Social Science - Sociology Weber assignment
gracecanigbata
WeberPowerpoint2022withreorderingtomakesense.pptxThe Lecture on Weber
Ghost of Marx
Verstehen, Ideal Types & Value Free
Rationalization
The Spirit of Capitalism
The Iron Cage
Legitimate Domination
Status, Class, Politics
Social Theory
Max Weber (1864-1920)
Ghost of Marx
In the view of some, Weber may have "spent his life having a posthumous dialogue with the ghost of Karl Marx." (Cuff, p. 97). This dialogue concerned (i) economic determinism or the extent to which developments are rooted in the material base, and (ii) the extent to which economic factors alone can be considered at the root of social structure. At the same time, the differences between Weber and Marx should not be overstated. Weber's analysis had similar scope to that of Marx, and he came from a similar historical, German tradition of thought, examining many of the same topics as Marx. Many contemporary sociologists think of Weber as complementing and providing a contemporary augmentation to Marx.
Marx is a giant
Weber a BrilliaNt Scholar-Builds on Marx
Ghost of Marx
Marx understands capitalism, but blinded by his own view of history and his times and he was the first one to really talk about it! Class interests!
Why can’t I get this big head out of my head? Revolution? Class? What is alienation? I am standing on the shoulders of a giant. But, I have my own ideas—have to get his out before I can put mine down.
WEBER on CLASS and STATUS
Weber’s definition of Economic CLASS (differs only marginally from Marx’s) a class is a category of men who
(1) "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, and
(3) it is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor market.
He was even fairly close to Marx's view that certain alienating economic conditions have to be present for the collective working class to act based on class consciousness—but that this sometimes fails to happen.
However, class position and exploitation does not necessarily lead to class-determined economic or political action. (for Marx the reason for not acting is false consciousness. But, when a class becomes conscious of its interests, that is, of its relation, as a class, to other classes it will revolt.)
Weber argues that communal class action will emerge only if and when the "connections between the causes and the consequences of the 'class situation' " become transparent.
But, that is not likely to happen according to Weber. Why?
The low probability of class action/revolt is because as he sees it---there are other dimensions of stratification (rank and place) other than economic.
There is something extra important about the way humans group together and identify with one another--he refers to as ‘status’ ‘honor’ that divides human conceptions of the world.
A status group has commonality (just like classes have commonality). The classification of men into such a group is based more on consumption/lifestyle pattern rather than on their place in the market or in the process of production. Weber's theory of stratification differs from that of Marx in that he introduced an adds this structural category, that of "status group" to our understanding of stratification.
A status group has commonality (just like classes have commonality). The classification of men into such a group is based more on consumption/lifestyle pattern rather than on their place in the market or in the process of production.
Weber thought Marx had overlooked the relevance of such categorization because of his exclusive attention to the productive sphere. In contrast to economic classes, which may or may not be communal groupings, status groups are normally communities, which are held together by notions of proper life-styles and by the social esteem and honor accorded to them by others.
A status group can exist only to the extent that others accord its members’ prestige or degrading, which removes them from the rest of social actors and establishes the necessary social distance between "them" and "us."
There is a high correlation between status and class For example, the economically rich/wealthy typically acquire high status; yet it is possible that propertied and propertyless people may belong to the same status group. And at certain times, an economically weak element/group, may exercise considerable influence and power because of its ideas and emerging status.
In Weber's view every society is divided into groupings and strata with distinctive life-styles and views of the world, just as it is divided into distinctive classes. While at times status as well as class groupings may conflict, at others they may converge.
With this twofold classification (economic class and social status) of social stratification (social class), Weber lays the groundwork for an understanding of pluralistic forms of social conflict in modern society and helps to explain why only in rare cases are such societies polarized into the opposing camps of the "haves" and the "have-nots." Rarely if ever does this happen!
SOCIAL CLASS or Socioeconomic Status –the sociological concept given to us courtesy of Weber.
Social Class –for Weber, more than just the relationship to the mode of production. It also includes the important dimension of status/prestige and concomitant value one places on certain ‘ways’ of life.
uncompetitive capitalists
professionals
artist
banker
skilled labor
physician
police -officer
welder
teacher
manager
waiter
minister
investment capitalists
professor
plumber
carpenter
Social Class—An expanded idea from Marx’s notion of Economic Class
Class + Status = Social Class
Class Situation for Weber: A number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life chances and this component is economic (possession of good and opportunities for income; and these folks are under the same conditions in the labor market.
Status is a major way humans differentiate and affiliate: Classification of men into such groups is based on their patterns of action or consumption patterns rather than on their place in the market or in the process of production
Weber Creates Methodologies for Studying Social Institutions and Social Action
Verstehen--Interpretive/Empathetic Understanding
Ideal Types
(empirically based
comparative tools)
Objectivity in Social Science
“Value Free” does not mean
valueless.
Sociology is a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.
Verstehen
(German) for interpretive understanding---to understand and comprehend the nature and significance of a phenomenon. Systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture (such as an anthropologist or sociologist) relates to an indigenous people or sub-cultural group on their own terms and from their own point-of-view, rather than interpreting them in terms of his or her own concepts. Verstehen can mean either a kind of empathic or a participatory understanding of social phenomena.
Understanding and meaning are key elements of Weber's approach – these are not just intuition or sympathy with the individual but attempts at identifying a human design, a "meaning" behind observable events. At both the individual level, and at the larger group or structural level, individual and group interpretations of situations, the meaning attached to these, the motivation for action, all must be understood. Meaning also includes constraints and limitations on action, as a result of institutions and structures.
Objectivity in Social Science
Value Free Sociology
Empirical analysis and moral judgment are two separate systems – sociology does not set out moral values for others, rather sociology can discuss the effects of these values on the social and societal.
A social scientist attempts to separate her/his values from observable ‘facts’ and ‘processes’. Keeping ones own values, to the extent humanly possible, from influencing interpretation of phenomena, even the phenomenon of values.
Weber does not believe in value free sociology, he believes in striving for a value-neutral sociologist. Social Scientists ought not make Value Judgments in research. (not the same as being morally indifferent or using science for social policy directives).
Understanding one’s own interests and values, as a researcher, is fundamental to being able to partition them from interpreting phenomena.
Social Scientists can choose subjects they wish to study based on their notion of the ‘value’ of understanding those subjects. The overall goal of social science can be to throw light on a problem or an issue of interest---(for example, poverty, racism, social malaise, crime, economic depression).
Thus, Social Science can be used to direct social policy. How?
By showing the logical conclusions of social action, group values and actions and forms of social organization. Social policy is not based on purely technical considerations of specific ends, but involves disputes and evaluation of normative standards of value which lie in the domain of general cultural values. Sociologists can sort and understand various ‘value’ positions and how those positions if reflected in policy might influence this group or that group or this sector of the economy or that …
Sociologists make good policy makers—as these are positions that require the ability to assess various value positions and ultimately making decisions that will produce particular ends.
Social Science & Social Policy
Ideal Types
A methodological tool
According to Weber:
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 ascent 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 actually be found anywhere in reality.
One of Weber’s best contributions to contemporary sociology.
Huh?
The ideal type is a comparative tool, derived inductively from the real world. It represents the ideal components, the necessary components for a type of something/phenomenon. You compare the type (the thing, concept) with empirical reality to see how it occurs and how it differs. Then, you look for the causes of the deviations and then perhaps make new categories or sub-types—or new types.
Practically speaking, what does that mean?
In class we will come up with an Ideal Type:
The Ideal Mate
Ideal
Divine the Ideal from looking at the Real
Happy
Industrious
Independent
Smart
Supportive
Compare Ideal to the Real
The Perfect Mate is an Ideal it isn’t Real!
Rich
Charismatic
Again in real words: An ideal type is a concept constructed by a social scientist to capture the essential features of some social phenomenon. They are heuristic devices--important to empirical research especially comparative research. It is essentially a conceptual measuring rod.
Ideal Type
Two criteria in selecting elements in an ideal type:
1-causally adequate
2-elements must be logically possible
Ideal Types of Social Action
Instrumentally rational action. These are social actions with “rationally pursued and calculated ends”
Affectual action. These are affectual or emotional forms of action “determined by the actor’s specific affects and feeling states”
Value-rational action. These are social actions where the end or value may be pursued for its own sake--self-conscious formulation of the ultimate values governing action.
Traditional action. This may be the most difficult to distinguish from instrumental, value-rational, or affectual social action because all of these may become habitual, tradition based action—action based on habit/tradition.
Ideal Types of Rationality
1. Practical Rationality –views and judges worldly activity in relation to the individual's purely pragmatic and egoistic interests, actively manipulate the given routines
of daily life in behalf of an absolute value system, a practical rational way of life accepts given realities and calculates the most expedient means of dealing with the difficulties they present. Pragmatic action in terms of everyday interests is ascendant, and given practical ends are attained by careful weighing and increasingly precise calculation of the most adequate means. Corresponds with Instrumental rational action in Weber’s Ideal Types of Social Action.
Four types: Practical, Theoretical, Substantive, Formal
2. Theoretical Rationality -- rationality, which is rooted in cognitive processes -- involves a conscious mastery of reality through the construction of increasingly precise abstract concepts and propositions rather than through action. Since a cognitive confrontation / understanding prevails here, such thought processes as logical deduction and induction, the attribution of causality, and the formation of symbolic "meanings" are typical. More generally, all abstract cognitive processes, in all their expansive active forms, denote theoretical rationality.
Four types: Practical, Theoretical, Substantive, Formal
3. Substantive. Rationality that exists in reference to ultimate points of view, or "directions" or “rules”: base decisions on an identifiable configuration of values – Bro-code--Friendship, for example, whenever it involves adherence to such values as loyalty, compassion, and mutual assistance, constitutes a substantive rationality. Religions, ideological systems, paradigms (egalitarianism, Calvinism, socialism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) Corresponds with Weber’s category/type Value-rational action in his Ideal Types of Social Action.
Four types: Practical, Theoretical, Substantive, Formal
Formal Rationality. Relates to spheres of life, structures, organizations (macro levels) that acquire specific and delineated boundaries—a prominent feature of industrialization: most significantly, the economic, legal, and scientific spheres, and the emergence of bureaucratic domination (legal-rational). Involves sheer means-ends calculation in organizing institutions and decisions are arrived at most often "without regard to persons“ – based on rules, statutes, regulations…Formal rationality often stands in direct antagonism to substantive rationalities.
Four types: Practical, Theoretical, Substantive, Formal
He came up with:
Historical Ideal Types—capitalism, protestant ethic
Social Organizational Ideal Types--bureaucracy
Action Ideal Types—social action (previous slides)
Power Relational Ideal Types—authority/power structures. (addressed in lecture)
Let’s look at rational capitalism
Rationalization is a long-term historical process that has transformed the modern world. His typology of forms of rationality is central to this argument. He was most concerned with processes of formal and substantive rationalization in contemporary contexts, especially as propelled by capitalism and bureaucracy. Weber argued that formal rationalization has occurred in many spheres, including the economy, law, religion, politics, the city, and art.
Let’s look at rational capitalism
Rational Capitalism and its origins…
Historical changes in social organization, ideology and economic relations occur that culminate in a form of social and cultural life he called Rational Capitalism
Capitalism
Intensive use of capital
Free labor
Private property
Capital reserves
Protestant Ethic (mostly Calvinism)
Work as virtue
Profit is a virtue--$$ is a sign of election
asceticism (delaying gratification, denial, have money must spend it rationally virtuously
long term—future orientation (afterlife)
Already in process: The Enlightenment resulted in rational in thinking about all of social and cultural life.
Rational Capitalism
A. Economic and political organization and ideas consistent with formal rationality –means ends thinking about social organization
B. Captitalism as a mode of production
D. Rational capitalism
WORKER
+
=
A + B + C = D
C. Protestant Ethic and its beliefs and practices lead to further rationalizing that fits well with A & B.
as technology advances…
…or how rational capitalism accidentally happened
Rational Capitalism
Ideas
Economic Organization
Protestantism
Capitalism
…way of organizing work —leads to factories, hierarchies, alienating conditions that could lead to its downfall if not for
…capitalist economy was a good way of sustaining human kind!
…leads to lots of capital accumulation --focus on work in itself. Leads to profits that are reinvested or saved by ascetic protestant types
Kaboom
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).
rationalization
“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.
family
religion
politics
culture
law
- Max Weber
Subjective & Irrational
Objective & Rational
3
4
1
2
Changes in way of thinking about work and life
Standardization & efficiency
Development hierarchies of organization—skill and power increase as you move upward
workers interests become organizations interests
Dehumanizes society (not just worker)
Rational economic gain becomes the end of all ends
Iron Cage
…Irrationally rational
Bureaucracies are created /mass produced society
Loses out to
RATIONALIZATION AS AN IDEAL TYPE AND AS AN INFLUENCE ON
SOCIAL/POLITICAL/ORGANIZATIONAL LIFE
Formal Rationality A type of decision making which is subject to calculation that goes into an action to increase its chance of success. Its decisive feature is that it eliminates an orientation to values because they are non-technical. Rationality is formal when problems are solved by the application of technical criteria.
Substantive (Value) Rationality A type of decision making which is subject to values and an appeal to ethical norms. Substantive rationality does not take into account the nature of outcomes.
FORMAL RATIONALIZATION AS AN INFLUENCE ON
SOCIAL/POLITICAL/ORGANIZATIONAL LIFE:
THE BUREAUCRACY EMERGES IN HISTORY – POWERFUL FORCE FOR
SHAPING SOCIAL LIFE AND MEANING
Bureaucracies are effective in situations where large numbers of standardized operations are needed, such as processing student enrolments at university and in organizations where little personal initiative is needed to get the job done.
Weber argued that societies were increasingly
based on formal rationality (that backs rational-legal systems
of authority)
The application of formal rational-legal authority in organizations is bureaucracy, which in its ideal form is the most technically efficient and rational form of organization that has ever existed, argued Weber.
Key characteristics of bureaucracy as an ideal type are:
specification of jobs with detailed rights, obligations, responsibilities, scope of authority
hierarchical system of supervision and subordination
unity of command where authority resides in the rules not the position
extensive use of written documents –codes of operation
training in job requirements and skills –division of labor according to specialization
application of consistent and complete rules (company manual) impersonality, with everyone treated according to the rules.
assign work and hire personnel based on competence and experience
From the perspective of organizational design and efficiency, there are three main problems with bureaucracy:
Employee motivation
Customer service
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHrN5Mf5sgo (the Office)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChQK8j6so8 (commodifying service)
Resistance to innovation and change
OFFICE SPACE—Film seems like they read Weber
Since bureaucracy is obsessed with rule employees may have little enthusiasm or pride for their jobs, which creates problems of motivation. If the workforce is poorly motivated then customer service can be poor and the following of rules is not necessarily done with the customer’s best interests in mind.
Finally, the rigidity of bureaucracies makes them resistant to innovation and change.
SOME PROBLEMS THAT ARISE FROM BUREAUCRACIES
Above all, Weber emphasized that bureaucratic organizations are designed to subdue human affairs to the rule of reason. This would make it possible to conduct the business of the organization "according to calculable rules."
For people who developed modern organizations, the purpose was to find rational solutions to the new problems of size .
Weber saw bureaucracy as the rational product of social engineering, just as the machines of the Industrial Revolution were the rational products of mechanical engineering.
The more we use it as a way of organizing, the more successful at producing we become….. We are getting better? Or are we? Bigger better?
Shoe factory then and now—just bigger & faster
McDonalidization
McDonaldization (or McDonaldisation) is a term used by George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society (1995). He describes it as the process by which a society takes on the characteristics of a fast food restaurant. McDonaldization is a reconceptualization of rationalization to hyper-rationalization—even greater rational modes of thought and scientific management. Where Weber used the model of the bureaucracy to represent the direction of this changing society, Ritzer sees the fast-food restaurant as having become the representative contemporary exemplar of social organization - a paradigm of organization in the modern world (Ritzer, 2004:553).
The process of McDonaldization can be summarized as the way in which "the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world.” (Ritzer, 1993:1). Starbucks?
Ritzer highlighted four primary components of McDonaldization:
Efficiency – the optimal method for accomplishing a task. In this context, Ritzer has a very specific meaning of "efficiency". Here, the optimal method equates to the fastest method to get from point A to point B.
Calculability – quantifiability of price, product (weight, size, production).
Predictability – standardized and uniform services. "Predictability" means that no matter where a person goes, they will receive the same service and receive the same product every time when interacting with the McDonaldized organization. This also applies to the workers in those organizations. Their task are highly repetitive, highly routine, and predictable. [
Control over production – standardized and uniform employees, replacement of human by non-human technologies.
Irrationality--with these four processes, a strategy which is rational within a narrow scope can lead to outcomes that are harmful or irrational.
Great right? Successful Right? Well, I guess that all depends on how you look at it.
Fast food and obesity: wherever America's fast food chains go, waistlines inevitably start expanding.
The United States has the highest obesity rate of any industrialized nation. More than half of all American adults and about one-quarter of all American children are now obese or overweight.
Workers in the United States put in the longest hours (among industrialized nations) on the job, nearly 2000 hours per capita in 1997, and in the period from 1980, the annual working hours in the US has been steadily rising.
When compared with two dozen other industrialized countries the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy for people who have reached age 60.
1 In 5 U.S. Workers Uninsured
Since the 1970s there has been a massive and general shift from relatively high-skilled, high-paid jobs to lower-skilled, low-paid service industry jobs. (mcdonalds went public and expanded massively in 1965)
What if you don’t want special sauce? Then what?
In 2004, workers in this country produced $11 trillion worth of goods and services. (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2004) The total value of goods and services produced in a year is known as a country’s gross domestic product. The U.S. GDP is the highest of any country in the world and $11 trillion is the most it has ever been.
And 25 percent of U.S. workers earn poverty-level wages. In sharp contrast, CEO’s incomes are soaring. A CEOs’ salary is, on average, more than 301 times a worker’s salary at the same company. (United for a Fair Economy, April 14, 2004)
The Iron Cage of Rationality
When Ritzer is talking about the irrational consequences of rationalization, he is borrowing directly from Weber and his pessimistic idea that the result of hyper-rationality would be a society that while seeking the good life becomes incapable of producing the good life through boredom and learned incapacity…
The original German for Iron Cage is Stahlhartes Gehäuse.
Social actions were becoming based on efficiency instead of the old types of social actions, which were based on lineage or kinship. Behavior by tradition and dominated by goal-oriented.
Life becomes a bureaucracy—everything is increasingly rationalized. We have to take a class to get married, fill out the ‘right’ forms to give money to the poor…
Life becomes a predictable series of programs, choice isn’t really choice—it is a menu of strict options.
Loss of individual freedom and creativity
in exchange for predictability and security.
Communication is mediated through institutions, large scale bureaucracies and their technologies.
Privacy is lost, liberty lost, individuality lost!
You can have any color you want so long as it is red.
You can have coffee any time you want so long as it is Starbucks.
You can take any course you want so long as we are offering it.
THE MATRIX
Status, Class and Politics
It’s about power folks:
Weber agreed that quite often, especially in the modern capitalist world, economic power is the predominant form of power. However, he objects and adds that "the emergence of economic power may be the consequence of power existing on other grounds." For example, those who command large-scale bureaucratic organizations may wield a great deal of economic power even though they are only salaried employees and are nobody in social spheres!
Weber believes power is: the chance of a man, or a number of men "to realize their own will in communal action, even against the resistance of others." He shows that the basis from which such power can be exercised may vary considerably according to the social context, that is, historical and structural circumstance.
Types of Legitimate Domination
Weber begins by defining domination/authority distinguishing it from power and influence, which he says are bigger categories. The German for domination here is "Herrschaft" which could be literally translated as "lordship" as in "lordship over." “Power Over”
The concept of domination/authority represents a continuum of types of social relationships. It is present to a different degree in different realms governed by law and custom, but we'd say it exists whenever there is some degree of "voluntariness" on the side of the subject. Just having power — as when a bank exercises monopolistic control — is not enough to call it "authority" per se.
For Weber, too, an important component of domination or authority is that it includes a subjective role for the dominated: Weber says it always "implies a minimum of voluntary compliance, that is “an interest”(based on ulterior motives or genuine acceptance" in obedience").
The relationship is consensual—in a sense—there is consent to be governed. This would set this relationship into the category as ‘legitimate’ authority…as in it is legitimately relationship between the parties involved.
Sociologically, we are interested in the patterns of people obeying commands and the overall basis of the claim that the commands are legitimate. Even if people only obey cynically, we can still try to ascertain how the supposed validity of the commands is framed.
Pure/Ideal Types of Authority/Domination
In each case, the "authority" specifies both who has it and what who and what it covers. And, for Weber, it’s the BASIS of LEGITIMACY that creates the types. The basis of the relationship—constitutes the types of authority.
Rational/Legal
Traditional
Charismatic
Rational/Legal based authority rests on belief in rationalized systems of rules and we obey persons who are elevated, by rules, to positions of authority. Obedience is not given to a specific individual leader - but to a set of uniform principles.
Weber thought the best example of legal-rational authority was a bureaucracy (political or economic). This form of authority is frequently found in the modern state, city governments, private and public corporations, and various voluntary associations. The development of the modern state is identical indeed with that of modern officialdom and bureaucratic organizations just as the development of modern capitalism is identical with the increasing bureaucratization of economic enterprise (Weber 1958, 3).
Rational Legal Authority
Tradition based authority rests on "the way it's always been" and we obey individuals granted authority by tradition” -- “the eternal yesterday”.
Traditional authority found embodied in feudalism and/or patrimonialism. In a purely patriarchal structure, “the servants are completely and personally dependent upon the lord”…
It is not codified in impersonal rules but inheres in particular persons who may either inherit it or be invested with it by a higher authority.
Charismatic authority rests on the exceptional qualities of a particular person/
Charismatic authority is found in a leader whose mission and vision inspire others. It is based upon the perceived extraordinary characteristics of an individual. Followers often see charismatic leader of a new social movement, and one instilled with divine or supernatural powers, such as a religious prophet. Weber seemed to favor charismatic authority, and spent a good deal of time discussing it.
Weber concern --charismatic authority was particularly strong, but what happens to it with the death or decline of a charismatic leader. There has to be a “routinization of charisma” or the movement or the group etc. ends with the death or end of the leader.
Comparisons
Traditional authority is impersonal (unlike charisma) and non-rational (unlike legal-rational). Staff are undifferentiated-represent the leader—power through association.
Charismatic authority is dynamic, unstable (unlike tradition) and non-rational (again, unlike legal-rational). Staff are loyalists—carry the message of but do not stand in for leader.
Legal-rational authority is rational (unlike tradition) and impersonal (unlike charisma). Staff are skilled/differentiated—their power is legislated as well.
Keep in mind that Weber was describing pure types; he was aware that in empirical reality mixtures will be found in the legitimation of authority. Example: although Hitler's domination was based to a considerable extent on his charisma, elements of rational-legal authority remained in the structure of German law and facilitated his authority as a leader, and his appeal to and references to Germanic Volk tradition formed a major element in the appeals of National Socialism.
