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MAX WEBER
Training Handout
Max Weber, one of the three main "fathers of sociology," contributed to our
understanding of the sociological perspective, to the nature of social
change, and to social inequality.
Max Weber (1864-1920) helped us to understand the nature of society.
He disagreed with the
approach of Marx, but in different ways than Durkheim did.
Rather than deny the importance of
material factors, as with Marx, and rather than deny the notion of social
facts external to individuals, as with Durkheim, he added that we should
look at ideas, especially the meanings we put onto things, and the role
of changes of ideas that contribute to society and to social
changes.
In his interest in the meanings people
put to things, Weber used the German word, "verstehen," to discuss
our deeper understanding of those meanings.
Since culture is based on symbols,
and symbols must have meanings in order to be symbols, then our understanding
of them is an essential element of understanding society.
In English, in sociology, today we
continue to use his word, "verstehen," to analyse this important
element of culture and society.
To oppose the approach of Marx in
the understanding of the industrial revolution, Weber suggested that first
came a radical change of ideas.
This was manifested in the Protestant
Reformation, and the preaching of protestant leaders, especially John Calvin,
in opposition to the prevailing thoughts and practices of the Catholic
church at the time.
Among the various values advocated
by the protestants, were ideas of self sufficiency, frugality and independent
relations with God instead of through a priest.
Frugality was an essential attitude
needed to encourage saving and investment, an important element of capitalism
and the industrial revolution.
They said, furthermore, that they
did not need a large, corrupt and decadent organisation to tell them how
to think, and that independence of thinking contributed to people starting
their own businesses, and contributing to the growth of the capital owning
class.
The Protestant Reformation, according
to Weber, was the main cause of the Industrial Revolution and the rise
of Capitalism, a very different approach from that of Marx.
A third contribution
of Weber was about the social nature of inequality.
Marx had emphasised relations to production.
Without denying the importance of
wealth, Weber added prestige, the value judgements people make about each
other, and which contribute to their social class.
Again, Weber’s main concern was with ideas.
Karl Marx saw class as related to
the means of production. He saw a shift from
a feudal society based on agriculture, where the land owning class was
differentiated from the peasant class, through the industrial revolution,
which saw the capital owning class, factory owners, differentiated from
the factory workers, paid labour.
Other persons, such as scribes, information
dealers, intelligencia and civil servants, did not contribute to production
in the economy, were therefore useless (non productive), and did not constitute
classes.
Max Weber, writing a half century
later, in contrast, saw class based upon three factors, power, wealth and
prestige.
In today's sociology, we tend to
see the same three factors, although Marxist sociologists still emphasise
the relations to the means of production, including now the production
of ideas and information.
Weber saw society as having several
layers, not only two, and that factors other than the material
were important.
Between the three of them, Marx,
Durkheim and Weber, we now see social inequality as having three major
elements, wealth, power and prestige.
Labour conflicts now tend to be between
workers and the managers, the latter being paid to take the side of owners,
who are now mainly the holders of stocks and bonds.
Weber’s writings contributed to
the Symbolic Interactionist Perspective, one of the three classical perspectives
in Sociology.
As with the other two classical perspectives,
Weber did not coin the term, nor did he found or describe the perspective
per se; Blumer did.
He contributed much to our thinking,
and those who went on to develop the symbolic interactionist perspective
––
Blumer, Mead, Thomas, Park
––
drew deeply from Weber’s writings.
Weber also contributed
to the sociological observation and analysis of organisations.
Among his many works, he studied
the nature of bureaucracies to investigate the reasons why they held so
much power.
He looked at how bureaucracies grew
and become stronger along with the industrial revolution.
He identified five elements of bureaucracies
which gave them strength. hierarchy of authority; division of labour; written
rules; written communications; and impersonality.
Two of these are problematical
if we ask can they be used to strengthen communities.
A "hierarchy of authority," especially
if it is rigid, harsh and dictatorial, and "impersonality," especially
if it alienates community members, are both elements which reduce the gemeinschaft
of a community, thus reducing the essential characteristic of
that community.
Weber wrote in response to Marx,
with the intention of contradicting or reducing the materialist
approach.
He saw that the major change was
the rise of Protestantism, with values and beliefs which contributed to
the industrial revolution.
He argued that the new values of
Protestantism, frugality, independent thinking and self reliance, were
values and attitudes necessary to the creation and growth of capitalist
thinking and for actions necessary for the industrial revolution.
From our vantage point a century
later, we can see that these different approaches were not necessarily
mutually exclusive, but could be complementary explanations.
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