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(1864-1920)

How to pronounce his name (vay bur) (ve ba)

His family

His health

In 1893 married Marianne Schnitger

(1870-1954)

Her life and interests

(Sociology mystery story: Weber and Durkheim)

NO GRAND THEORY

POINT: Much of Weber is a dialogue with the ghost of Karl Marx

Weber’s Definition of Sociology:

“Sociology is the science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.”

What is Social Action?

“Action is social in so far as, by virtue of the subjective

meaning attached to it by the acting individual or individuals, it takes into account the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course.”

There are Four Types of Social Action

1. Rationally Purposive Action

means and ends are chosen in a logical, rational manner – becoming more common

2. Value-Rational Action

use rational means but end is determined by values

3. Affective Action

emotional; goals and ends are determined by the feelings of the actor

4. Traditional Action

goals and means chosen by tradition, through the habits of long practice

SAW AS MAIN TREND – GREATER RATIONALIZATION

Weber’s Research Methods

A. His article “Science As a Vocation”

$ Discusses academic world in United States and Germany

$ We must specialize to make a contribution

$ Research findings can go out of date

$ Science can’t answer every question

$ Science must be ‘value free’

$ “Whenever we introduce our personal value judgments a full understanding of the facts ceases.”

$ Difference between a ‘lecture’ and a ‘speech’

$ Professors should emphasize inconvenient facts to students

B. Ideal Type Method – one-sided exaggeration of a phenomenon or concept, not found in reality, but used as a standard of comparison enables us to see parts of the world

C. Verstehen Approach – (back to his definition of sociology) to understand, understand another person’s experience from that person’s viewpoint, what goes on in someone else’s life from their perspective

D. Multiple Causation – one event has not one cause but many causes

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Three elements, not one as Marx insisted

1. CLASS – “In our terminology, classes are not communities....We may speak of a ‘class’ when (1) a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life chances, in so far as (2) this component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income.”

Classes are stratified according to the production and acquisition of goods.

2. STATUS – “In contrast to classes, status groups are normally communities....In contrast to the purely economically determined ‘class situation,’ we wish to designate as ‘status situation’ every typical component of the life fate of men that is determined by a specific, positive or negative, social estimate of honor.”

People in the same status group have a specific style of life.

3. PARTY – means power – Power defined: “the probability that one actor in a social relationship will be in a position to realize his own will despite resistence.”

“Parties live in a house of power....Their action is oriented toward the acquisition of social power...toward influencing...action no matter what its content may be....For party actions are always directed toward a goal which is striven for in a planned manner. This goal may be a ‘cause’...or the goal may be personal (...honor for the leader).”

“Power may be valued for its own sake.”

“People with power want to keep it. People without power want to seek it.”

CONFLICT: “A social relationship will be referred to as ‘conflict’ in so far as action...is...oriented intentionally to carrying out the actor’s own will against the resistance of the other party of parties. The term ‘peaceful’ conflict will be applied to all cases in which actual physical violence is not employed.”

IN SUMMARY:

1. Class – economics, money

2. Status – prestige, honor – similar life styles

3. Party – power

Power two kinds:

1. Coercion – not legitimate

2. Authority – legitimate

THREE TYPES OF AUTHORITY

1. RATIONAL – LEGAL AUTHORITY – based on rules that are rationally established

2. TRADITIONAL – based on habit and everyday routine

3. CHARISMATIC – based on the extraordinary quality of a person; we submit because of our belief in the extraordinary quality of the specific person.

Rational-Legal becoming more common.

BUREAUCRACY

A method of organization designed to create efficiency and effectiveness when coordinating activities of many people to reach a goal.

Develops only in advanced societies

CHARACTERISTICS (Ideal Type):

1. Hierarchy of authority – levels of authority in a system where higher offices supervise lower ones

2. Based on specific written rules and regulations

3. Holding office is a career – people paid a salary, often a pension

4. Record keeping

5. Qualifications needed to obtain a position

6. Duties and responsibilities in a position not a person

7. Impersonality and personal indifference

“Once it is fully established, bureaucracy is among those social structures which are the hardest to destroy.”

THE PROTESTANT ETHIC

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905

Weber’s most famous book, and most readable book

An attack on theory of Karl Marx

Weber’s book is a study of the relationship between the ideas of the Protestants and the emergence of beliefs and practices which helped develop capitalism.

In the 1500s in Europe, all Christians were Roman Catholic. Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk. He began the Protestant reformation.

Afterward Christians were Roman Catholics or Protestants.

He opposed certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church:

$ Sale of Indulgences – pay money and sins forgiven

$ Bible only authority, not Clergy or Pope

$ Salvation by faith alone

Ideas of these Protestants, according to Weber, helped to create a climate for Capitalism.

Martin Luther’s idea of the ‘calling.’ The calling was your task set by God, that fulfillment of duty and work is the highest form of moral activity. Importance of work.

John Calvin, another early Protestant, notion of predestination.

$ God determined who will be saved and who would be damned

$ Fixed at birth – couldn’t be changed

$ But you didn’t know your fate

As Calvinism developed, people needed clues about whether they were among the chosen few to go to heaven. They looked for material success as a sign of God’s favor. If you were successful, wealthy, doesn’t that look like God is smiling on you?

Therefore:

$ Luther – Work is important, your calling

$ Calvin – Material success is important

Weber insists these ideas of Luther and Calvin helped create a climate where capitalism flourished.

However: The Protestant Ethic Work Ethic

People wanted to work hard and become a success

$ values of hard work

$ becoming successful

$ have become part of society regardless of one’s religion

PROOF: Capitalism first developed in Netherlands (Protestant) England (Protestant), the northern Protestant part of Germany, the United States (early capitalists (Carnegie (steel), Frick (steel), Astor (real estate), Rockefeller (oil) Vanderbilt (railroad) all Protestant

WEBER: Key Ideas

‘Much of Weber is a dialogue with the ghost of Karl Marx’

1. Weber’s definition of Sociology: social action

2. Four Types of Social Action

3. Society becoming more rational

4. Weber’s Methods: article “Science as a Vocation” 5. Value Free Sociology

6. Ideal Type Method

7. Verstehen Approach

8. Multiple Causation

9. Social Stratification: Class, Status, Party

10. Power – Conflict

11. Authority: three types and examples of each

12. Bureaucracy – definition, characteristics, examples

13. Weber’s point that bureaucracies grow and expand

14. Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism