Max Weber (1864–1920)

Alatas, Syed Farid

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-41134-1_5

Syed Farid Alatas³

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Abstract

The subject matter of Weber’s sociology was the origins of modern capitalism and the nature of modern capitalist society. Weber inquired into the various factors that accounted for the emergence of capitalism in the West and also theorized about the factors that impeded the development of capitalism in non-Western societies. Weber’s much cited and discussed Protestant ethic thesis was his attempt to understand the rise of capitalism in terms of the impact of Protestantism on the development of a specific type of work ethic that facilitated capital accumulation. At a deeper abstract level, Weber’s concern was with the pervasiveness of a certain form of rationality throughout the institutions of modern society.

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Notes

1.
Dirk Käsler, Max Weber: An Introduction to His Life and Work (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), ix.
2.
Stanislav Andreski, Max Weber’s Insights and Errors (London: Routledge, 2013), 6.
3.
Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, Shils, Edward A. Shils & Henry A. Finch (trans. and ed.) (New York: Free Press, 1949), 115.
4.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 116.
5.
Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. 2 Vols. G. Roth, & C. Wittich (eds.), (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 1978), 4.
6.
Weber, Economy and Society, 44.
7.
Weber, Economy and Society, 4; Sam Whimster, ed., The Essential Weber: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2004), 412.
8.
Weber, Economy and Society, 15.
9.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 91–2, cited in George Ritzer, Sociological Theory, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), 127.
10.
Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, Shils, Edward A. and Finch, Henry A. (trans. and ed.), (New York: Free Press, 1997), 90.
11.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 90.
12.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 90.
13.
Lewis A. Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 223.
14.
Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought, 223–4.
15.
Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, 2 Vols. (New York: Anchor Books, 1970), vol. 2, 246–7; Thomas Burger, Max Weber’s Theory of Concept Formation: History, Laws and Ideal Types (Durham: Duke University Press, 1976), 118, cited in Ritzer, Sociological Theory, 130. This list of five is the result of collapsing Aron’s three and Burger’s four kinds of ideal types.
16.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 4–5.
17.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 9–10.
18.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 52.
19.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 11, 22, 77, 82.
20.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 82.
21.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 60.
22.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 51–2.
23.
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 60.
24.
Max Weber, General Economic History, Frank Knight, trans (New Brunswick & London: Transaction Books, 1981), 275.
25.
Weber, General Economic History, 275–6.
26.
Weber, General Economic History, 276.
27.
Weber, General Economic History, 276.
28.
Weber, General Economic History, 276–7.
29.
Weber, General Economic History, 277.
30.
Weber, General Economic History, 277.
31.
Weber, General Economic History, 277.
32.
Weber, General Economic History, 277–8.
33.
Weber, Economy and Society, 974.
34.
Weber, Economy and Society, 218–19.
35.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 47.
36.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 47.
37.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 68.
38.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 68–9.
39.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 48–9.
40.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 53, 55.
41.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 53.
42.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 60.
43.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 63.
44.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 75.
45.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 73.
46.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 128.
47.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 157.
48.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 171.
49.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 111–2.
50.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 91–2. The German term Wahlverwandtschaft was not translated as elective affinity but as correlation in Parsons’ translation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Others, however, have preferred to use elective affinity, the term which has been an object of much discussion. See Andrew M. McKinnon, ‘Elective Affinities of the Protestant Ethic: Weber and the Chemistry of Capitalism’, Sociological Theory 28, 1, 2010: 108–126.
51.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 90.
52.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 75.
53.
Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (London: Heinemann, 1960), chap. 3.
54.
Weber, Economy and Society, 259.
55.
Weber, Economy and Society, 1016.
56.
Bryan S. Turner, Weber and Islam: A Critical Study (London & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), 123–4.
57.
Milton Singer, When a Great Tradition Modernizes. An Anthropological Approach to Indian Civilization (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), 320–25.
58.
John Harriss, ‘The Great Tradition Globalizes: Reflections on Two Studies of “The Industrial Leaders” of Madras’, Modern Asian Studies 37, 2 (2003).
59.
C. K. Yang, ‘Introduction’, in Weber, The Religion of China, xxvii.
60.
Lutfi Sunar, Marx and Weber on Oriental Societies: In the Shadow of Western Modernity, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014, 159.
61.
Andreas Buss, ‘Max Weber’s Heritage and Modern Southeast Asian Thinking on Development’, Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 12, 1 (1984), 2.
62.
K. S. Jomo, ‘Islam and Weber: Rodinson on the Implications of Religion for Capitalist Development’, The Developing Economies 15, 2 (1977), 248–9.
63.
Syed Hussein Alatas, ‘The Weber Thesis and South-East Asian’, in Alatas, Modernization and Social Change: Studies in Modernization, Religion, Social Change and Development in South-East Asia (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1972), 19.
64.
Buss, ‘Max Weber’s Heritage’, 4.
65.
Weber, The Religion of China, 248.
66.
Max Weber, ‘Between Two Ethics’, in Weber, Gesammelte Politische Schriften (J. C. B. Mohr: Tubingen, 1958), cited in Buss, ‘Max Weber’s Heritage’, 9–10.
67.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 181.
68.
Stephen Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History’, American Journal of Sociology 85, 5 (1980), 1148.
69.
Weber, Economy and Society, 24.
70.
Weber, Economy and Society, 24–5.
71.
Weber, Economy and Society, 25.
72.
Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1161.
73.
Weber, ‘The Social Psychology of the World Religions’, in From Max Weber: Essays on Sociology, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 293; Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1152–1155.
74.
Weber, Economy and Society, 85–6.
75.
Weber, ‘The Social Psychology of the World Religions’, 293.
76.
Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1151–1152.
77.
Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1158; Weber, Economy and Society, 225–6, 975.
78.
Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1164.
79.
Weber, Economy and Society, 85–6; Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1155.
80.
Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1164.
81.
Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1164–65.
82.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 175.
83.
Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and ed. by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, New York: Oxford University Press, 1946, 155. The German term Entzauberung is frequently rendered ‘disenchantment’. Kalberg regards this as a mistranslation and prefers ‘de-magification’. See Kalberg, ‘Max Weber’s Types of Rationality’, 1146, n. 2.
84.
Max Weber, ‘Science as a Vocation,’ in From Max Weber: Essays on Sociology, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 154.
85.
Weber, Economy and Society, 941.
86.
Weber, Economy and Society, 31.
87.
Weber, Economy and Society, 215–6.
88.
Weber, Economy and Society, 216.
89.
For these and other characteristics of legal authority, see Weber, Economy and Society, 217–20.
90.
Weber, Economy and Society, 220.
91.
Weber, Economy and Society, 220–1.
92.
Gerald E. Caiden, ‘Excessive Bureaucratization: The J-Curve Theory of Bureaucracy and Max Weber Through the Looking Glass’, in Ali Farazman, ed., Handbook of Bureaucracy (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1994), 29.
93.
Caiden, ‘Excessive Bureaucratization’, 31–2.
94.
Caiden, ‘Excessive Bureaucratization’, 33–4.
95.
Caiden, ‘Excessive Bureaucratization’, 33–5.
96.
Caiden, ‘Excessive Bureaucratization’, 37–8.
97.
George Ritzer, ‘The “McDonaldization” of Society’, Journal of American Culture 6, 1 (1983), 100–106.
98.
Ritzer, ‘The “McDonaldization” of Society’, 101–2.
99.
Ritzer, ‘The “McDonaldization” of Society’, 102–3.
100.
Ritzer, ‘The “McDonaldization” of Society’, 103–5.
101.
Ritzer, ‘The “McDonaldization” of Society’, 105.
102.
Ritzer, ‘The “McDonaldization” of Society’, 106.
103.
Ritzer, ‘The “McDonaldization” of Society’, 106–7.
104.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 183.

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Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
Syed Farid Alatas

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Alatas, S.F. (2017). Max Weber (1864–1920). In: Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41134-1_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41134-1_5
Published: 26 March 2017
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