Max Weber’s Key Contributions

to Sociology
simplypsychology.org/max-weber-german-sociologist.html

Charlotte Nickerson February 13, 2024

Key Takeaways

Max Weber (1864-1920) made contributions to and reinvented many fields in the
late 19th to early 20th century, ranging from sociology, to economics, law, religion,
and business.
One of Weber’s most famous works, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism, argues that, while culture of Protestantism was a primary reason why
capitalism developed in Europe before other parts of the world, the values of
capitalism itself had overtaken its protestant roots.
Weber also studied power through the lens of the historical development of cities.
His theory of power extended to his Marx-influenced explanation of social
stratification which defined social standing in terms of economic class, status, and
power. Someone can have any combination of these.
Weber originated social action theory, which differentiates four drives that cause
human behavior.

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Biography
Max Weber (pronounced “Vay-bur”) is widely considered to be one of the founders of
sociology . Weber contributed broadly to sociology, as well as impacting significant
reorientations to the fields of law, economics, political science, and religious studies.

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Weber”s writings helped to establish social science as a distinctive field of inquiry.

Additionally, Weber created the “Rationalization thesis,” which was a grand analysis of the
dominance of the west in modern times as well as an explanation for the development of
modern capitalism called the “protestant ethic thesis.”

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Max Weber was born in 19th-century Prussia to a notable family. Weber trained in law at
universities in Heidelberg and Berlin, eventually writing works on Roman law and agrarian
history under August Meitzen, a prominent political economist.

After studying legal practice and public service, Weber conducted a study on the
displacement of German agrarian workers in East Prussia by Police migrant laborers, the
notoriety of which led to a professorship in political economy at Heidelberg University in
1896 (Weber, 2017).

After the death of his father in 1897, Weber retreated from academic life and shifted his
studies to miscellaneous, publishing The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Eventually, Weber re-emerged, creating major methodological essays relating to the

comparative sociology of world religions and economics. These would cement Weber”s
reputation as one of the founders of modern social science.

Shortly after he resumed his prolific yet sporadic career, Weber died suddenly of the
Spanish flu at the age of 56.

Theories

Social Stratification

Max Weber created his own theory of social stratification, defining social differences
through three components: class, status, and power. Here, class is a person’s economic
position based on both birth and individual achievement.

Status is one’s social prestige or honor either influenced or not influenced by class; and,
lastly, power is the ability for someone to achieve their goals despite the resistance of
others.

Although Weber was influenced strongly by Marx’s ideas in his theory of social
stratification, he rejected that communism was a possible outcome, arguing that such a
system would require an even greater level of negative social control and
bureaucratization than capitalism (Brennan, 2020).

Weber responded to Marx’s theory of the proletariat by outlining more class divisions.
Weber claimed that there are four main classes: the upper class, white-collar workers,
petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class. These effectively parallel the class
structures used by many sociologists.

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Weber treated the three sources of socioeconomic status: class, status, and power, as
separate but interconnected sources of power, each effectinng social action differently.
This view differed from that of Marx, who saw class as the definitive factor in stratification.

For example, while Marx considers both the managers of corporations, who control firms
they do not own; and low-level workers to be members of the proletariat, Weber
differentiates these groups in terms of their economic position.

According to Weber, people could have varying degrees of class, status, and power. For
example, a wealthy immigrant family composed of software engineers may have high
economic class, but little power or status. Similarly, a religious saint may yield high status
and exert immense influence on society, but have little in the way of economic worth
(Brennan, 2020).

Book Synopsis: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber & Kalberg, 1904) have
had a long-lasting impact on the field of economic history, showing that religion is a major
force for social change.

In this work, Weber argued that the ethics of ascetic Protestantism were foundational to
the genesis of modern capitalism. Weber observed that many protestants are involved in
business.

He argued that capitalism sees profit as an end in itself, and the pursuit of it as virtualism.
He intended to find out how exactly this connection between profit and virtue emerged.

Protestantism, Weber observed, gives the activities that people conduct in the real world
a religious character. Calvinism in particular believed in predestination, that God had
predetermined who was to be saved and damned.

As a result, Calvinists developed a psychological need to find out whether or not they
were saved. Profit and material success came to be seen as signs that God had
predestined the person experiencing them to be saved. Weber noted that other protestant
groups, such as Pietists, Methodists, and Baptists, shared similar attitudes (Weber &
Kalberg, 2013).

The Protestant Ethic also established capitalism as a uniquely Western phenomenon,

which Weber argued through undertaking several major studies into the sociology of
religions in Asia in particular.

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Although this protestant ethic created an environment where profit was seen as virtuous,
Weber contended, capitalism became a belief system in itself, with people becoming
locked into its spirit because of its usefulness for modern economic activity.

Weber believed that the impulse to acquire wealth ultimately had little to do with
capitalism itself. Instead, The Protestant Ethic, where people led ascetic lifestyles, worked
long hours for the glory of God, viewed idleness as a sin, and saved and invested
mooney, led to the spirit of capitalism. Which requires capital for investment, requires a
hard-working workforce, and values productivity (Thompson, 2018).

Social Action Theory

Weber sought to highlight how behavior in the social sphere is related to individuals'”
sense of cause and effect, or their instrumental rationality. In essence, Weber believed
that human beings adapt their actions according to social contexts and how these actions
affect the behavior of others.

Verstehen

There are three main points to social action theory. Firstly, Weber argued that a sense of
empathetic understanding, or “Verstehen,” is crucial to understand human action and
social change.

The essence of verstehen is that to understand the cause of action, someone has to
understand the meaning attached to it by the individual (Weber, 1936).

Weber distinguished between two types of Verstehen: the verstehen that resulted from
direct observation, and that sociologists can apply when trying to understand the motives
that give rise to a particular action.

He called these Aktuelles and erklärendes verstehen, respectively. Someone who

observes someone”s emotional state from their body language or facial expression would
be employing aktuelles verstehen, while someone using eklarendes, or empathetic
understanding would examine why someone is doing an action in the first place.

Weber argued that the best way to achieve empathetic understanding is by taking the
place of the person doing the activity (Weber, 1936).

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Four Types of Social Action

Weber believed that sociologists can generalize the motivations for human action into four
basic categories. These are custom, affective social action, rational social action with
values, and rational-instrumental social action.

Traditional social actions, or customs, are expected rituals performed in particular

situations. These have two further subcategories: customs and habits. Both are familiar
practices that are normally doone and popularized within a culture.

While customs are passed from generation to generation, habits tend to be learned in
increments, becoming normalized to the point that they may even be attached to
someone”s personality (Weber, 1936).

Affective social action, otherwise known as emotional action, is the second motivation for
human action that Weber proposes. Emotional actions take place when someone acts
impulsively, acting without thinking about the consequences.

These can be either uncontrolled — when someone takes account of their own feelings
over those of others — or the result of emotional tension — the frustration that a person
may have when not fulfilling their goals, and the reactions to dissatisfaction that result.

Weber”s other two social actions are rational. People, according to Weber, can either
carry out rational social actions because of their values — like the dictates of their religion
— or in order to achieve a specific goal. These social actions are called value-based and
rational-instrumental social actions, respectively (Weber, 1936).

The final point of Weber’s theory of Rational action argues that the structure of societies
shapes human action because certain societies and groups encourage certain types of
motivation.

Weber acknowledges, however, that there can still exist a lot of variation within these
groups.

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The City

Max Weber also made significant strides in the study of urban culture. In his notable work,
The City (1921), Weber examined the role of the city as the carrier of the modern
capitalist economy and as a precursor to the modern state. In this work, Max Weber
argued that the city served as a historical precedent and basis to modern systems of
political and economic power.

To do this, Weber provides a history of the city, beginning with the typical medieval
occidental city. Weber analyzes the types of urban ownership that existed in these cities,
peoples” legal status, and the relationships between different social urban groups.

Weber then focuses on the features and distribution of political power in different
historical cases, before considering the struggle between different groups for power in the
city, and how these power struggles are essentially similar throughout different periods of
history.

Finally, in the last chapter, Weber extrapolated this historical analysis to an explanation of
how modern political systems work (Weber, 1921).

Bureaucratic Theory

One widely-used Weberian theory today is Bureaucratic theory. Weber both coined and
defined the term bureaucracy, and detailed ways that bureaucratic management can be
used to treat all members of an organization equally with a clearly-defined division of
labor (Sager & Rosser, 2009).

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Bureaucracy, as defined by Weber, is an organizational structure characterized by many
rules, standardized processes, procedures, and requirements, as well as a clear and
meticulous division of labor, clear hierarchies and professional and almost impersonal
interactions between employees.

These bureaucracies have six major components: task specialization, formal selection,
impersonality, hierarchy, rules, and career orientation. Each of these features are
functional. The division of labor allows workers to have a clear idea of what exactly they
do and what expertise and skills they will employ. Formal selection, or hiring and placing
employees on the basis of their specialties and technical skills further clarifies the division
of labor.

Impersonal relationships, meanwhile, eliminate nepotism, politics, and outsider

involvement and emphasizes rational over emotional social actions in decision-making.

Hierarchy creates a clear picture of class within an organization; rules and regulations
coordinate employee performance and efforts, and career orientation allows
bureaucracies to select candidates primarily based on their competencies, ensuring that
people wind up in the jobs most suitable to them (Sager & Rosser, 2009).

Conflict Theory

Max Weber’s theories in sociology can be categorized under conflict theory, though his
perspective on conflict is more multifaceted than Karl Marx’s. While Marx primarily
focused on economic class struggle as the main source of societal conflict, Weber
broadened the concept to include other sources of stratification and conflict.

Weber identified three intertwined sources of conflict:

1. Class: Similar to Marx, Weber recognized economic factors as sources of conflict.

However, his understanding of class was more gradient-based, seeing it as a
continuum rather than a strict dichotomy between proletariat and bourgeoisie.
2. Status (or Stand in German): Weber introduced the idea of “status groups,” which
are groups formed around cultural and social factors like honor, prestige, religion,
and race. These status groups can have their own sources of conflict separate from
purely economic struggles.
3. Party: Weber recognized the political dimension as another arena for conflict.
“Parties” in Weber’s theory are groups organized to influence various societal
institutions, including politics.

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For Weber, conflicts arise from the interplay of these three dimensions, making societal
conflicts more complex than just a product of economic class struggle. While Weber’s
theories fall under the umbrella of conflict theory in sociology, his approach offers a
nuanced understanding of the sources and arenas of societal conflict.

Critical Evaluation
Max Weber’s ideas have been incredibly influential in modern sociology. As a result, his
works have received substantial amounts of criticism and evaluation.

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Critics have examined Weber”s claim that bureaucratic organizations are based on
rational and legal authority. Parsons (1947) and Gouldner (1954), for example, noted that,
while Weber says that authority rests both on the “legal incumbency of office” and
“technical competence,” superiors often in practice do not have more knowledge and
skills than the people they manage.

Other studies, such as Udy (1959) found that there is no correlation between the level of
bureaucracy in an organization and its rational attributes.

Weber”s social action theory — in particular, his typology of social action — has received
severe criticism. Talcott Parsons (1947), for example, considered the actions of people to
be involuntary, directed by the meanings attached by actors to things and people.

Others, such as P.S. Cohen, have considered Weber’s typology of social action to be
confusing due to his emphasis on the subjective meaning of the actor — something which
cannot truly be experienced.

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References
Baehr, P. (2001). The “iron cage” and the “shell as hard as steel”: Parsons, Weber, and
the Stahlhartes Gehäuse metaphor in the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.
History and Theory, 40 (2), 153-169.

Gerth, H. H., & Mills, C. W. (2014). From Max Weber: essays in sociology. Routledge.

Gouldner, A. W. (1954). Patterns of industrial bureaucracy.

Parsons, T. (1947). Certain primary sources and patterns of aggression in the social
structure of the Western world. Psychiatry, 10 (2), 167-181.

Sager, F., & Rosser, C. (2009). Weber, Wilson, and Hegel: Theories of modern
bureaucracy. Public Administration Review, 69 (6), 1136-1147.

Swedberg, R., (1998). Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press.

Thompson, K. (2018) Max Weber: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Revise
Sociology.

Udy Jr, S. H. (1959). ” Bureaucracy” and” rationality” in Weber”s organization theory: An

empirical study. American Sociological Review, 791-795.

Weber, M. (1905). Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Berlin.

Weber, M. (1921). The City.

Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York, NY:
Charles Scribner”s Sons
(reprint 1958).

Weber, M. (1936). Social actions.

Weber, M., (1964), The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, edited and with an
introduction by Parsons, Talcott, New York: The Free Press.

Weber, M., (1976), [1930]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London:
Allen and Unwin, introduction by Anthony Giddens.

Weber, M., & Kalberg, S. (2013). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.
Routledge.

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Weber, M. (2019). Economy and society: A new translation. Harvard University Press.
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