role of the scholar in modernity related to disenchantment and intellectual rationalisation. These processes resulted in the value of scholarship being questioned. Weber argued that scholarship could provide certainty through its starting presumptions, despite its inability to give absolute answers.[76]

Weimar Republic

Following the end of the war, Weber unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919 as a member of the liberal German Democratic Party, which he had co-founded.[77] He also advised the National Assembly in its drafting of the Weimar Constitution.[78] While he was campaigning for his party, Weber critiqued the left and complained about the leaders of the leftist Spartacus League, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. He regarded the German Revolution of 1918–1919 as having been responsible for Germany's inability to fight against Poland's claims on its territory in the east.[79] His opposition to it may have prevented Friedrich Ebert, the new president of Germany and a member of the Social Democratic Party, from appointing Weber as a minister or ambassador.[80] Weber was, at the same time, critical of the Treaty of Versailles, which he believed unjustly assigned war guilt to Germany. Instead, Weber believed that many countries were guilty of starting it, not just Germany.[81] In making this case, Weber argued that Russia was the only great power that actually desired the war. He also regarded Germany as not having been culpable for the invasion of Belgium.[82] Overall, Weber's political efforts were largely unsuccessful, with the exception of his support for a strong presidency that would be democratically elected.[83]

Max Weber in 1918

On 28 January 1919, after his electoral defeat, Weber delivered a lecture titled "Politics as a Vocation", which commented on what he saw as the inherent violence and dishonesty among politicians.[84] About the nature of politicians, he concluded that, "in nine out of ten cases they are windbags puffed up with hot air about themselves. They are not in touch with reality, and they do not feel the burden they need to shoulder; they just intoxicate themselves with romantic sensations."[85] His lecture was prompted by the political turmoil of the early Weimar Republic and was requested by the Free Student Youth. He defined politics as having been divided into three aspects: passion, judgment, and responsibility. There was also a division between conviction and responsibility. These two concepts were sharply divided, but it was possible for them to be present in a single individual, particularly the ideal politician.[86] The types of authority were themselves divided into traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal.[87] Ultimately, Weber thought that the political issues of his day required consistent effort to resolve, rather than the quick solutions that the students preferred.[88]

Shortly before he left to join the delegation in Versailles on 13 May 1919, Max Weber used his connections with the deputies of the German National People's Party to meet with Erich Ludendorff. He spent several hours unsuccessfully trying to convince Ludendorff to surrender himself to the Allies.[89] This debate also shifted to other subjects, such as who was culpable for the failure of the war effort. Weber thought that the high command had failed, while Ludendorff regarded Weber as a supporter of democracy who was partially responsible for the revolution. Weber tried to disabuse him of that notion by expressing support for a democratic system with a strong executive. Since he held Ludendorff responsible for the failure of the German war effort and having sent many young Germans to die on the battlefield, Weber thought that he should surrender himself and assume the status of a political martyr. However, Ludendorff was not willing to do so and wished to simply live off of his pension.[90]

Last years

Weber's grave in Heidelberg

Frustrated with politics, Weber resumed teaching, first at the University of Vienna in 1918, then at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1919.[91] In Vienna, Weber filled a previously vacant chair in political economy that he had been in consideration for since October 1917.[92] Later, in Munich, he was appointed to Lujo Brentano's chair in social science, economic history, and political economy. He accepted the appointment in order to be closer to his mistress, Else von Richthofen.[93] Responding to requests by his students, he gave a series of lectures on economic history. The student transcriptions of it were later edited and published as the General Economic History by Siegmund Hellmann [de] and Melchior Palyi [de] in 1923.[94] Many colleagues and students in Munich attacked his response to the German Revolution, while some right-wing students protested in front of his home.[95]

In early 1920, Max Weber gave a seminar that contained a discussion of Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West.[96] Weber respected him and privately described him as having been "a very brilliant and scholarly dilettante".[97] That seminar provoked some of his students, who knew Spengler personally, to suggest that he debate Spengler alongside other scholars. They met in the Munich town hall and debated for two days.[98] The audience was primarily young Germans of different political perspectives, including communists. While neither Weber nor Spengler were able to convince the other of their points, Weber was more cautious and careful in his arguments against Spengler than the other debaters were. After the debate, the students did not feel that they had an answer to the question of what should be done to resolve the issues that Germany faced after the end of the First World War.[97]

Lili, one of Max Weber's sisters, committed suicide on 7 April 1920 as a result of the end of her affair with the pedagogue Paul Geheeb. He thought positively of it, as he thought that it was justified and aligned with his perspective that suicide could be an honourable act.[99] Weber and his wife took in Lili's four children and planned to raise them. He was uncomfortable with his newfound role as a father figure but thought that Marianne was fulfilled as a woman by this event. She later formally adopted the children in 1928. Weber wished for her to stay with the children in Heidelberg or move closer to Geheeb's Odenwaldschule ("Odenwald School"), so that he could be alone in Munich with his mistress, Else von Richthofen. He left the decision to Marianne, but she said that only he could make the decision to leave for himself.[100] While this was occurring, Weber began to believe that own life had reached its end.[101]

On 4 June 1920, Weber's students were informed that he needed to cancel classes due to a cold. By 14 June 1920, the cold had turned into influenza and he died of pneumonia in Munich.[102] He had likely contracted the Spanish flu and been subjected to insufficient medical care. Else von Richthofen, who was present by his deathbed alongside his wife, thought that he could have survived his illness if he had been given better treatment.[103] His body was cremated in the Munich Ostfriedhof after a secular ceremony, and the urn that contained his ashes were later buried in the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof [de] in 1921. The funeral service was attended by his students, including Eduard Baumgarten [de] and Karl Loewenstein, and fellow scholars, such as Lujo Brentano.[104] At the time of his death, Weber had not finished writing his magnum opus on sociological theory: Economy and Society. His widow, Marianne, helped prepare it for its publication in 1922.[105] She later published a biography of her late husband in 1926, which became one of the central historical accounts of his life.[106]

Methodology

Sociology, for Max Weber, was "a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects".[107] In his methodology, he distinguished himself from Durkheim, Marx, and other classical figures, in that his primary focus was on individuals and culture.[108] Whereas Durkheim focused on the society, Weber concentrated on the individual and their actions (i.e. structure and action). Compared to Marx, who argued for the primacy of the material world over the world of ideas, Weber valued ideas as motivating actions of individuals.[109] He was open to the idea that social phenomena could have several different causes and placed importance on social actors' interpretations of their actions.[108]

Verstehen

Main article: Verstehen

In terms of methodology, Weber was primarily concerned with the question of objectivity and subjectivity, going on to distinguish social action from social behavior, noting that social action must be understood through how individuals subjectively relate to one another.[110] According to him, the study of social action through interpretive means or verstehen ("to understand") needed to be based upon understanding the subjective meaning and purpose that individuals attached to their actions.[111] Social actions may have had easily identifiable and objective means, but might have had much more subjective ends.[112] Weber noted that the importance of subjectivity in the social sciences made the creation of fool-proof, universal laws much more difficult than in the natural sciences and that the amount of objective knowledge that social sciences were able to create was limited. Overall, Weber supported the goal of objective science as one worth striving for, though he noted that it was ultimately an unreachable goal.[113]

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 in Sociological Writings, 1904.[114]

The principle of methodological individualism, which holds that social scientists should seek to understand collectivities 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 argued that only individuals "can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action".[115] In other words, Weber contended that social phenomena can be understood scientifically only to the extent that they are captured by models of the behaviour of purposeful individuals, ideal types, from which actual historical events necessarily deviate due to accidental and irrational factors.[116] The analytical constructs of an ideal type never exist in reality, but provide objective benchmarks against which real-life constructs can be measured.[117]

Weber's methodology was developed in the context of wider debates about methodology of social sciences.[118] The first of which was the Methodenstreit ("method dispute").[119] His 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.[120] Therefore, his methodology emphasised the use of comparative historical analysis.[121] As such, he 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.[122] The second debate that shaped Weber's perspective on methodology was the Werturteilsstreit ("value-judgment dispute").[123] This debate was held between 1909 and 1914 on the subject of value-judgements in the social sciences. It originated with a debate between the supporters of the idea that ethics was an important consideration in the field of economics and those who opposed that in the Verein für Socialpolitik.[124] Weber's position was that the social sciences should strive to be value-free. In his view, scholars and students needed to avoid using their position to promote political values in the classroom. The choosing of values was something that science had no part in. With regards to economics, he argued that the productivity was not a useful scientific concept, as it could impede the proper eval‎uation of economic phenomena.[125]

Theories

Rationalisation

Main article: Rationalisation (sociology)

Rationalisation and the question of individual freedom in an increasingly rational society, was a central theme in Weber's scholarship.[126] This theme was situated in the larger context of the relationship between psychological motivations, cultural values, and beliefs, and the structure of the society.[122] Weber understood rationalisation as increasing knowledge, growing impersonality, and the enhanced control of social and material life.[127] Weber was ambivalent towards rationalisation. He admitted that it was responsible for many advances, particularly freeing humans from traditional, restrictive, and illogical social guidelines. However, he also criticised it for dehumanising individuals as "cogs in the machine" and curtailing their freedom, trapping them in the bureaucratic iron cage of rationality and bureaucracy.[128] His studies of the subject began with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[52] In it, he argued that the redefinition of the connection between work and piety in Protestantism and especially in ascetic Protestant denominations, particularly Calvinism, shifted human effort towards rational efforts aimed at achieving economic gain.[129] In Protestantism, piety towards God was expressed through one's secular vocation.[130] The rational roots of this doctrine, he argued, soon grew incompatible with and larger than the religious and so the latter were eventually discarded.[131]

What Weber depicted was not only the secularisation of Western culture, but also and especially the development of modern societies from the viewpoint of rationalisation. The new structures of society were marked by the differentiation of the two functionally intermeshing systems that had taken shape around the organisational cores of the capitalist enterprise and the bureaucratic state apparatus. Weber understood this process as the institutionalisation of purposive-rational economic and administrative action. To the degree that everyday life was affected by this cultural and societal rationalisation, traditional forms of life – which in the early modern period were differentiated primarily according to one's trade – were dissolved.
—Jürgen Habermas in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, 1990.[132]

Weber continued his investigation into this matter in later works, notably in his studies on bureaucracy and on the classification of legitimate authority into three types – rational-legal, traditional, and charismatic – of which rational-legal was the dominant one in the modern world.[133] In these works, Weber described what he saw as society's movement towards rationalisation.[134] Bureaucratic states justified themselves through rationality and were supported by expert knowledge, which was what made them rational.[135] Rationalisation could also be seen in the economy, with the development of highly rational and calculating capitalism. Capitalism's rationality related to its basis in calculation, which separated it from alternative forms of economic organization.[136] State bureaucracy and capitalism served as the twin pillars of the developing rational society. The preexisting traditions that relied on the trades were eliminated as a result of those changes.[132] Weber also saw rationalisation as one of the main factors that set the European West apart from the rest of the world.[137]

Related to rationalisation was the process of disenchantment, in which the world was becoming more explained and less mystical, moving from polytheistic religions to monotheistic ones and finally to the Godless science of modernity.[138] Older explanations of why events occurred relied on the belief in supernatural interference in the material world. Due to disenchantment, this gave way to rational and scientific explanations for events.[139] According to the Sociology of Religion religious activity began with actions in the material world that people associated with vague spirits and gave magical meanings to. Over time, these magical beliefs became increasingly systemised and the spirits became gods that were represented by symbols.[140] Polytheism and organised religion were the results of this increasing theological systemisation.[141] Western monotheism was spurred on by increasing rationality, which resulted in specific gods being focused on by groups for political and economic purposes, creating a universal religion.[142] For Weber, Protestantism encouraged an increased pursuit of rationality that led to the deval‎uing of itself.[143] In turn, this deval‎uation led to nihilism through its destruction of unifying values.[144]

The Rational and Social Foundations of Music

Max Weber also applied rationalisation to music in his The Rational and Social Foundations of Music.[145] In writing it, he was partially influenced by his affair with the pianist Mina Tobler. Meanwhile, the scholarly impetus was a sense that Western music was the only type that had become harmonic, while the music of other cultures was more intense and focused on hearing.[146] He thought that music was becoming increasingly rational and had moved away from the conditions that had defined it under feudalism. Similarly, he argued that changes in the construction of musical instruments and simultaneous social and economic changes had influenced that shift. Musical instruments became more advanced as new materials and construction processes were developed, while the socio-economic positions of the players of different instruments shifted.[147] In creating this theory, he was influenced by the scientist Hermann von Helmholtz's application of science to the discussion of harmonisation in music. Weber opposed his interpretation of it, which he viewed as having been reductionist.[148]

Sociology of religion

Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion began with the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[48] It continued with his analyses in The Religion of China, The Religion of India, and Ancient Judaism.[149] However, his work on other religions was interrupted by his sudden death in 1920, which prevented him from following Ancient Judaism with studies of early Christianity and Islam.[150] The three main themes within the books were: religious ideas' effect on economic activities, the relationship between social stratification and religious ideas, and the distinguishable characteristics of Western civilisation.[151] His goal was to find reasons for the different developmental paths of the cultures of the Western world and the Eastern world, without making value judgments, unlike the contemporaneous social Darwinists. Weber simply wanted to explain the distinctive elements of Western civilisation.[152] Weber also proposed a socio-evolutionary model of religious change where societies moved from magic to ethical monotheism, with the intermediatory steps of polytheism, pantheism, and monotheism. According to him, this was the result of growing economic stability, which allowed for professionalisation and the evolution of an increasingly sophisticated priesthood.[153] As societies grew more complex and encompassed different groups, a hierarchy of gods developed. Meanwhile, as their power became more centralised, the concept of a universal God became more popular and desirable.[154]

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Main article: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

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 in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905.[130]

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is Weber's most famous work.[155] It was the start of his research on how religions affected how economic systems developed.[48] In the book, he put forward the thesis that the Protestant work ethic, which was derived from the theological ideas of the Reformation, influenced the development of capitalism.[156] Weber was looking for elective affinities between the Protestant work ethic and capitalism.[157] He noted that there was at post-Reformation shift of Europe's economic centre away from Catholic countries such as France, Spain and Italy, and towards Protestant countries such as the Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Germany. Weber also noted that societies that had more Protestants also had a more highly developed capitalist economy.[158] Similarly, in societies with different religions, most successful business leaders were Protestant.[159] 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.[130]

Christian religious devotion was historically accompanied by the rejection of mundane affairs, including economic pursuit.[160] Weber argued that the origin of modern capitalism was in the religious ideas of the Reformation.[161] According to him, certain types of Protestantism – notably Calvinism – were supportive of the rational pursuit of economic gain and the worldly activities that were dedicated to it, seeing those activities as having been endowed with moral and spiritual significance.[162] The spirit of capitalism was found in the desire to work hard in a way that pleased the worker and signified their worth, originally had a basis in theology.[163] In particular, the Protestant work ethic motivated the believers to work hard, be successful in business, and reinvest their profits in further development rather than frivolous pleasures.[164] Weber thought that self-restraint, hard work, and a belief that wealth could be a sign of salvation were representative of ascetic Protestantism.[165] The notion of a calling, when combined with Predestination, meant that each individual had to take action to prove their salvation to themselves.[166] However, the success that the religious principles created ultimately removed them as an influence on modern capitalism as a result of its creation of a worldly perspective. As a result, the inheritors of that system were entrapped in a socioeconomic iron cage.[54]

The Religion of China

Main article: The Religion of China

The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism was Weber's second major work on the sociology of religion. Hans Gerth [de] edited and translated this text into English.[167] Weber focused on those aspects of Chinese society that were different from those of Western Europe, especially those aspects that contrasted with Puritanism. As part of that, he questioned why capitalism had not developed in China.[168] He focused on the issues of Chinese urban development, Chinese patrimonialism and officialdom and Chinese religion and philosophy (primarily Confucianism and Taoism), as the areas in which Chinese development significantly differed from the European route.[169] According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism were superficially similar, but were actually largely different from one another.[170] Instead, they were mutually exclusive types of rational thought, each attempting to prescribe a way of life based on religious dogma.[171] Notably, they both valued self-control and restraint and did not oppose accumulation of wealth. However, both of those qualities were simply means to different final goals.[172] Confucianism's goal was "a cultured status position", while Puritanism's goal was to create individuals who were "tools of God". For Weber, Puritans sought rational control of the world and rejected its irrationality while Confucians sought rational acceptance of that state of affairs.[173] Therefore, Weber stated that it was the 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.[174]

The Religion of India

Main article: The Religion of India

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 dealt 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.[175] In Weber's view, Hinduism in India, like Confucianism in China, was a barrier for capitalism.[176] The Indian caste system, which developed in post-Classical India and served as the source for legitimate social interactions, served as a key part of that. Both Hinduism and the high status of the Brahmins upheld the caste system. The Brahmins used their monopoly on education and theological authority to maintain their position, while Hinduism created a psychological justification for it in the form of the cycle of reincarnation.[177] A person's position in the caste order was thought to have been determined by one's actions in their past life.[178] As a result, advancement of the soul and obeying the predetermined order were more important than seeking advancement in the material world, including economic advancement.[179]

Weber ended his research of society and religion in India by bringing in insights from his previous work on China to discuss the similarities of the Asian belief systems.[180] He noted that the believers saw the meaning of life as otherworldly mystical experience.[181] The social world was fundamentally divided between the educated elite, following the guidance of a prophet or wise man and the uneducated masses whose beliefs are centered on magic. In Asia, there was no Messianic prophecy to give both educated and uneducated followers meaning in their regular lives.[182] Weber juxtaposed such Messianic prophecies, notably from the Near East, with the exemplary prophecies found on the Asian 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 the material world.[183] It was those differences that prevented Western countries from following the paths of the earlier Chinese and Indian civilisations. His next work, Ancient Judaism, was an attempt to prove this theory.[184]

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 that resulted in the early differences between Eastern and Western religiosity.[185] He contrasted the innerworldly asceticism developed by Western Christianity with mystical contemplation of the kind developed in India.[186] Weber noted that some aspects of Christianity sought to conquer and change the world, rather than withdraw from its imperfections.[185] This fundamental characteristic of Christianity originally stemmed from ancient Jewish prophecy.[187] Weber classified Jewish people as having been a pariah people, which meant that they were separated from the society that contained them.[188] He examined the creation and social structure of the ancient Jewish people. In his view, the Israelites maintained order through a covenant with the war god Yahweh and the practice of warrior asceticism. Under Solomon, that changed into a more law-based and organised society than the old confederation was. Religiously, the priests replaced the previous charismatic religious leaders. Weber interpreted the rise of prophets from the shepherds as having begun with Elijah, who promulgated political prophesies and served as an opponent of the monarchy.[189]

Theodicy

See also: Theodicy

The concept of theodicy played a role in Max Weber's interpretation of theology and religion throughout his corpus. This involved both his scholarly and personal interests in the subject. It was central to his conception of humanity, which he interpreted as having been connected with finding meaning. Amongst German scholars who sought to determine how a world created by an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being can contain suffering, theodicy was a popular subject of study. As part of this tradition, Weber was careful in his study of the subject.[190] Rather than interpreting it through a theological or ethical lens, he interpreted it through a social one.[191] Furthermore, he incorporated Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of Ressentiment into his discussion of the topic. However, he disagreed with Nietzsche's emotional discussion of the topic and his interpretation of it as having been a Jewish-derived expression‎ of slave morality.[192]

He divided theodicy into three main types:[193]

1. Persian dualism – God is not all powerful and misfortune comes from outside his power

2. Indian doctrine of karma – God is not all powerful and misfortune comes from inside oneself

3. Doctrine of predestination – Only a chosen few will be saved from damnation

Weber defined the importance of societal class within religion by examining the difference between the theodicies of fortune and misfortune and to what class structures they apply.[194] The concept of the work ethic was attached to the theodicy of fortune. Therefore, because of the Protestant work ethic, there was an increase of higher class outcomes and more education among Protestants.[195] Those without the work ethic believed in the theodicy of misfortune, believing wealth and happiness were granted in the afterlife. Another example of how this belief of religious theodicy influences class, was that those of lower economic status the poor, tended towards deep religiousness and faith as a way to comfort themselves and provided hope for a more prosperous future, while those of higher economic status preferred the sacraments or actions that proved their right to possess greater wealth.[196]

The state, politics, and government

See also: Max Weber and German politics

In political sociology, one of Weber's most influential contributions is his lecture "Politics as a Vocation", in which he defined the state as an entity that was "based on the legitimate use of force".[197] Accordingly, Weber proposed that politics is the sharing of state power between various groups, whereas political leaders were those who wield this power.[198] A politician needed to marry the oppositional gesinnungsethik and verantwortungsethik [de] (the "ethic of conviction" and the "ethic of responsibility").[199] An adherent of the verantwortungsethik justified their actions based on their consequences. Meanwhile, an adherent of the gesinnungsethik justified their actions based on their ideals. While Weber thought that both of them would ideally be present in a politician, he associated them with different types of people and mindsets. These different types of people and mindsets reflected the pacifists and those who wanted to reverse Germany's loss in the First World War, respectively.[200]

Weber distinguished three ideal types of legitimate authority:[201]

1. Charismatic authority – familial and religious

2. Traditional authority – patriarchs, patrimonialism, feudalism

3. Rational-legal authority – modern law and state, bureaucracy

In his view, all historical relationships between rulers and ruled contained these elements, which could be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[202] Weber noted that the instability of charismatic authority forced it to routinise into a more structured form of authority.[203] In an ideal type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a ruler led to a "traditional revolution". The move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, using a bureaucratic structure, is inevitable in the end.[204] Therefore, this theory could sometimes be viewed as part of the sociocultural evolution theory. That was tied to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.[205]

Weber described many ideal types of public administration and government in his Economy and Society. His critical study of the bureaucratisation of society became one of the most enduring parts of his work.[206] Weber began the study of bureaucracy and his works led to the popularisation of the term.[207] Many aspects of contemporary public administration date back to him and a classic, hierarchically organised civil service of the Continental type is called "Weberian civil service".[208] As the most efficient and rational way of organising, bureaucratisation was the key part of the rational-legal authority. Furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the ongoing rationalisation of Western society.[206]

Weber listed several preconditions for the emergence of the bureaucracy, which resulted in a need for a more efficient administrative system, including:[209]

1. The growth in space and population being administered

2. The growth in complexity of the administrative tasks being carried out and the existence of a monetary economy

The development of communication and transportation technologies made more efficient administration possible, and popularly requested, and the democratisation and rationalisation of culture resulted in demands that the new system treat everyone equally.[209] Weber's ideal bureaucracy was characterised by hierarchical organisation, delineated lines of authority in a fixed area of activity, action taken on the basis of written rules, bureaucratic officials needing expert training, rules being implemented neutrally, and career advancement depending on technical qualifications judged by organisations.[210] While recognising bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organisation and even indispensable for the modern state, Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms and the ongoing bureaucratisation as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalisation of human life trapped individuals in the iron cage of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control.[211] To counteract bureaucrats, the system needed entrepreneurs and politicians.[212]

Social stratification

Main article: Three-component theory of stratification

Weber also formulated a three-component theory of stratification, with social class, social status and political party as conceptually distinct elements.[213] This distinction was most clearly described in Weber's essay "The Distribution of Power Within the Gemeinschaft: Classes, Stände, Parties", which was first published in his book Economy and Society.[214] Status served as one of the central ways in which people were ranked in society. As part of it, issues of honour and prestige were important.[215] With regards to class, the theory placed heavy emphasis on class conflict and private property as key its definition.[216] While Weber drew upon Marx's interpretation of class conflict in his definition of class, he did not see it as being the defining aspect of all social relations and stratification.[217] Political parties were not given as much attention by Weber as the other two components were, as he thought that they were not particularly effectual in their actions. They existed to seek power to benefit their members materially or ideologically.[218]

The three components of Weber's theory were:[213]

1. Social class – Based on an economically determined relationship with the market

2. Status (Stand) – Based on non-economic qualities such as honour and prestige

3. Party – Affiliations in the political domain

This conceptualization emerged from Weber's study of farm labour and the stock exchange, as he found social relationships that could not be explained through economic class alone. The Junkers had social rules regarding marriage between different social levels and farm labourers had a strong sense of independence, neither of which was economically based.[219] Weber maintained a sharp distinction between the terms "status" and "class", although non-scholars tend to use them interchangeably in casual use.[220] Status and its focus on honour emerged from the Gemeinschaft, which denoted the part of society where loyalty originated from. Class emerged from the Gesellschaft, a subdivision of the Gemeinschaft that included rationally driven markets and legal organisation. Parties emerged from a combination of the two.[221] Weber interpreted life chances, the opportunities to improve one's life, as having been a definitional aspect of class. It related to the differences in access to opportunities that different people might have had in their lives.[222] The relationship between status and class was not straightforward. One of them could lead to the other, but an individual or group could have success in one but not the other.[223]

Study of the city

Main article: The City (Weber book)

The origin of a rational and inner-worldly ethic is associated in the Occident with the appearance of thinkers and prophets … who developed in a social context that was alien to the Asiatic cultures. This context consisted of the political problems engendered by the bourgeois status-group of the city, without which neither Judaism, nor Christianity, nor the development of Hellenistic thinking are conceivable.
—Max Weber in The City, 1921.[224]

As part of his overarching effort to understand the unique development of the Western world, Weber produced a detailed general study of the city as the characteristic locus of the social and economic relations, political arrangements, and ideas that eventually came to define the West. This resulted in a monograph, The City.[225] According to Weber, the city as a politically autonomous organisation of people living in close proximity, employed in a variety of specialised trades, and physically separated from the surrounding countryside. That structure only fully developed in the West and significantly shaped its cultural evolution.[226] Weber argued that Judaism, early Christianity, theology, and later the political party and modern science, were only possible in the urban context that reached a full development in the West alone.[227] He also saw in the history of medieval European cities the rise of a unique form of non-legitimate domination that successfully challenged the existing forms of legitimate domination (traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal) that had prevailed until then in the Medieval world.[228]

Economics

Weber regarded himself primarily as an economist, and all 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.[229] As a political economist and economic historian, Weber belonged to the German historical school of economics, represented by academics such as Gustav von Schmoller and his student Werner Sombart.[230] However, even though Weber's research interests were very much in line with this school, his views on methodology and marginal utility diverged significantly from those of other German historicists. Instead, they were closer to those of Carl Menger and the Austrian school of economics, the traditional rivals of the historical school.[231] The division caused by the Methodenstreit caused Weber to support a broad interpretation of economics that combined economic theory, economic history, and economic sociology in the form of Sozialökonomik [de] ("social economics").[232]

Economy and Society

Main article: Economy and Society

A page from the manuscript of the sociology of law within Economy and Society

Weber's magnum opus Economy and Society is an essay collection that he was working on at the time of his death in 1920. After his death, the final organisation and editing of the book fell to his widow Marianne. The final German form published in 1922 reflected Marianne's editorial work and intellectual commitment.[233] The composition includes a wide range of essays dealing with Weber's views regarding sociology, social philosophy, politics, social stratification, world religion, diplomacy, and other subjects.[234] Beginning in 1956, the German jurist Johannes Winckelmann began editing and organising the German edition of Economy and Society based on his study of the papers that Weber left at his death. English versions of the work were published as a collected volume in 1968, as edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. As a result of the various editions in German and English, there are differences between the organisation of the different volumes.[235]

Methodological individualism[edit]

Main article: Methodological individualism

While his research interests placed a strong emphasis on interpreting economic history, Weber's support of methodological individualism represented a break with the historical school and an agreement with the founder of the Austrian school, Carl Menger, in the Methodenstreit ("debate over methods").[236] The term "methodological individualism", which came into common usage in modern debates regarding the connection between microeconomics and macroeconomics, was coined by the Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1908 as a way of referring to Weber's views on the subject.[116] Despite the usage of "individualism" in the term, Weber did not interpret the individual as being the true source for sociological explanations. Instead, while only individuals could engage in intentional action, they were not necessarily separate from the collective group.[237] He interpreted methodological individualism as having had close proximity to verstehende ("interpretive") sociology, as actions can be interpreted subjectively. Similarly, it is also related to ideal types in that it involves discussions of abstract and rational models of human behaviour.[238]

Marginal utility

Unlike other historicists, Weber accepted Marginal utility and taught it to his students.[239] Weber's overall economic sociology was based on it.[240] In 1908, Weber published an article, "Marginal Utility Theory and 'The Fundamental Law of Psychophysics'", in which he drew a sharp methodological distinction between psychology and economics and attacked the claims that the marginal theory of value in economics reflected the form of the psychological response to stimuli as described by the Weber–Fechner law. This article was also a rejection of the dependence of the economic theory of value on the laws of psychophysics.[241] Weber also included a similar discussion of marginal utility theory in the second chapter of Economy and Society. Both marginal utility theory and declining utility's roles in his writings were implied through his usage of instrumentally rational action that chapter.[242]

Economic calculation

Like his colleague Werner Sombart, Weber regarded economic calculation, particularly double-entry bookkeeping, as having played a significant role in rationalisation and the development of capitalism.[243] Weber's preoccupation with the importance of economic calculation led him to critique socialism as a system that lacked a mechanism for allocating resources efficiently to satisfy human needs.[244] Otto Neurath, a socialist thinker, thought that prices would not exist and central planners would use in-kind, rather than monetary, economic calculation in a completely socialised economy.[245] According to Weber, this type of coordination was inefficient because it was incapable of solving the problem of imputation, which related to the difficulties in accurately determining the relative values of capital goods.[246] Weber wrote that, under socialism, the value of goods had to be determined. However, there was no clear method for doing so in that economic system.

Planned economies were, therefore, irrational.[247] This argument against socialism was made independently, at approximately the same time, by Ludwig von Mises.[248] 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. However, Mises ultimately regarded him as having been a historian, rather than an economist.[249]

Inspirations

Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, two of Max Weber's influences

Max Weber was strongly influenced by German idealism, particularly by neo-Kantianism. He was exposed to it by Heinrich Rickert, who was his professorial colleague at the University of Freiburg.[250] Especially important to Weber's work is the neo-Kantian belief that reality was essentially chaotic and incomprehensible, with all rational order deriving from the way the human mind focused attention on certain aspects of reality and organised the resulting perceptions.[251] Weber's opinions regarding the methodology of the social sciences showed parallels with the work of contemporary neo-Kantian philosopher and pioneering sociologist Georg Simmel.[252] Weber was also influenced by Kantian ethics more generally, which he nonetheless came to think of as obsolete in a modern age lacking in religious certainties.[253] His interpretation of Kant and neo-Kantianism was pessimistic as a result.[254]

Weber was responding to the effect that Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy had on modern thought. His goal in the field of ethics was to find freedom that was not arbitrarily defined in what he interpreted as an age that moved past metaphysics. That represented a division between the parts of his thought that represented Kantianism and Nietzscheanism.[255] After his debate with Oswald Spengler in 1920, Weber was recorded as having said that the world was largely intellectually influenced by Nietzsche and Marx.[256] In The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and "Science as a Vocation", Weber negatively described "die 'letzten Menschen'" ("the 'last men'"), who were Nietzschean "specialists without spirit" who Weber warned about in both texts.[257] Similarly, he also used Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment in his discussion of theodicy, but he interpreted it differently. Weber disliked Nietzsche's emotional approach to the subject and did not interpret it as having been a type of slave morality that was derived from Judaism.[258]

While a student in Charlottenburg, Weber read all forty volumes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who later exerted an influence over his methodology and concepts.[8] For Weber, Goethe was one of the seminal figures in German history.[259] In his writings, including The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber quoted Goethe on several occasions.[9] His usage of "elective affinity" in his writings may have been derived from Goethe, as it had been used as the title of one of Goethe's works.[260] Weber was also influenced by Goethe's usage of the Greek daimon ("fate"). That concept influenced Weber's perspective that one's fate was inevitable and that one was able to use experience to create intellectual passion.[261] He thought that Goethe, his Faust, and Nietzsche's Zarathustra were figures that represented the Übermensch and expressed the quality of human action by ceaselessly striving for knowledge.[262]

Another major influence in Weber's life was the writings of Karl Marx and the workings of socialist thought in academia and active politics.[263] While he shared some of Marx's consternation with bureaucratic systems and maligned them as having been capable of advancing their own logic to the detriment of human freedom and autonomy, Weber viewed conflict as perpetual and inevitable and did not host the spirit of a materially available utopia.[264] Writing in 1932, Karl Löwith contrasted the work of Marx and Weber, arguing that both were interested in the causes and effects of Western capitalism, but they viewed it through different lenses. Marx viewed capitalism through the lens of alienation, while Weber used the concept of rationalisation to interpret it.[265] Weber also expanded Marx's interpretation of alienation from the specific idea of the worker who was alienated from his work to similar situations that involved intellectuals and bureaucrats.[266] Scholars during the Cold War frequently interpreted Weber as having been "a bourgeois answer to Marx", but he was actually responding to the issues that were relevant to the bourgeoisie in Wilhelmine Germany. In that regard, he focused on the conflict between rationality and irrationality.[267]

Legacy

Weber's most influential work was on economic sociology, political sociology, and the sociology of religion. Along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim, he is commonly regarded as one of the founders of modern sociology.[268] He was instrumental in developing an antipositivist, hermeneutic, tradition in the social sciences.[269] Weber influenced many scholars across the political spectrum. Left-leaning social theorists, such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, György Lukács and Jürgen Habermas were influenced by his discussion of modernity and its friction with modernization.[270] As part of that, his analysis of modernity and rationalisation significantly influenced the critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School.[271] Right-leaning scholars, including Carl Schmitt, Joseph Schumpeter, Leo Strauss, Hans Morgenthau, and Raymond Aron, emphasised different elements of his thought. They placed importance on his discussion of strong leaders in democracy, political ethic's relationship with value-freedom and value-relativism, and combatting bureaucracy through politically based struggle.[255] The scholars who have examined his works philosophically, including Strauss, Hans Henrik Bruun, and Alfred Schütz, have traditionally looked at them through the lens of Continental philosophy.[272]

Weber studies

Weberian scholarship's beginnings were delayed by the ongoing disruption of academic life in the Weimar Republic. Hyper-inflation caused Weber's support for parliamentary democracy to be countered by the decline the respect that professors had for it. The alienation that they experienced from politics caused many of them to become pessimistic and closer to the historical viewpoints espoused by Oswald Spengler in his The Decline of the West.[273] Furthermore, universities were coming under increased state control and influence. After the Nazi Party took power, that process accelerated. The previously dominant style of sociology, that of Alfred Vierkandt and Leopold von Wiese, was largely replaced by a sociology that was dominated by support for the Nazis. Hans Freyer and Othmar Spann were representative of that movement, while Werner Sombart moved towards support for collectivism. The rise of the Nazi Party had relegated Weber's scholarship to a marginal position in the Germany academy. However, some Weberian scholars had left Germany while this process was going on, with most of them settling in the United States and the United Kingdom.[274]

These scholars began to involve themselves in American and British scholarship at a time when Weber's writings, such as the General Economic History, were beginning to be translated into English. Talcott Parsons, an American scholar, was influenced by his readings of Weber and Sombart as a student in Germany during the 1920s. He obtained permission from Marianne Weber to publish a translation of The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in his 1930 essay collection, the Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion. This translated version, which was heavily edited by the publisher, was not initially successful.[275] Parsons used this translation as part of his effort to create an academic sociology, which resulted in his 1937 book The Structure of Social Action. In it, Parson's argued that Weber and Durkheim were foundational figures in sociology. His book was not successful until after the Second World War. He then published a translation of Economy and Society as The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. His increasing prominence as a scholar led to this volume's own elevated influence. Other translations began to appear, including C. Wright Mills and Hans Gerth's [de] From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology in 1946. Their volume was a collection of excerpts from Weber's writings. In the last year of the decade, Edward Shils edited a translation of Weber's Collected Essays on Methodology, which was published as The Methodology of the Social Sciences.[276]

As the 1940s ended, Max Weber's reputation as a scholar was rising through its interpretation through the lenses of Parsons's structural functionalism and Mills's conflict theory.[277] Over the course of the next few decades, continued publications of translated versions of Weber's works began to appear, including ones on law, religion, music, and the city. Despite the flawed nature of many of the translations, it became possible to obtain a largely complete view of Weber's scholarship. That was still impeded by the unorganised way in which the translations were published, which prevented scholars from knowing the connections between the different texts. In 1968, a complete translation of Economy and Society in the way that it was prepared by Marianne Weber was published.[278] While an interpretation of Weber that was separate from Parson's structural functionalism had begun with From Max Weber, a more political and historical interpretation was forwarded by Reinhard Bendix's 1948 Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, Ralf Dahrendorf's 1957 Class and Conflict in an Industrial Society, and John Rex's 1962 Key Problems in Sociological Theory. Raymond Aron's interpretation of Weber in his 1965 text, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, gave an alternative to Parson's perspective on the history of sociology. Weber, while still integral to it, was being framed as one of the three foundational figures, the other two were Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim. Anthony Giddens solidified that interpretation of the three scholars with the publication of his Capitalism and Modern Social Theory in 1971. After the end of the 1970s, more of Weber's less prominent publications began to be published. That effort coincided with the continued writings of critical commentaries on his works and idea, including the creation of a scholarly journal in 2000, Max Weber Studies, that is devoted to such scholarship.[279]

Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe

The idea of publishing a collected edition of Max Weber's complete works was pushed forward by Horst Baier in 1972. A year later, the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe [de], a multi-volume set of all of Max Weber's writings, began to take shape.[280] Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Wolfgang Schluchter, Johannes Winckelmann [de], M. Rainer Lepsius, and Horst Baier [de] were the initial editors. After Mommsen's death in 2004, Gangolf Hübinger [de] succeeded him. Winckelmann, Lepsius, and Baier also died before the completion of the project.[281] The writings were organised in a combination of chronological order and by subject, with the material that was not intended to be published by Weber in purely chronological order. The final editions of each text were used, with the exception of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which was published in both its first and final forms.[282] Mohr Siebeck was selected to publish the volumes.[283] The project was presented to the academic community in 1981 with the publication of a prospectus that was colloquially referred to as the "green brochure". It outlined the three sections of the series: "Writings and Speeches", "Letters", and "Lecture Manuscripts and Lecture Notes".[284] Four years later, the project entered publication.[285] It concluded in June 2020 and contains forty-seven volumes, including two index volumes.[286]

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