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Maximilian Weber (April 21, 1864 – June 14,
1920) was a Germany|German political
economy|political economist and
sociology|sociologist who is considered one of the
founders of the modern,
antipositivism|antipositivistic study of sociology
and public administration. His major works deal
with Rationalization (sociology)|rationalization
in sociology of religion and Political
sociology|government, but he also wrote much in
the field of economics. His most recognized work
is his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, which began his work in the
sociology of religion. Weber argued that religion
was one of the primary reasons for the different
ways the cultures of the Occident and the Orient
have developed. In his other famous work, Politics
as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an
entity which possesses a monopoly on the
legitimate use of physical force, a definition
that became pivotal to the study of modern Western
political science. His theory later became widely
known as Weber's Thesis.

==Life and career==
Weber was born in Erfurt, Germany, the eldest of
seven children of Max Weber Sr., a prominent
politician and civil service|civil servant, and
his wife Helene Fallenstein. His younger brother
Alfred Weber was also a sociologist and economist.
Because of his father's engagement with public
life, Weber grew up in a household immersed in
politics, and his father received a long list of
prominent academia|scholars and public figures in
his salon. At the same time, Weber proved to be
intellectually precocious. His Christmas present
to his parents in 1876, when he was thirteen years
old, took the form of two historical essays
entitled "About the course of History of
Germany|German history, with special reference to
the positions of the German Empire|emperor and the
pope" and "About the Roman Empire|Roman Imperial
period from Constantine I (emperor)|Constantine to
the migration of nations". It seemed clear, then,
that Weber would apply himself to the social
sciences. At the age of fourteen, he wrote letters
studded with references to Homer, Virgil, Cicero,
and Livy, and he had an extended knowledge of
Goethe, Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer before he
entered university studies.


In 1882 Weber enrolled in the University of
Heidelberg as a law student. Weber joined his
father's duelling fraternity and chose as his
major study his father's field of law. Apart from
his work in law, he attended lectures in economics
and studied medieval history. In addition, Weber
read a great deal in theology. Intermittently he
served with the Reichswehr|German army in
Strasbourg. In the fall of 1884 Weber returned to
his parents' home to study at the University of
Berlin. For the next eight years of his life,
interrupted only by a term at the University of
Goettingen and short periods of further military
training, Weber stayed at his parents' house,
first as a student, later as a junior barrister in
Berlin courts, and finally as a Dozent at the
University of Berlin. In 1886 Weber passed the
examination for "Referendar", comparable to the
bar association|bar examination in the United
States|American legal system. Throughout the late
1880s, Weber continued his study of history. He
earned his doctorate in law in 1889 by writing a
doctoral dissertation on legal history entitled
Zur Geschichte der Handelgesellschaften im
Mittelatler|The History of Medieval Business
Organisations. Two years later, Weber completed
his "Habilitationsschrift", Die Römische
Agrargeschichte in ihrer Bedeutung für das
Staats- und Privatrecht|The Roman Agrarian History
and its Significance for Public and Private Law.
Having thus become a "Privatdozent", Weber was now
qualified to hold a German professorship.

In the years between the completion of his
dissertation and habilitation, however, Weber also
began pondering contemporary social policy. In
1888 he had joined the "Verein für
Socialpolitik", the new professional association
of German economists affiliated with the
Historical school who saw the role of economics
primarily in the solving of the wide-ranging
social problems of the age, and who pioneered
large-scale statistical studies of economic
problems. In 1890 the "Verein" established a
research program to examine "the Poland|Polish
question", meaning the influx of foreign farm
workers into eastern Germany as local labourers
migrated to Germany's rapidly Industrial
Revolution|industrializing cities. Weber was put
in charge of the study and wrote a large part of
its results. The final report was widely acclaimed
as an excellent piece of empirical research, and
cemented Weber's reputation as an expert on
agrarian economics.



In 1893 he married his distant cousin Marianne
Weber|Marianne Schnitger, later a
feminism|feminist and author in her own right, who
after his death in 1920 was decisive in collecting
and publishing Weber's works as books which
previously had only appeared as articles in
journals. In 1894 the couple moved to Freiburg,
where Weber was appointed professor of economics
at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität|Freiburg
University, before accepting the same position at
the University of Heidelberg in 1897. The same
year his father Max Weber sen. died two months
after a severe quarrel with his son, making it
impossible to resolve the conflict. Following this
incident Weber was more and more prone to
"nervousness" and insomnia making it increasingly
impossible for him to lecture and fulfill his
duties as a professor. He had to reduce his
teaching and gave his last course in the fall of
1899, unable to finish it. After months in a
sanatorium in the summer and fall of 1900, Max
Weber and his wife Marianne travelled to Italy at
the end of the year, not to return to Heidelberg
until April 1902.



After his immense productivity in the early 1890s
he did not publish a single paper between early
1898 and the end of the year 1902 and finally
resigned as a professor in the fall of 1903.
However, being freed of this burden he accepted a
position as associate editor of the Archiv für
Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik|Archives for
Social Science and Social Welfare next to his
colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Werner Sombart. In
1904 Max Weber began to publish some of his most
seminal papers in this journal, notably his essay
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
It became his most famous work, and laid the
foundations for his later research on the impact
of cultures and religions on the development of
economic systems. Incidentally this essay was the
only one of his work that was published as a book
during his lifetime.

In 1912, Weber tried to organize a left-wing
political party which should combine
social-democrats and liberals. This attempt wasn't
succesfull because many liberals feared the
social-democratic revolutionary ideals.

During the World War I|First World War, Weber
served for a time as director of the army
hospitals in Heidelberg. In 1915 and 1916 he was a
member of commisions whom tried to keep the German
supremacy in Belgium and Poland after the war.
Weber was a German imperialist and wanted to
enlarge the German empire to the east and the
west. Weber became a member of the worker and
soldier council (sovjet) of Heidelberg in 1918.

Weber In 1918, he became a consultant to the
German Armistice Commission at the Treaty of
Versailles and to the commission charged with
drafting the Weimar Constitution. Weber had a
great fear of German Revolution|communist
revolution in Germany. He argued in favour of
inserting Article 48 into the Weimar Constitution.
This article was later used by Adolf Hitler to
declare martial law and seize
dictatorship|dictatorial powers. 

From 1918, Weber resumed teaching, first at the
University of Vienna, then in 1919 at the
University of Munich. In Munich, he headed the
first German University institute of sociology,
but he never held a personal sociology appointment
in his life. Weber left politics due to right wing
agitation in 1919 and 1920. Many colleagues and
students in Munich despised him for his speeches
and left wing attitude during the German
revolution of 1918 and 1919. Right-wing students
protested at his home.


Max Weber died of pneumonia in Munich on June 14,
1920. It should be noted that many of his
today-famous works were collected, revised and
published posthumously.  Significant
interpretations of Weber's writings were produced
by such sociological luminaries as Talcott Parsons
and C. Wright Mills.

===Weber and German politics===

Max Weber had a large influence on German policy
towards the germanisation of Eastern Germany. He
proposed closing the border to Poland|Polish
workers from Russia and Austria-Hungary in his
speech at the congress of the Evangelical Social
Party in 1894. He feared that Germany would
eventually lose these eastern territories. He
advocated the recolonization of empty lands on the
large estates of the Prussian Junkers by German
settlers from the west, who would start small
farms. The congress was mainly against Webers
demands because it supported the Prussian Junkers,
but Weber influenced his friends and allies,
including the influential politician Friedrich
Naumann. 

In 1905, Weber changed his mind. He was impressed
by the attitude of the Liberalism in
Russia|Russian liberal party, which wanted to
change Russian nationalism by accepting ethnic
minorities as Russians. Weber wanted the Germans
to absorb other ethnic groups, especially the
Poles, who should have become a part of a huge
German empire. Weber thought that the only way
that German culture would survive was by creating
an empire. Power politics was to be the basis for
defending the German culture and economy and to
prevent it from becoming a powerless country like
Switzerland.

Weber disliked the empty nationalist ideas of many
German nationalists. He thought that power
(sociology)|power alone was not an acceptable
goal, that politicians should stand for certain
ideas but that they need a strong will to power to
win. This idea of the will to power is originally
from Nietzsche who was very popular in the Germany
of the 1890s. But Nietzsche meant a strictly
individual will to power and not a will to power
to make a collective (like Germany) stronger as
advocated by Weber. Weber wanted Germany to
strengthen German economy|its economy by creating
a huge empire. He was afraid of the huge world
population that would lead to German unemployment
in the long run and believed that the only way to
support the German workers was to create an
empire. He was afraid that an end would come to
economic expansion and that countries would
protect their own ecomomy with tariff walls. He
did not foresee the technological advances and the
profits of international trade for the national
economy in the twentieth century.

Weber wanted the end of the power of the nobility.
He despised the red scare of the middle classes.
 In
his opinion, which he expressed in the media and
his politics, the middle classes should have
united against the aristocracy. This led to a lot
of dismay in right wing Germany. Weber was against
the student fraternities which idolized military
ranks. He wanted to stop the agrarian lobby
damaging the regulations in the stock exchange.
 He was especially against the
buying of titles and noble land by the upper class
of the bourgeoisie. Weber wanted unlimited
economic growth. Not military ranks, but ability
and talent should be important for one's
prospects. Money should be put into a company and
not wasted in a useless piece of land. Weber
feared the inefficiency of the economy in Roman
Catholic, non-puritanical countries and was afraid
that Germany would become like Austria:
'Verösterreicherung Deutschlands'.

Weber was against the German annexation plans
during the First World War, but he was also
against a dishonorable peace. He didn't believe
that Germany could dominate the ethnic minorities
after the war was won but that Germany should work
together with German-dominated nations and make
them enthusiastic about German imperialism.

Weber wrote a series of newspaper articles in
1917, entitled "Parliament and Government in a
Re-constructed Germany." These articles called for
democratic reforms to the 1871
Wikisource:Constitution of the German
Empire|constitution of the German Empire. 

Weber argued that Germany's political problems
were essentially a problem of leadership. Otto von
Bismarck had created a constitution that preserved
his own power, but limited the ability of another
powerful leader to succeed him, because of the
limited experience of the political establishment
with decision-making. In January, 1919, Weber's
brother was a founding member of the German
Democratic Party.

Weber advocated democracy as a means for selecting
strong leaders. Weber viewed democracy as a form
of charismatic authority|charismatic leadership
where the "demagogue imposes his will on the
masses." For this reason, the European Left-wing
politics|left is highly critical of Weber for,
albeit unwittingly, "preparing the intellectual
groundwork for the leadership position of Adolf
Hitler."  

He opposed the SPD|social-democratic party because
of the socialists' lack of nationalism. First he
wanted to make the working classes enthusiastic
about Germany and German imperialism, but later on
he realized that this was impossible. Later on he
changed his mind and realized that the imperial
expansion of Germany was not in the interest of
the working classes and only strengthened the
power of the German establishment. Only the middle
classes could make Germany into a huge empire.
Weber wanted to unify Germany and to give the
German working classes coresponsibility in the
German government, but not out of an ideal of
equality. He was against compassion. He wanted to
create responsibility. Hard work and efficiency
should bring wealth for successful members of the
working classes. The socialist society was
impossible according to him. Making an end to
capitalism and enlarging of the bureaucracy would
only lead to more enslavement of the workers. The
only possible way for salvation would be the
capitalist system and the application of new
technics. Weber openly supported strikes and labor
unions, while right-wing Germans were very opposed
to this.

Weber was very opposed to the conservatives that
tried to hold back the democratic liberation of
the working classes. Weber further dismayed the
left when one of his students, Carl Schmitt
(1888-1985), incorporated Weber's theories into a
corpus of Nazi legal propaganda. Weber's personal
and professional letters show considerable disgust
for the anti-semitism of his day. It is doubtful
that Weber would have supported the Nazis, had he
lived long enough to see their doings.  

Weber was very critical of German conservatives
and the German emperor. Before the First World War
he believed that emperor William II was a weak
leader, who with the conservatives were destroying
Germany's diplomatic position. The 1908 Daily
Telegraph interview of William II especially was a
great disappointment in his view. During the First
World War, Weber was very critical of the German
government. He thought that the right-wing
Alldeutscher Verband and the German army leaders
were making Germany lose the war. He was against
the undemocratic views of the right-wing, which
alienated the working class and resulted in
strikes and revolution. He was opposed to
unlimited submarine warfare, which resulted in a
declaration of war from the United States.

Weber was opposed to the request of the majority
of the German parliament for peace negotiations
and strongly advocated continuing the war in many
newspaper articles. At the same time, the
right-wing, supported by the army, was agitating
against the parliament's decision. When he found
that peace was requested because of the near
collapse of Austria, which had been kept secret
from the press, he became enraged, for the army
had known about the coming collapse of Austria.
Weber strongly denounced the German emperor and
the German army and advocated peace in a speech at
a mass meeting in Munich accompanied by a
social-democratic speaker. This speech led to
sympathy among socialists for Max Weber.

Weber openly advocated resistance to the allies in
1918.  He hoped that the battle would go on until
the whole of Germany was occupied, and wanted to
defend the eastern cities of Thorn, Danzig and
Reichenberg against the Poles and the Czechs. He
tried to win over the working classes who didn't
want to continue the war and hoped for
international revolution. Weber was against the
revolution of 1918 because he feared that a strong
right-wing reaction would follow. He tactically
called himself a socialist, but the revolting
workers regarded him as old-fashioned. President
Ebert of Germany wanted him as minister of
interior in november 1918, but he later chose Hugo
Preuss. Ebert then wanted Weber as ambassador in
Vienna, but Weber's anti-government attitude in
speeches made this impossible. In early 1919 he
lost a possible seat in the German parliament
because of his alienation from the revolution in
1918. 

Weber was a member of the German delegation during
the peace negotiations in Versailles. Weber first
wanted Germany not to sign the treaty, but he
feared that this would only make things worse for
Germany after a while and doubted for months what
would be the best solution: signing or not.

In United States|America, Weber's politics are
less well known. Apologists claim that Weber's
distinction between "evaluative" politics and
"value-neutral" science shields his sociology from
the harsh realpolitik of his personal convictions.
The debate over Weber's politics continues to this
day.

==Achievements==

Max Weber was – along with Karl Marx,
Vilfredo Pareto and Émile Durkheim – one of
the founders of modern sociology. Whereas Pareto
and Durkheim, following Auguste Comte|Comte,
worked in the sociological positivism|positivist
tradition, Weber created and worked – like
Werner Sombart, his friend and then the most
famous representative of German sociology –
in the antipositivism|antipositivist,
idealism|idealist and hermeneutics|hermeneutic
tradition. Those works started the
antipositivistic revolution in social sciences,
which stressed the difference between the social
sciences and natural sciences, especially due to
human social actions. Weber's early work was
related to industrial sociology, but he is most
famous for his later work on the sociology of
religion and sociology of government.

Max Weber began his studies of Rationalization
(sociology)|rationalization in The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he
shows how the aims of certain
Protestantism|Protestant Religious
denomination|denominations, particularly
Calvinism, shifted towards the rational means of
economic gain as a way of expressing that they had
been blessed. The rational roots of this doctrine,
he argued, soon grew incompatible with and larger
than the religious, and so the latter were
eventually discarded. Weber continues his
investigation into this matter in later works,
notably in his studies on bureaucracy and on the
classifications of authority. In these works he
alludes to an inevitable move towards
rationalization.

===Sociology of religion===

Weber's work on the sociology of religion started
with the essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism and continued with the analysis of
The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism,
The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism
and Budhism, and Ancient Judaism (book)|Ancient
Judaism. His work on other religions was
interrupted by his sudden death in 1920, which
prevented him from following Ancient Judaism with
studies of Psalms, Book of Jacob, Talmudic Jewry,
early Christianity and Islam. 

His three main themes were the effect of religious
ideas on economic activities, the relation between
social stratification and religious ideas, and the
distinguishable characteristics of Western
civilization.

His goal was to find reasons for the different
development paths of the cultures of the Occident
and the Orient. In the analysis of his findings,
Weber maintained that Puritan (and more widely,
Christianity|Christian) religious ideas had had a
major impact on the development of the economic
system of Europe and the United States, but noted
that they were not the only factors in this
development. Other notable factors mentioned by
Weber included the rationalism of scientific
pursuit, merging observation with mathematics,
science of scholarship and jurisprudence, rational
systematization of government administration, and
economic enterprise. In the end, the study of the
sociology of religion, according to Weber, merely
explored one phase of the emancipation from magic,
that "disenchantment of the world" that he
regarded as an important distinguishing aspect of
Western culture.

====The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism====



Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism is his most famous work. It is
argued that this work should not be viewed as a
detailed study of Protestantism, but rather as an
introduction into Weber's later works, especially
his studies of interaction between various
religious ideas and economic behaviour.

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism, Weber puts forward the thesis that the
Puritan ethic and ideas influenced the development
of capitalism. Religious devotion has usually been
accompanied by rejection of mundane affairs,
including economic pursuit. Why was that not the
case with Protestantism? Weber addresses that
paradox in his essay.

He defines "the spirit of capitalism" as the ideas
and habits that favour the rationalism|rational
pursuit of economic gain. Weber points out that
such a spirit is not limited to Western culture,
when considered as the attitude of individuals,
but that such individuals – heroic
entrepreneurship|entrepreneurs, as he calls them
– could not by themselves establish a new
economic order (capitalism). Among the tendencies
identified by Weber were the greed for profit with
minimum effort, the idea that work was a curse and
a burden to be avoided, especially when it
exceeded what was enough for modest life. "In
order that a manner of life well adapted to the
peculiarities of capitalism" wrote Weber "could
come to dominate others, it had to originate
somewhere, and not in isolated individuals alone,
but as a way of life common to whole groups of
man".

After defining the spirit of capitalism, Weber
argues that there are many reasons to look for its
origins in the religious ideas of the Protestant
Reformation|Reformation. Many observers like
William Petty, Charles de Secondat, Baron de
Montesquieu|Montesquieu, Henry Thomas Buckle, John
Keats, and others have commented on the affinity
between Protestantism and the development of the
commercial spirit.

Weber showed that certain types of Protestantism
favoured rational pursuit of economic gain and
worldly activities which had been given positive
spiritual and moral meaning. It was not the goal
of those religious ideas, but rather a byproduct
– the inherent logic of those doctrines and
the advice based upon them both directly and
indirectly encouraged planning and self-denial in
the pursuit of economic gain.

Weber stated that he abandoned research into
Protestantism because his colleague Ernst
Troeltsch, a professional theology|theologian, had
initiated work on the book The Social Teachings of
the Christian Churches and Sects. Another reason
for Weber's decision was that that essay has
provided the perspective for a broad comparison of
religion and society, which he continued in his
later works.

The phrase "work ethic" used in modern commentary
is a derivative of the "Protestant ethic"
discussed by Weber. It was adopted when the idea
of the protestant ethic was generalized to apply
to Japan|Japanese, Judaism|Jews and other
Christianity|non-Christians.

==== The Religion of China: Confucianism and
Taoism ====

The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism was
Weber's second major work on the sociology of
religion. Weber focused on those aspects of
China|Chinese society that were different from
those of Western Europe and especially contrasted
with Puritanism, and posed a question why
capitalism did not develop in China. In Hundred
Schools of Thought Warring States Period, he
concentrated on the early period of Chinese
history, during which the major Chinese schools of
thoughts (Confucianism and Taoism) came to the
fore.

By 200 BC, the Chinese state had developed from a
loose federation of feudalism|feudal states into a
unified empire with Patrimony|patrimonal rule, as
described in the Warring States Period.

As in Europe, Chinese cities had been founded as
forts or leaders' residences, and were the centres
of trade and crafts. However, they never received
political autonomy and its citizens had no special
political rights or privileges. This is due to the
strength of kinship ties, which stems from
religious beliefs in ancestral spirits. Also, the
guilds competed against each other for the favour
of the Emperor, never uniting in order to fight
for more rights. Therefore, the residents of
Chinese cities never constitute a separate status
class like the residents of European cities.

Early unification of the state and the
establishment of central officialdom meant that
the focus of the power struggle changed from the
distribution of land to the distribution of
offices, which with their fees and taxes were the
most prominent source of income for the holder,
who often pocketed up to 50% of the revenue. The
imperial government depended on the services of
those officials, not on the service of the
military (knights) as in Europe.

Weber emphasized that Confucianism tolerated a
great number of popular cults without any effort
to systematize them into a religious doctrine.
Instead of metaphysical conjectures, it taught
adjustment to the world. The "superior" man
(literati) should stay away from the pursuit of
wealth (though not from wealth itself). Therefore,
becoming a civil service|civil servant was
preferred to becoming a businessman and granted a
much higher status.

Chinese civilization had no religious prophecy nor
a powerful priestly class. The emperor was the
high priest of the state religion and the supreme
ruler, but popular cults were also tolerated
(however the political ambitions of their priests
were curtailed). This forms a sharp contrast with
medieval Europe, where the Church curbed the power
of secularism|secular rulers and the same faith
was professed by rulers and common folk alike.

According to Confucianism, the worship of great
deities is the affair of the state, while
ancestral worship is required of all, and the
multitude of popular cults is tolerated.
Confucianism tolerated magic and mysticism as long
as they were useful tools for controlling the
masses; it denounced them as heresy and suppressed
them when they threatened the established order
(hence the opposition to Buddhism). Note that in
this context, Confucianism can be referred to as
the state cult, and Taoism as the popular
religion.

Weber argued that while several factors favoured
the development of a capitalist economy (long
periods of peace, improved control of rivers,
population growth, freedom to acquire land and
move outside of native community, free choice of
occupation) they were outweighed by others (mostly
stemming from religion):
* technical inventions were opposed on the basis
of religion, in the sense that the disturbance of
ancestral spirits was argued to lead to bad luck,
and adjusting oneself to the world was preferred
to changing it. 
* sale of land was often prohibited or made very
difficult.
* extended kinship groups (based on the religious
importance of family ties and ancestry) protected
its members against economic adversities,
therefore discouraging payment of debts, work
discipline, and rationalization of work processes.
* those kinship groups prevented the development
of an urban status class and hindered developments
towards legal institutions, codification of laws,
and the rise of a lawyer class.

According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism
represent two comprehensive but mutually exclusive
types of rationalization, each attempting to order
human life according to certain ultimate religious
beliefs. Both encouraged sobriety and self-control
and were compatible with the accumulation of
wealth. However, Confucianism aimed at attaining
and preserving "a cultured status position" and
used as means adjustment to the world, education,
self-perfection, politeness and familial piety.
Puritanism used those means in order to create a
"tool of God", creating a person that would serve
the God and master the world. Such intensity of
belief and enthusiasm for action were alien to the
aesthetic values of Confucianism. Therefore, Weber
states that it was the difference in prevailing
mentality that contributed to the development of
capitalism in the West and the absence of it in
China.

====The Religion of India: The Sociology of
Hinduism and Buddhism====

The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism
and Buddhism was Weber's third major work on the
sociology of religion. In this work he deals with
the structure of India|Indian society, with the
orthodox doctrines of Hinduism and the heterodox
doctrines of Buddhism, with modifications brought
by the influence of popular religiosity, and
finally with the impact of religious beliefs on
the secular ethic of Indian society.

The Indian social system was shaped by the concept
of caste. It directly linked religious belief and
the segregation of society into status groups.
Weber describes the caste system, consisting of
the Brahmins (priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors),
the Vaisyas (merchants), the Sudras (labourers),
and the untouchables. Then he describes the spread
of the caste system in India due to conquests, the
marginalization of certain tribes and the
subdivision of castes.

Weber pays special attention to Brahmins and
analyses why they occupied the highest place in
Indian society for many centuries. With regard to
the concept of dharma he concludes that the Indian
ethical pluralism is very different both from the
universal ethic of Confucianism and Christianity.
He notes that the caste system prevented the
development of urban status groups.

Next, Weber analyses the Hindu religious beliefs,
including asceticism and the Hindu world view, the
Brahman orthodox doctrines, the rise and fall of
Buddhism in India, the Hindu restoration, and the
evolution of the guru.  Weber asks the question
whether religion had any influence upon the daily
round of mundane activities, and if so, how it
impacted economic conduct. He notes the idea of an
immutable world order consisting of the eternal
cycles of rebirth and the deprecation of the
mundane world, and finds that the traditional
caste system, supported by the religion, slowed
economic development; in other words, the "spirit"
of the caste system militated against an
indigenous development of capitalism.

Weber concludes his study of society and religion
in India by combining his findings with his
previous work on China. He notes that the beliefs
tended to interpret the meaning of life as
otherworldly or mysticism|mystical experience,
that the intellectuals tended to be
Wiktionary:apolitical|apolitical in their
orientation, and that the social world was
fundamentally divided between the educated, whose
lives were oriented toward the exemplary conduct
of a prophet or wise man, and the uneducated
masses who remained caught in their daily rounds
and believed in magic. In Asia, no Messianic
prophecy appeared that could have given "plan and
meaning to the everyday life of educated and
uneducated alike". He argues that it was the
Messianic prophecies in the countries of the Near
East, as distinguished from the prophecy of the
Asiatic mainland, that prevented the countries of
the Occident from following the paths of
development marked out by China and India, and his
next work, Ancient Judaism (book)|Ancient Judaism
was an attempt to prove this theory.

====Ancient Judaism====

In Ancient Judaism, his fourth major work on the
sociology of religion, Weber attempts to explain
the "combination of circumstances" that was
responsible for the early differences between
Oriental and Occidental religiosity. It is
especially visible when the interworldly
asceticism developed by Western Christianity is
contrasted with mystical contemplation of the kind
developed in India. Weber noted that some aspects
of Christianity sought to conquer and change the
world, rather than withdraw from its
imperfections. This fundamental characteristic of
Christianity (when compared to Far East|Far
Eastern religions) stems originally from the
ancient Jewish prophecy. 

Stating his reasons for investigating ancient
Judaism, Weber wrote that "Anyone who is heir to
the traditions of modern European civilization
will approach the problems of universal history
with a set of questions, which to him appear both
inevitable and legitimate. These questions will
turn on the combination of circumstances which has
brought about the cultural phenomena that are
uniquely Western and that have at the same time
(…) a universal cultural significance".

"For the Jew (…) the social order of the
world was conceived to have been turned into the
opposite of that promised for the future, but in
the future it was to be overturned so that Jewry
could be once again dominant. The world was
conceived as neither eternal nor unchangeable, but
rather as being created. Its present structure was
a product of man's actions, above all those of the
Jews, and God's reaction to them. Hence the world
was a historical product designed to give way to
the truly God-ordained order (…). There
existed in addition a highly rational religious
ethic of social conduct; it was free of magic and
all forms of irrational quest for salvation; it
was inwardly worlds apart from the path of
salvation offered by Asiatic religions. To a large
extent this ethic still underlies contemporary
Middle Eastern and European ethic.
World-historical interest in Jewry rests upon this
fact. (…) Thus, in considering the
conditions of Jewry's evolution, we stand at a
turning point of the whole cultural development of
the West and the Middle East".

Weber analyses the interaction between the
Bedouins, the cities, the herdsmen and the
peasants, including the conflicts between them and
the rise and fall of the United Monarchy. The time
of the United Monarchy appears as a mere episode,
dividing the period of confederation|confederacy
since the Exodus and the settlement of the
Israelites in Palestine (region)|Palestine from
the period of political decline following the
Division of the Monarchy. This division into
periods has major implications for religious
history. Since the basic tenets of Judaism were
formulated during the time of Israelite
confederacy and after the fall of the United
Monarchy, they became the basis of the prophetic
movement that left a lasting impression on the
Western civilization.

Weber discusses the organization of the early
confederacy, the unique qualities of the
Israelites' relations to Yahweh, the influence of
foreign cults, types of religious ecstasy, and the
struggle of the priests against ecstasy and idol
worship. He goes on to describe the times of the
Division of the Monarchy, social aspects of
Biblical prophecy, the social orientation of the
prophets, demagogues and pamphleteers, ecstasy and
politics, and the ethic and theodicity of the
prophets.

Weber notes that Judaism not only fathered
Christianity and Islam, but was crucial to the
rise of modern Occident state, as its influence
were as important to those of Hellenistic and
Ancient Rome|Roman cultures. 

Reinhard Bendix, summarizing Ancient Judaism,
writes that "free of magic and esoteric
speculations, devoted to the study of law,
vigilant in the effort to do what was right in the
eyes of the Lord in the hope of a better future,
the prophets established a religion of faith that
subjected man's daily life to the imperatives of a
divinely ordained moral law. In this way, ancient
Judaism helped create the moral rationalism of
Western civilization".

===Sociology of politics and government===
In the sociology of politics and government,
Weber's most significant essay is probably his
Politics as a Vocation. Therein, Weber unveils the
definition of the state that has become so pivotal
to Western social thought: that the state is that
entity which possesses a monopoly on the
legitimate use of physical force, which it may
nonetheless elect to delegate as it sees fit.
Politics is to be understood as any activity in
which the state might engage itself in order to
influence the relative distribution of force.
Politics thus comes to be understood as deriving
from power. A politician must not be a man of the
"true Christian ethic", understood by Weber as
being the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount, that
is to say, the injunction to turn the other cheek.
An adherent of such an ethic ought rather to be
understood to be a saint, for it is only saints,
according to Weber, that can appropriately follow
it. The political realm is no realm for saints. A
politician ought to marry the ethic of ultimate
ends and the ethic of responsibility, and must
possess both a passion for his avocation and the
capacity to distance himself from the subject of
his exertions (the governed).  

Weber distinguished three pure types of political
leadership, domination and authority: charismatic
domination (familial and religious), traditional
domination (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism),
and legal domination (modern law and state,
bureaucracy). In his view, every historical
relation between rulers and ruled contained
elements that can be analysed on the basis of this
tripartite classification of authority|tripartite
distinction. He also notes that the instability of
charismatic authority inevitably forces it to
"routinize" into a more structured form of
authority. Likewise he notes that in a pure type
of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a
master can lead to a "traditional revolution".
Thus he alludes to an inevitable move towards a
rational-legal structure of authority, utilizing a
bureaucratic structure. Thus this theory can be
sometimes viewed as part of the social
evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader
concept of rationalization by suggesting that the
inevitability of a move in this direction.

Weber is also well-known for his study of the
bureaucratization of society, the rational ways in
which formal social organizations apply the ideal
type characteristics of a bureaucracy. Many
aspects of modern public administration go back to
him, and a classic, hierarchically organized civil
service of the Continental type is called
"Weberian civil service", although this is only
one ideal type of public administration and
government described in his magnum opus Economy
and Society (1922), and one that he did not
particularly like himself - he only thought it
particularly efficient and successful. In this
work, Weber outlines a description, which has
become famous, of rationalization (of which
bureaucratization is a part) as a shift from a
value-oriented organization and action
(traditional authority and charismatic authority)
to a goal-oriented organization and action
(legal-rational authority). The result, according
to Weber, is a "polar night of icy darkness", in
which increasing rationalization of human life
traps individuals in an "iron cage" of rule-based,
rational control. Weber's bureaucracy studies also
led him to his analysis — correct, as it
would turn out — that socialism in Russia
would, due to the abolishing of the free market
and its mechanisms, lead to over-bureaucratization
(evident, for example, in the shortage economy)
rather than to the "withering away of the state"
(as Karl Marx had predicted would happen in
communism|communist society).

===Economics===

While Max Weber is best known and recognized today
as one of the leading scholars and founders of
modern sociology, he also accomplished much in the
field of economics. However, during his life no
such distinctions really existed.

From the point of view of the economists, he is a
representative of the "Youngest" German Historical
School. His most valued contributions to the field
of economics is his famous work, The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. This is a
seminal essay on the differences between religions
and the relative wealth of their followers.
Weber's work is parallel to Werner
Sombart|Sombart's treatise of the same phenomenon,
which however located the rise of Capitalism in
Judaism. Weber's other main contributions to
economics (as well as to social sciences in
general) is his work on methodology: his theories
of "Verstehen" (known as understanding or
Interpretative Sociology) and of antipositivism
(known as humanistic sociology).

The doctrine of Interpretative Sociology is as
well-known as it is controversial and debated.
This thesis states that social, economic and
historical research can never be fully Induction
(philosophy)|inductive or descriptive
(philosophy)|descriptive as one must always
approach it with a conceptual apparatus. This
apparatus Weber identified as the "Ideal Type".
The idea can be summarized as follows: an ideal
type is formed from characteristics and elements
of the given phenomena but it is not meant to
correspond to all of the characteristics of any
one particular case. It is interesting to compare
Weber's Ideal Type to Ferdinand Toennies' concept
of the "Normal type|Normal Type".

Weber conceded that employing "Ideal Types" was an
abstraction but claimed that it was nonetheless
essential if one were to understand any particular
social phenomena because, unlike physical
phenomena, they involve human behaviour which must
be interpreted by ideal types. This, together with
his antipositivistic argumentation can be viewed
as the methodological justification for the
assumption of the "rational economic man" (homo
economicus).

Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of
stratification, with social class, status class
and party class (or political class) as
conceptually distinct elements.
* Social class is based on economically determined
relationship to the market (owner, renting|renter,
employee etc.).
* Status class is based on non-economical
qualities like honour, prestige and religion.
* Party class refers to affiliations in the
political domain.
All three dimensions have consequences for what
Weber called "life chances".

Weber's other contributions to economics were
several: these include a (seriously researched)
economic Die Römische Agrargeschichte in ihrer
Bedeutung für das Staats- und Privatrecht|history
of Roman agrarian society, his work on the dual
roles of idealism and materialism in the history
of capitalism in his Economy and Society : An
Outline of Interpretive Sociology|Economy and
Society (1914) which present Weber's criticisms
(or according to some, revisions) of some aspects
of Marxism. Finally, his thoroughly researched
Wirtschaftsgeschichte|General Economic History
(1923) is perhaps the Historical School at its
empirical best.

==Works==

Note: Weber wrote his books in German
language|German. Original titles printed after his
death (1920) are most likely compilations of his
unfinished works (note the 'Collected Essays...'
form in titles). Many translations are made of
parts or selections of various German originals,
and the names of the translations often do not
reveal what part of German work they contain.

For an extensive list of Max Weber works, please
see list of Max Weber works.

==Attacks from conservatives==

Despite, or perhaps because of, Weber's influence
on modern economics and sociology, aspects of his
work have been criticized. 

During his own lifetime, Weber was critical of the
neoclassical economic approaches of authors such
as Carl Menger and Friedrich von Weiser, whose
formal approach was quite different from his own
historical sociology. The work of these authors
eventually led to the creation of the Austrian
School of economics, and it is not surprising that
today those influenced by that school continue to
take issue with Weber's work. This includes
followers of Friedrich von Hayek and, more
recently, authors Daniel Yergin and Joseph
Stanislaw. In their pro-globalization book The
Commanding Heights, they attack Weber for claiming
that only Protestantism could lead to a work
ethic, pointing to the "Tiger Economies" of
Southeastern Asia.

Similarly, Weber's 'Protestant Ethic' thesis has
been criticized by many historians of the period.
In his biography of Benjamin Franklin, for
instance, Walter Isaacson dismissed Weber's work
on the Protestant ethic as a "Marxist" argument
despite Weber's criticism of many of Marx's ideas.

== References ==

Weber's work is generally quoted according to the
critical http://www.mohr.de/mw/mwg.htm
Gesamtausgabe (collected works edition), which is
published by Mohr Siebeck in Tübingen, Germany.  

* Reinhard Bendix|Bendix, Reinhard (1960). Max
Weber: An Intellectual Portrait. Doubleday.
* Dirk Kaesler|Kaesler, Dirk (1989). Max Weber: An
Introduction to His Life and Work. University of
Chicago Press.
* Wolfgang Mommsen|Mommsen, Wolfgang (1974). Max
Weber und die Deutsche Politik 1890-1920. J.C.B.
Mohr (Paul Siebeck)
* Roth, Guenther (2001). Max Webers
deutsch-englische Familiengeschichte. J.C.B. Mohr
(Paul Siebeck)
* Marianne Weber|Weber, Marianne (1929/1988). Max
Weber: A Biography. New Brunswick: Transaction
Books.

*
http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m02
54/is_4_58/ai_58496750 Richard Swedberg, "Max
Weber as an Economist and as a Sociologist",
American Journal of Economics and Sociology

==See also==
*Civil religion
*Political religion
*Liberalism
*Contributions to liberal theory
*List of economists
*List of sociologists
*Speeches of Weber
*Spirit of capitalism

==External links==
Wikisource2|Author:Max Weber|Max Weber
Texts of Weber works:
*
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/paed/Flitner/Flitner/W
eber/index.htm Large collection of the German
original texts
*
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber_text
s.html Large collection of English translations
*
http://www.cpm.ehime-u.ac.jp/AkamacHomePage/Akamac
_E-text_Links/Weber.html Another collection of
English translations
*
http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/sociosite/topics/weber.html
Yet another collection of English translations
*
http://ssr1.uchicago.edu/PRELIMS/Theory/weber.html
English translations of many of Weber's works,
unfortunately merged into one very long
unformatted file

About Weber:
* http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/weber.htm
Biography entry and link section
* http://www.ualr.edu/~jdrobson/idealtype.htm
Weber on Ideal Types
*
http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Weber/WEBRP
ER.HTML Max Weber - The person
*
http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Weber/WEBER
W3.HTML More of Weber on Ideal Types
* http://www.criticism.com/md/weber1.html An essay
on Max Weber's View of Objectivity in Social
Science
*
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y64l09.html
Max Weber: On Bureaucracy — A study guide
developed for a political theory course which
draws from several works by, or about, Weber
thoughts on bureaucracy
*
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y64l10.html
Max Weber: On Capitalism As above, but on
capitalism
*
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc2r3/web
er/weberidx.htm Some of Weber concepts in the form
of a list
*
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Webe
r/Whome.htm Max Weber's HomePage "A site for
undergraduates"

Images:
*
http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~kaesler/max.html
Dirk Kaesler's Max Weber gallery

lived|b=1864|d=1920|key=Weber, Max