Max Weber

Dr. Sasmita Mishra

KSOM, Bhubaneswar
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Brief Bio (1864-1920)
Personal Life
• Born in a rich Protestant family on 21st April 1864 in Erfurt, Germany
• Early life in Berlin – father bureaucrat, high political position
• Father hedonist, mother Calvinist – lead an ascetic life
• Marital discord had profound effect on Weber’s personality
• Became a beer addict – given to enjoyment of life like his father
• For eight year he stayed with parents and was dependent on them
• Did not like the bulling behaviour of his father towards mother
• Clashed violently with his father – asked him to quit home who died within a month – Weber became a mental wreck because
of this

Professional Life
• Joined law in the University of Heidelberg at the age of 18
• Got interested in medieval history and philosophy.
• Varied experiences – soldier, professor, politician, legal expert and also a sociologist
• Major work: “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – 1930”
• Throughout life he was caught between father’s bureaucratic mind and mother’s
religiosity – this was reflected in many of his works
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
His Contributions

Ideal type

Religion
and
Capitalism
Theory of
bureaucracy
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Theory of Bureaucracy
The concept
• Term ‘bureaucracy’ originates from French word ‘bureau’ –
means desk or table – government running from table called
bureaucratic government
• A particular system of administration
• Historically associated with rule of government and government
officials
• Concentration of power in the hands of governments
• Seen in formal organizations pursuing a wide variety of goals
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Theory of Bureaucracy
Characteristics of Bureaucracy
1. Fixed official jurisdiction area
2. Hierarchy of authority
3. Clear-cut division of labour
4. Appointment based on eligibility
5. Fixed salary, allowances and pension
6. Office and maintenance of files
7. Appointment of officials on full time and long term service basis
8. Difference between private matter and official issues
9. Supervision of work by higher officials
10. Systematisation of official relations with officials: orders and communication proceed through proper
channel
11. Political neutrality
12. Guidance by past procedures
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Theory of Bureaucracy
Dysfunctions of Bureaucracy
• Static rules for dynamic situations
• Unnecessary waste of time and red-tapism
• Quarrel among officials
• Blind rules and uncreative officials
• Ever expanding army of employees
• Human relations are made to become mechanical
• Bureaucracy unsuited to face emergencies
• Bureaucracies become corrupt and puppets in the hands of the vested interests
• Bureaucracies tend to exist even after the achievement of their goals
• New despotism: Bureaucrats are new despots – they have knowledge and expertise – they wish that
every decision should be taken to meet their whims and wishes
• Superiority complex: bureaucrats usually come from educated families – enjoy certain social prestige
and economic privileges – after joining services they enjoy more of it – they thus suffer from
superiority complex
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Theory of Bureaucracy
• According to Weber it is the best administrative form for the rational
pursuit of organizational goals
• Bureaucracy has become indispensable – It means a large scale formal
organization of modern society with specialized functions
• Bureaucratization and rationalization go together

Types of authority
• Rational-legal
• Traditional
• Charismatic
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Theory of Bureaucracy
Charismatic Traditional Legal-Rational

Type of ruler Charismatic leader Dominant personality Functional superiors or bureaucratic officials

Position determined by Having a dynamic personality Established tradition or routine Legally established authority

Extraordinary qualities and Acquired or inherited (hereditary) Virtue of rationally established norms, decrees, and
Ruled using
exceptional powers qualities other rules and regulations

General belief in the formal correctness of these rules

Victories and success to
Legitimized Established tradition or routine and those who enact them are considered a legitimized
community
authority

Interpersonal & personal

Loyalty Based on traditional allegiances To authority / rules
allegiance and devotion

Cohesion Emotionally unstable and volatile Feeling of common purpose Abiding by rules (see Merton's theory of deviance)

Leadership Rulers and followers (disciples) Established forms of social conduct Rules, not rulers
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Religion and Capitalism
• Protestant ethic provides motivation for hard work and deferred gratification
• Weber made two observations:
• Great material achievements have resulted from the work of monastic
orders,
• Specifically ascetic Protestant sects were noted for their economic
success
• T herefore, We ber projected a hypothesis: “T here appeared to be a
paradoxically positive relationship between ascetic religious belief and
economic enterprise”
• The “religious belief ” refers to Protestant Ethic and “economic enterprise”
denotes capitalism
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Religion and Capitalism
• On the basis of historical study, Weber asserted that modern capitalism emerged not simply by inner economic
necessity, but by the religious ethic of Protestantism, and particularly of Calvinism
• Early Calvinists believed that they had been predestined by God to salvation in heaven or damnation in hell
• No one could do anything to change his or her fate – only a small minority were among the elect who would go
to heaven
• The duty of the believers was to abstain from pleasure and to spend their lives working for the glory of the God.
• Thus the Calvinists looked for signs that they were among the ‘elect’ – and found these signs in their worldly
success
• The more successful a person was at work, the more likely he or she was to be among the elect.
• Since profits could not be spent on pleasure, they had to be reinvested
• Modern capitalism was born thus, Weber argued
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Religion and Capitalism
Values in “Protestantism” in harmony with the spirit of capitalism
• Changed attitude towards work: Protestantism considers work as a kind of virtue –
hard work contributes to the glory of god
• Concept of “calling”: In order to achieve salvation every individual has to pursue a
calling (engage in a job or vocation), work hard and become successful. Successful
entrepreneurs are marked for salvation
• Wealth is to be used for productive purposes: The Ethic insists on strict moral life –
Acquired wealth and profit not meant for enjoyment but for further production of
wealth.
• Strictures on alcoholism: Ethic prohibits consumption of alcohol – Extravagance
and merriment are discouraged – Saving and investment are encouraged
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Religion and Capitalism
Values in “Protestantism” in harmony with the spirit of capitalism
• Encouragement to literacy and learning: This stress on literacy helped mass
education among Protestants
• Rejection of holidays: Work is important to achieve the glory of God –
Time should not be wasted under the pretext of observing “holidays”
• New attitude towards collection of interest on loans: It multiplies capital and
encourages new investment
• Honesty is one’s calling: God always supports and select the honest ones
and not the dishonest ones
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Ideal Type
• Ideal type is a systematic construct that serves as a measuring rod for
researchers to learn similarities as well as differences in actual cases.
• Ideal Types as Conceptual Tools and Standards of Comparison
• Ideal types-
Ø Are not hypotheses
Ø They do not state or imply an ethical ideal
Ø Do not state an ‘average’ type
Ø They do not exhaust reality; i.e., they do not correspond exactly to any
empirical evidences
• Ex. Value relevant question: Why did capitalism arise in Europe?
This requires construction of an ideal type: what do we mean by capitalim?
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Ideal Type
• It is not the purpose of ideal types to describe or explain the world – they provide us
with points of comparison from which to observe it
• By comparing ideal type capitalism with actual capitalism, we can highlight their
characteristics – how much they match, how much they differ
• Sociologists use ideal types like ‘primary and secondary groups’, ‘bureaucracy’, types
of authority like ‘charismatic, traditional and legal-rational’ etc
• Causality and probability
• Only insane behaviours are unpredictable
• Historical and sociological causality
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Ideal Type
Main Characteristics of Ideal Types
1. They are mental constructs or subjective in nature – depends on our capacity of comprehension
and imagination
2. Since ideal types are mental constructs, they do not exactly correspond to the reality
3. Ideal types are theoretical tools to understand reality
4. Ideal types are not the instruments to denote statistical average
5. It is essentially a ‘one-sided model’
6. Ideal types do not provide an exhaustive description of a social phenomenon
7. Ideal types are not rigid or fixed things, but are subject to change – abstract in nature and
reside in our imagination – changeable and subject to consideration from time to time – affected
by social thinking and social environments – hence can not be permanent
8. Weber suggested “major discrepancies between reality and the ideal type would lead to the type
being redefined”
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Ideal Type
Critical Comments about “Ideal types”
1. Though the ideal type is a ‘mental construct’; many a times it is confused to be the ‘actual reality’ itself
2. There is also the possibility of considering the ‘ideal type as a mythical being into which data are forced in’
3. It is commented that the concept of ideal type is very complex and only an expert sociologist can understand
and make use of it efficiently
4. Though ideal types are very significant in the study of social sciences, their usage is somewhat limited because
they can not be used in all types of social analysis
5. There are critics who argue that “ideal type analysis should be dropped as utterly inappropriate to sociological
analysis once this is seen as involving the meaningful understanding of specific cases and not the development
of general concepts and general theories”
6. Weber himself had argued that “ideal types were not models to be tested. However, other sociologists treat
them as testable models of the real world. Further confusion may arise since Weber himself often implicitly
used ideal types as testable models.”
Dr. Sasmita Mishra
Critical Questions
• Compare and contrast between Weber’s and Comte’s sociological
methods
• The way Weber had related the Protestantism with Capitalism or
economic prosperity, try to compare the lifestyle taught by your
religion with the type of development in human civilisation.