The final type Weber labels ''traditional action.'' This is action guided by custom or habit. people engage in this type of action often unthinkingly, because it is simply ''always done.'' Many students attend university because it is traditional for their social class and family to attend--the expectation was always there, it was never questioned (Elwell I999).
The Protestant Work Ethic
No essay on Weber would be complete without reference to one of his most notable works ‘The Protestant Ethic’
"A man does not 'by nature' wish to earn more and more money, but simply to live as he is accustomed to live and to earn as much as is necessary for that purpose. Wherever modern capitalism has begun its work of increasing the productivity of human labour by increasing its intensity, it has encountered the immensely stubborn resistance of this leading trait of pre-capitalistic labour"
Weber argued that there was a link between the emergence of Protestantism (in the 16th century) and what he termed the Protestant ethic, and the rise of capitalism. He was one of the first to see the importance of bureaucracy, which he analyzed as a form of social organistion which consisted of “a hierarchy of paid, clearly defined offices, filled by individuals selected on merit who were free and able to progress up the hierarchy, which itself was controlled from the top.”
Weber refined the analysis of social stratification, arguing, for example, that an individual's class could depend on the possession of skills as well as on property ownership and occupation, and he stressed the role of status in social inequality.
According to Weber, “sociology should concern itself with the interpretation and explanation of social behavior, not simply with its observation and description.”
The Ideal Type
“In his effort to escape from the individualizing and particularizing approach of German Geisteswissenschaft and historicism, Weber developed a key conceptual tool, the notion of the ideal type. It will be recalled that Weber argued that no scientific system is ever capable of reproducing all concrete reality, nor can any conceptual apparatus ever do full justice to the infinite diversity of particular phenomena. All science involves selection as well as abstraction. Yet the social scientist can easily be caught in a dilemma when he chooses his conceptual apparatus. When his concepts are very general--as when he attempts to explain capitalism or Protestantism by subsuming them under the general concepts of economics or religion--he is likely to leave out what is most distinctive to them. When, on the other hand, he uses the traditional conceptualizations of the historian and particularizes the phenomenon under discussion, he allows no room for comparison with related phenomena. The notion of the ideal type was meant to provide escape from this dilemma.
Socialism and capitalism are both economic systems based on industrialization--the rational application of science, observation, and reason to the production of goods and services. Both capitalism and socialism are forms of a rational organization of economic life to control and coordinate this production. Socialism is predicated on government ownership of the economy to provide the coordination to meet the needs of people within society. If anything, Weber maintained, socialism would be even more rationalized, even more bureaucratic than capitalism. And thus, more alienating to human beings as well.
According to Weber, because bureaucracy is a form of organization superior to all others, further bureaucratization and rationalization may be an inescapable fate. "Without this form of (social) technology the industrialized countries could not have reached the heights of extravagance and wealth that they currently enjoy. All indications are that they will continue to grow in size and scope. Weber wrote of the evolution of an iron cage, a technically ordered, rigid, dehumanized society.”
Challenged by the Marxist theory of economic determinism, Weber combined his interest in economics with sociology in an attempt to establish, through historical study, that historical causation was not influenced merely by economic considerations. In one of his best-known works, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-05; trans. 1930), he tried to prove that ethical and religious ideas were strong influences on the development of capitalism. He expanded on this theme in The Religions of the East series (3 vol., 1920-21; trans. 1952-58), in which he postulated that the prevailing religious and philosophical ideas in the Eastern world prevented the development of capitalism in ancient societies, despite the presence of favorable economic factors.
From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 1908 On the Psychophysics of Industrial Work Since his death in 1920, the reputation of Max Weber has grown until he is now recognized as the major social theorist of the twentieth century. He is cited by political leaders, and at least one of his key technical terms, 'charisma', has entered everyday language.
Ideas such as 'legitimisation' and 'life chances' have become an integral part of the language of politics. He was dedicated to 'science', the production of knowledge by systematic and critical enquiry.
An interest in facts and the pursuit of social theory are not necessarily combined by one and the same individual, or indeed even by the same professional group. Aristotle collected facts, Marx brought theory and facts together, Weber's work began with facts and proceeded to develop a certain kind of theory which he called sociology and which represents a distinctive intellectual response to the world.
“Weber's science of the social operates through the interrelationship of three phases of the world we inhabit: facts, understanding and the social. Neither one of these can be denied or grasped it is also from the other two.”
Weber's sociology uniquely captured persisting and developing features of the twentieth century. For this reason his work gains ever increasing respect. Weber's comparative studies of religion and the social bases of nationalism as well as power and the mark provide the basis for understanding the relationship between multi-culturalism and globalisation.
Nicholas Gane argues that; “Weber became the chopping block on which critical tools necessary for reorganising society were sharpened”. There is currently a resurgence of interest in the work of Max Weber, and this is, he believes, is for three main reasons.
1. First, the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s effectively marked the decline of Marxism as a dominant paradigm of social theory.
2. This sharp collapse of the Marxist orthodoxy vindicated Weber's analysis of modernity, and, in particular, his critique of Marx. Here, one may argue Weber's work is currently of interest because, secondly, it establishes a theory and critique of the nature, rise and trajectory of modern culture.
3. Gane maintains that the idea of rationality is a great unifying theme in Marx and others work. Weber's seemingly disparate empirical studies converge on one underlying aim: to characterise and explain the development of the 'specific’ and peculiar rationalism that distinguishes modern Western civilization from every other.
His methodological investigations emphasize the universal capacity of men to act rationally and with consequent power of social science to understand as well as to explain action.
Weber's sociology of religion contains an account of the emergence and development of modern Western culture. This account reads the history of the West in terms of two interconnected processes: the rise and spread of Occidental (instrumental) rationalism (the process of rationalization) and the accompanying disenchantment (Entzauberung) of religious superstition and myth.”
Rationalisation Theory
Arguably, the notion of rationalisation underlies all of Weber's sociology. In general terms this refers to a tendency to apply a rational approach to more and more areas of social life. This is in distinction to, say, traditional approaches.
A rational approach is systematic, scientific, logical, and calculable. etc. Weber feels that this approach had become more developed in Western society, over the last 500 years or so, than in any previous period in human history.
The work of Max Weber is almost unquestionably one of the outstanding contributions to the ‘science’ of sociology. Weber's sociology, with its philosophical justification, proved more satisfactory as a rationale for capitalism than conventional theories
A lasting merit of Max Weber is that he was the first to demonstrate the premise of socio-economic dynamics, the basis of an analysis of the nature and development of capitalism. He was quite open about the undeniable fact that it was the ruling class, which always gained most from successful imperialism.
“Thanks to this realism he could free himself from traditions, which for thousands of years have presented the war to man as a rational order informed by absolute values. What he developed in its place was an ideology of bitter disillusionment, of which he was acutely conscious, sustained not unfittingly by an heroic faith, whose greatness and force have won admiration even from those who totally reject his philosophy.”
Rationalisation and Disenchantment
Gane concludes on this Webarian concept. “Processes of rationalization and disenchantment engender a shift from a social order founded upon value-rational beliefs and governed through charismatic and traditional forms of authority, to an order ruled by the force of instrumental reason and dominated by new forms of institutional bureaucracy. This movement results in the depersonalization of the social world: instrumental calculation steadily suppresses the passionate pursuit of ultimate values, and bureaucracy reduces the scope for individual initiative and personal fulfillment The rationalization of the world can on these grounds be seen as engendering a General movement towards nihilism, in which ultimate values ale devalued, or, as demonstrated by the developmental transition to a universal religion and beyond to the 'death of God', devalue themselves, and in the process become subordinated to a means-ends rationality based on questions of technique and calculation. This shift towards instrumental reason and its institutional embodiment, bureaucracy, may, in these terms, be seen as a tragic development, for while it renders social relations more predictable it does so by restricting the basis for creative and meaningful value-rational social action. 'Human' one, for the rise of instrumental reason, which underlies the modern drive for 'rational' order, is not only tied to the devaluation or disenchantment of the highest and most sublime values and ideals, but places important limits on the scope for individual autonomy and freedom in the modern world.
The work of Max Weber was unquestionably one of the most outstanding contributions to the making of sociology. Rich, complex, many-sided. The work of the great theorists it cannot possibly be satisfactorily characterised in any simple, summary statement. Even so, his achievement can be said to be distinctive in this chiefly: that it clarified, beyond any doubt, those features and problems which crucially distinguished the subject- matter of the new science of society from the subject-matter of all the other sciences, and successfully constructed a clear methodology whereby it could be studied rigorously and reliably in accordance with the testable procedures of science. In this achievement, Weber successfully dealt with what is still taken, by some, to be an insuperable obstacle in the way of applying the methods of science to the study of man and society: namely, that men are not just 'phenomenal objects' like rocks and trees, and even animals, about which 'laws of regularity' can be established, but are thinking, feeling, calculating, purposive beings. Weber agreed with this 'objection'. He agreed that no causal explanation of human social configurations could possibly be sufficient unless .in addition to the study of all their relevant 'Phenomenal' and 'quantitative' attributes there was an accurate understanding of the social acts of men in terms of meaning. But far from regarding this as an insuperable obstacle Weber states that it is the firm and indispensable premis upon which he then built a satisfactory method for social science. For Max Weber sociology was a science. What sociologists share with other scientists in Weber's view was a 'rational method': the acceptance that in whatever sphere of inquiry one was engaged, the only explanations which could be treated as 'valid' were those which were embedded in a structure of logical thinking. The approach to the study of causality in scientific inquiry necessarily demanded the precise formulation of concepts, a preoccupation with the rules of evidence and logical terms of inference. 'All sctentifc work presupposes that the rules of logic and method are valid. The virtue of this strategy had been argued at some length in his essay 'Objectivity, The Rationalisation Theme in Weber's Sociology. No commentator could dispute the imponance of the rationalisation theme in Weber's sociology.”
Postmodernism
Nicholas Gane states that “The term 'postmodern', by its very nature, defies simple defnition. The term, read literally as the union of 'post' and 'modern', would seem to signify an order, ethos or movement which is beyond, against or after that of modern. Such on approach, though, should be treated with caution, for any idea of the postmodern as subsequent to, or later than the modern is itself modern rather than post-modern in nature. It places the postmodern within a modern order of linear time, and thereby ties it to an underlying theme or meta-narrative of historical progress or evolution.
The question which is of the grounds on which it is possible to read between this strand of postmodern thought and the work of Max Weber. For not only do Lyotard, Foucault and Baudrillard make reference to his work only rarely, but Weber, as theorist of grand narratives such as intellectualisation and rationalisation, would appear to be a possible target rather than a source of post-rnodern critique.”
Martin Albrow concludes “My own view is that it is because the roots of Weber's work have been concealed. Its inner logic has not been apparent because the historical origins of his central concem for rationality in the Protestant experience have ceased to be accesslble to modern theorists. He therefore appears to the student today as the archetypal post-modern writer.”
Max Weber has been describe as not merely the greatest of sociologists but 'the sociologist’ (Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, (London, I967) Selections in Translation)
I believe the foregoing clearly demonstrates the massive contribution Max Weber has had, and still is having, on the development of sociological thinking.
Bibliography
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Elwell, Frank, 1996 (The Sociology of Max Weber)
(Max Weber, Essays in Sociology)
Sahay, A, ( Max Weber and Modern Sociology)
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Albrow, M. (Max Weber’s Construction of Social Theory)
Gane, N. (Max Weber and Postmodern Theory Rationalisation versus Disenchantment)
Aron, R. (Selections in Translation)
Lewis, J, (Max Weber & Value-Free Sociology)
Weber, Max. (The Protestant Work Ethic)
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