Max weber

Sunday, February 22, 2015
© 1998-2006 by Ronald Keith
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SYA 3010 Sociological
Theory:
Max Weber

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Max Weber
1864-1920
Pronounced
“vey-bear”
German
Protestant
Mother was a
strong Calvinist
Father was a
German bourgeoisie
politician

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Max Weber
Paradigm: Pluralist
Class of Theories: Divergent Interests
Sociology is properly concerned with
individuals, not just structure
(Perdue 1986:173)
Perdue, William D. 1986. Sociological Theory: Explanation, Paradigm, and Ideology.
Palto Alto, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Max Weber conceived of sociology as a
comprehensive science of social actionsocial action.
In his analytical focus on individual human
actors he differed from many of his
predecessors whose sociology was
conceived in social-structural terms.
Spencer concentrated on the evolution of
the body socialbody social as analogous to an
organism.

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Durkheim’s central concern was with
institutional arrangements that maintain
the cohesioncohesion of social structures. Marx’s
vision of society was informed by his
preoccupation with the conflicts between
social classessocial classes within changing social
structures and productive relations.

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Max Weber:
Social Action
In contrast, Weber’s primary focus was on the
subjective meanings that human actors attach to
their actions in their mutual orientations within
specific social-historical contexts. Behavior
devoid of such meaning, Weber argued, falls
outside the purview of sociology.
Coser (1971:217)
Coser, Lewis A. 1971. Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in
Historical and Social Context. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Review Handout
Weber’s Model of Social
System

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Four Major Types of Social Action
Purposeful or Goal-oriented
Rational Action
Both goal and means are rationally chosen
Example: An engineer who builds a bridge by the
most efficient technique of relating means to ends

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Value-oriented Rational Action
Striving for a substantive goal, which in itself
may not be rational but which is nonetheless
pursued
Example: Attainment of salvation

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Emotional or Affective Motivation
Action
Anchored in the emotional state of the actor
rather than in the rational weighing of means
and ends
Example: Participants in the religious services of a
fundamentalist sect

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Traditional Action
Guided by customary habits of thought, by
reliance on “the eternal yesterday”
Example: The behavior of members of an
Orthodox Jewish congregation

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Weber was primarily concerned with modern
Western society, in which, as he saw it,
behavior had come to be dominated
increasingly by goal-oriented rationality,
whereas in earlier periods it tended to be
motivated by tradition, affect, or value-oriented
rationality. His studies of non-Western societies
were primarily designed to highlight this
distinctive Western development.

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Max Weber:
Social Action
Karl Mannheim stated:
Max Weber’s whole work is in the
last analysis directed toward the
question “Which social factors
have brought about the
rationalization of Western
civilization?”

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Max Weber:
Ideal Types
Ideal Types
An ideal type is an analytical construct that serves the
investigator as a measuring rod to ascertain similarities
as well as deviations in concrete cases. It provide the
basic method for comparative study.
An ideal type is not meant to be a moral ideal. There
can be an ideal type of a brothel or a chapel.
It is not a statistical average
Average Protestants in a given region or at a give time may
be quite different from ideal typical Protestants
Used to develop hypotheses

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Max Weber:
Ideal Types
Three levels of Ideal Types
First are the ideal types rooted in historical
particularities, such as the “western city,” “the
Protestant Ethic,” or “modern capitalism,”
which refer to phenomena that appear only in
specific historical periods and in particular
cultural areas.

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Max Weber:
Ideal Types
A second kind involves abstract elements of social
reality--such concepts as “bureaucracy” or
“feudalism”--that may be found in a variety of
historical and cultural contexts.
Finally, there is a third kind of ideal
type. . .”rationalizing reconstructions of a particular
kind of behavior. According to Weber, all propositions
in economic theory, for example, fall into this
category. They all refer to ways in which man would
behave were they actuated by purely economic
motives, were they purely economic men.

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Max Weber:
Authority
Authority
Three main modes of authority (claiming
legitimacy)
Rational-legal authority
Authority may be based on rational grounds and
anchored in impersonal rules that have been
legally enacted or contractually established.

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Max Weber:
Authority
Traditional authority
Based on the belief in the sanctity of tradition, of
“the eternal yesterday.” It is not codified in
impersonal rules, but inheres in particular persons
who may either inherit it or be invested with it by a
higher authority
Charismatic authority
Rests on the appeal of leaders who claim
allegiance because of their extraordinary
virtuosity, whether ethical, heroic, or religious.

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Max Weber:
Authority
This typology of various forms of authority
relations is important on several counts. Its
sociological contribution rests more especially
on the fact that Weber, in contrast to many
political theorists, conceives of authority in all its
manifestations as characteristic of the relation
between leaders and followers, rather than as
an attribute of the leader alone.

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Max Weber:
Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
Formal organization of the officialdom of large-scale
enterprise (e.g., government, military, economic,
religious, educational), the ideal-type of such as
organization characterized by:
Clearly defined division of labor
Rationality (i.e., a business-like attention to implementing goals
of the organization)
Impersonal application of rules
Routinization of tasks to the degree that personnel are easily
replaceable

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Max Weber:
Bureaucracy
This bureaucratic coordination of the
actions of large numbers of people has
become the dominant structural feature of
modern forms of organization. Only
through this organizational device has
large-scale planning, both for the modern
state and the modern economy, become
possible.

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Max Weber:
Bureaucracy
Yet Weber also noted the
dysfunctions of bureaucracy. Its
major advantage, the calculability
of results, also causes
depersonalization. It is difficult to
deal with individual cases.

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Major works
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Two Parts:
1904 and 1905)
The Religion of China (1913)
The Religion of India (1916-1917)
Ancient Judaism (1917)
These major works were based on the question: Why
did modern capitalism initially occur in the West and not
in other parts of the world? (Turner, Beeghley, and Powers
1998:162-163)
Turner, Jonathan H., Leonard Beeghley, and Charles H. Powers. 1998. The Emergence
of Sociological Theory. 4th ed. Cincinnati, OH: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Review Handout
Weber’s Causal Argument for
the Emergence of
Capitalism

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism is part of an
exercise in historical hypothesishistorical hypothesis
testingtesting in which Weber
constructed a logical experiment
using ideal typesideal types as conceptual
tools.

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Theology has an
enormous impact on
behavior---even
economical and social
behavior.

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Occupational statistics in those nations of
mixed religious composition seemed to
show that those in higher socioeconomic
positions were overwhelmingly Protestant.
Weber was not attempting to prove a
relationship between Protestantism and
economic success (that was a given), but
rather to explain the relationship.

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Weber developed a historical ideal typehistorical ideal type
called Spirit of CapitalismSpirit of Capitalism. This ideal type
has four components:
Work is valued as an end in itself
Trade and profit are indicators of personal
virtue
A methodically organized life governed by
reason indicates a righteous state of being
Delayed gratification is a virtue

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Weber focused on the Calvinist’s form or
Protestantism
Calvinist’s theology/doctrine had four
consequences on the Spirit of Capitalism:
Predestination
Lack of certainty of salvation created inner
loneliness and isolation

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
People looked for signs of being among the
elect
Absolute duty to consider themselves chosen
Intense worldly activity creates self-confidence
All believers were expected to lead
methodical and ascetic lives unencumbered
by irrational emotions, superstitions, or
desires of the flesh

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Why did John Wesley call his group
“Methodists?”
Why do many evangelical and
fundamentalist groups have “standards”
and/or rules that appear rather “strict?”
No dancing
Avoid theaters, movies, dramas
No card playing, use of dice of any kind

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Among the Calvinist and many of the other
Protestant groups-----wealth was
“automatically” accumulated through
intense “economic activity” but was not to
be “shown.” The accumulation was to be
converted into “sound” assets.
The Amish are a perfect illustration of the
Spirit of Capitalism as studied by Weber.

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Even though the strict nature
of early Protestant groups
are all but gone----the
residues are evident in
today’s society.

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Max Weber:
Study of Religion
Review Handout
Weber’s Quasi-Experimental
Design in the Study of
Religion

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Max Weber:
Class and Status
Class and Status
Method for studying stratification of
populations for sociological purposes.
Class
“…property…and lack of property…” is the
basis of all class situations
Class is a type of socioeconomic category
Rational behavior

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Max Weber:
Class and Status
Status
Evaluations people make of one another
Rank order of desired behavior and traits
Value-oriented behavior

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Max Weber:
Class and Status
Examples
If we use the class groups of low, blue collar, lower middle
class, middle class, upper middle class, wealthy and the
statuses of low, middle, high---what are the class and
status levels of the following:
College Presidents
Teachers
Medical Doctors
Investment Bankers
Pastors

Max weber

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