Weber, Max (1864–1920)

Max Weber was one of the leading scholars of his time in Germany and helped found modern sociology. He thought of sociology as a comprehensive science of social action, and his focus was on the subjective meaning that humans attach to their action and interactions within specific social contexts. His system of thought is one in which material interests and ideas are in constant interaction with each other. Thus, he wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in part to counter the prevailing Marxist view of dialectical materialism and wanted to show how the ideals and values of a particular religious system also entered into the shaping of history.

Weber sought to explain why the Industrial Revolution took place primarily in countries that were primarily Protestant in their religious orientation. In doing so, he was not denying material forces but only isolating the religious elements that he thought helped spur industrialization. Thus, he focused on the idea of the calling from Lutheran theology and the notion of predestination from Calvinism that he argued contributed to what he called the spirit of capitalism, the motivations and attitudes that were necessary for rapid industrialization to develop. People were called to work hard and do their best at whatever stations in life they found themselves. And to prove they were one of the elect, they were motivated to make a success of themselves by accumulating wealth and using it to [Page 2216]create more wealth. Capitalist accumulation thus came from these aspects of the Protestant religion.

There has been much debate about this idea, but nonetheless, the Weber thesis has some explanatory power relative to the rise of capitalism. Weber also wrote extensively about the rise of modern bureaucracy in both the public and the private sectors of societies. He considered bureaucracy to be a particular case of rationalization applied to human organization. Such bureaucratic coordination of human action was the distinctive mark of modern social structures. Bureaucracies, Weber believed, are efficient goaloriented organizations designed according to rational principles. This organizational device makes largescale planning for the modern state and modern economy possible. The key to understanding the modern world, he argued, lies in the consequences of the growth in the power and scope of these organizations. The fact that individuals have limited responsibility and authority within an organization makes it unlikely that they will raise questions regarding the moral implications of the overall operation of the organization.