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In his own words:
On sociology:"Sociology . . . is a science concerning itself with
the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby
with a causal explanation of its course and consequences.
We shall speak of 'action' insofar as the acting individual
attaches a subjective meaning to his behavior--be it overt
or covert, omission or acquiescence. Action is
'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of
the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its
course" (1921/1968,
p.4).
"Within the realm of social
conduct one finds factual regularities, that is, courses of
action which, with a typically identical meaning, are
repeated by the actors or simultaneously occur among
numerous actors. It is with such types of conduct that
sociology is concerned, in contrast to history, which is
interested in the causal connections of important, i.e.,
fateful, single events (1921/1968).
"An ideal type is formed by the
one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by
the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or
less present and occasionally absent concrete individual
phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly
emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct. .
. . In its conceptual purity, this mental construct . . .
cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality" (1903-1917/1949,
p. 90).
On materialism and ideationalism:"We have no intention whatever of maintaining such a
foolish and doctrinaire thesis as that the spirit of
capitalism . . . could only have arisen as the result of
certain effects of the Reformation, or even that capitalism
as an economic system is a creation of the Reformation. . .
. On the contrary, we only wish to ascertain whether and to
what extent religious forces have taken part in the
qualitative formation and the quantitative expansion of that
spirit over the world" (1904/1930,
p. 91).
"In view of the tremendous
confusion of interdependent influences between the material
basis, the forms of social and political organization, and
the ideas current in the time of the Reformation, we can
only proceed by investigating whether and at what points
certain correlations between forms of religious belief and
practical ethics can be worked out" (1904/1930,
p. 91).
"Not ideas, but material and ideal
interests, directly govern men's conduct. Yet very
frequently the 'world images' that have been created by
'ideas' have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along
which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest"
(1946/1958,
p. 280).
On 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"
(1904/1930,
p. 60).
[For the Calvinist] "The world
exists to serve the glorification of God and for that
purpose alone. The elected Christian is in the world only to
increase this glory of god by fulfilling His commandments to
the best of his ability. But God requires social
achievement of the Christian because He will that social
life shall be organized according to His commandments, in
accordance with that purpose" (1904/1930,
p. 108).
"Waste of time is thus the first
and in principle the deadliest of sins. The span of
human life is infinitely short and precious to make sure of
one's own election. Loss of time through sociability,
idle talk, luxury, even more sleep than is necessary for
health. . . .is worthy of absolute moral condemnation. . .
.[Time] is infinitely valuable because every hour lost is
lost to labour for the glory of God. Thus inactive
contemplation is also valueless, or even directly
reprehensible if it is at the expense of one's daily work.
For it is less pleasing to God than the active performance
of His will in a calling" (1904/1930,
pp. 157-158).
"The religious valuation of
restless, continuous, systematic work in a worldly calling,
as the highest means of asceticism, and at the same time the
surest and most evident proof of rebirth and genuine faith,
must have been the most powerful conceivable lever for the
expansion of . . . the spirit of capitalism" (1946/1958:
172).
"Capitalism is today an immense
cosmos into which the individual is born, and which presents
itself to him, at least as an individual, in so far as he is
involved in the system of market relationships, to conform
to capitalist rules of action" (1904/1930,
p. 54).
On rationalization:"The great historic process in the development of
religions, the elimination of magic from the world which had
begun with the old Hebrew prophets and, in conjunction with
Hellenistic scientific thought, had repudiated all magical
means to salvation as superstition and sin, came here to its
logical conclusion. The genuine Puritan even rejected all
signs of religious ceremony at the grave and buried his
nearest and dearest without song or ritual in order that no
superstition, no trust in the effects of magical and
sacramental forces on salvation, should creep in" (1904/1930,
p. 105).
"This whole process of
rationalization in the factory and elsewhere, and especially
in the bureaucratic state machine, parallels the
centralization of the material implements of organization in
the hands of the master. Thus, discipline inexorably
takes over ever larger areas as the satisfaction of
political and economic needs is increasingly rationalized.
This universal phenomenon more and more restricts the
importance of charisma and of individually differentiated
conduct" (1921/1968,
p. 1156).
On bureaucracy:"From a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy
is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency,
and is in this sense formally the most rational known means
of exercising authority over human beings. It is
superior to any other form in precision, in stability, in
the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability.
It thus makes possible a particularly high degree of
calculability of results for the heads of the organization
and for those acting in relation to it. It is finally
superior both in intensive efficiency and in the scope of
its operations and is formally capable of application to all
kinds of administrative tasks (1921/1968,
p. 223).
"The principles of office
hierarchy and of levels of graded authority mean a firmly
ordered system of supe- and subordination in which there is
a supervision of the lower offices by the higher ones" (1946/1958,
p. 197)
"No machinery in the world
functions so precisely as this apparatus of men and,
moreover, so cheaply. . .. Rational calculation . . .
reduces every worker to a cog in this bureaucratic machine
and, seeing himself in this light, he will merely ask how to
transform himself into a somewhat bigger cog. . . . The
passion for bureaucratization drives us to despair" (1921/1968:
liii).
"The needs of mass administration
make it today completely indispensable. The choice is
only between bureaucracy and dilettantism in the field of
administration" (1921/1968,
p. 224).
"When those subject to
bureaucratic control seek to escape the influence of
existing bureaucratic apparatus, this is normally possible
only by creating an organization of their own which is
equally subject to the process of bureaucratization" (1921/1968,
p. 224).
[Socialism] "would mean a
tremendous increase in the importance of professional
bureaucrats" (1921/1968,
p. 224).
"Not summer's bloom lies ahead of
us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness and hardness,
no matter which group may triumph externally now" (1946/1958,
p. 128).
"To this extent increasing
bureaucratization is a function of the increasing possession
of goods used for consumption, and of an increasingly
sophisticated technique for fashioning external life--a
technique which corresponds to the opportunities provided by
such wealth" (1946/1958,
p. 212).
"It is horrible to think that the
world could one day be filled with nothing but those little
cogs, little men clinging to little jobs and striving toward
bigger ones--a state of affairs which is to be seen once
more, as in the Egyptian records, playing an ever increasing
part in the spirit of our present administrative systems,
and especially of its offspring, the students. This passion
for bureaucracy ...is enough to drive one to despair. It is
as if in politics. . . we were to deliberately to become men
who need "order" and nothing but order, become nervous and
cowardly if for one moment this order wavers, and helpless
if they are torn away from their total incorporation in it.
That the world should know no men but these: it is in such
an evolution that we are already caught up, and the great
question is, therefore, not how we can promote and hasten
it, but what can we oppose to this machinery in order to
keep a portion of mankind free from this parceling-out of
the soul, from this supreme mastery of the bureaucratic way
of life."
"The state is a human community
that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate
use of force within a given territory"(1946/1958,
p. 78).
"When fully developed, bureaucracy
stands . . . under the principle of sine ira ac studio
(without scorn and bias). Its specific nature which is
welcomed by capitalism develops the more perfectly the more
bureaucracy is 'dehumanized,' the more completely it
succeeds in eliminating from offcial business love, hatred,
and all purely personal, irrational and emotional elements
which escape calculation. This is the specific nature
of bureaucracy and it is appraised as its special virtue" (1946/1958,
pp. 215-16).
"The decisive reason for the
advance of bureaucratic organization has always been its
purely technical superiortiy over any other kind of
organization. The fully developed bureaucratic
mechanism compares with other organizations exactly as does
the machine with the nonmechanical modes of organization" (1946/1958,
p. 214).
"Precision, speed, unambiguity,
knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity,
strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material
and personal costs--these are raised tothe optimum point in
the strictly bureaucratic organization" (1946/1958,
p. 214).
"The appartus (bureaucracy), with
its peculiar impersonal character. . . is easily made to
work for anybody who knows how to gain control over it.
A rationally ordered system of officials continues to
function smoothly after the enemy has occupied the area: he
merely needs to change the top officials" (1946/1958,
p. 229)
On social evolution:"It is apparent that today we are proceeding towards
an evolution which resembles (the ancient kingdom of Egypt)
in every detail, except that it is built on other
foundations, on technically more perfect, more rationalized,
and therefore much more mechanized foundations. The
problem which besets us now is not: how can this
evolution be changed?--for that is impossible, but: what
will come of it."
"Since asceticism undertook to
remodel the world and to work out its ideals in the world,
material goods have gained an increasing and finally an
inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous
period in history. Today the spirit of religious
asceticism--whether finally, who knows?--has escaped from
the cage. But victorious capitalism, since it rests on
mechanical foundations, needs its support no longer. The
rosy blush of its laughing heir, the Enlightenment, also
seems to be irretrievably fading, and the idea of duty in
one's calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of
dead religious beliefs (1904/1930,
pp.181-182).
"In the field of its highest
development, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth,
stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to
become associated with purely mundane passions, which often
actually give it the character of sport (1904/1930,
p. 182).
"No one knows who will live in
this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this
tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or
there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals or, if
neither, mechanized petrification embellished with a sort of
convulsive self-importance. For of the last stage of this
cultural development, it might well be truly said:
'Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this
nullity imagines that it has obtained a level of
civilization never before achieved'" (1904/1930,
p. 182).
Politics is a strong and slow
boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and
perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms
the truth--that man would not have attained the possible
unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible
(1946/1958,
p. 128).
Referencing this Site
Verstehen:
Max Weber's HomePage is copyrighted by Frank W. Elwell.
Should you wish to quote from this material the format
should be as follows:
Elwell,
Frank, 1996, The Sociology of Max Weber, Retrieved
June 1, 1999 (use actual date),
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Weber/Whome.htm
About this
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I originally authored this web
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T. Robert Malthus,
Karl Marx,
Emile Durkheim,
C. Wright Mills,
Robert K. Merton,
Harry Braverman,
Marvin Harris,
Gerhard Lenski, and
Immanuel Wallerstein.
--Frank W. Elwell (September 22,
2000)
Links by Weber:
Definition of Sociology
Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism
Max Weber Studies
Max Weber on Bureaucracy
Max Weber on The Spirit of Capitalism
Links About Weber:
The Coser Essay
Max
Weber's View of Objectivity in Social Science
Marianne Weber
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