Chapter 8, Max Weber

• Max Weber was born in Erfurt, Saxony
• Helene and Max were from prosperous, upper class families
• Helene was a devout Protestant
• His father was a stern patriarch
• Max-in the liberal party-middle of the road, constitutional/deferred to "iron-rule"
• father-moral compromise/mother:moral absolutism
• Weber was more of a moral absolutist
• historians, politicians, academics visited the home
• Weber joined a fraternity: drunk/duels/brawls
• During his first undergraduate year, Weber gained a great deal of weight and acquired the obligatory dueling scar across his cheek.
• elegant goose step though hated taking orders
• returned to the university
• became a member of Association for Social Policy
• research in political economy
• liberal socialists helped Weber launch his academic reputation
• academic success came very quickly to him
• economic professor at U. Freiburg
• married the daughter of a cousin
• struck down by a neurotic disorder
• for weeks at a time Weber did nothing but sit at a window, idly picking at the ends of his fingers.
• 1903, Weber took over Archives for Social Science and Social Policy
• wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism(1904-1905)
• Economy and Society, 1925
• believed Germans were fighting for honor, not economic gain.
• didn't like the Marxist Social Democratic Party
• Weber-delegate to meetings in Versailles, France
• Weber said: "so long as madmen carry on in politics from the right to the left, I shall stay away from it."
• Weber died of influenza
• tormented personal life
• "The only course left to the modern individual is to learn how to live with the competing and incommensurable demands of reasoned analysis and ethical commitment."-Weber
• Count Otto von Bismarck, head of Wilhelm I's Prussia
• Bismarck engineered a short war in 1866 with Austria
• Bismarck, practical power politics
• Bismarck co-opted working class organizations by giving everyone the right to vote
• Bismarck made an alliance between landowners and industrialists
• Weber believed German peasants would overtake East Prussia
• Germany did not unify quickly enough to become an imperial power
• the Social Democratic Party appealed to urban artisans and to the lower bourgeoisie
• in the 1890s, Bismarck forced anti-socialist legislation through the Reichstag allowed censors to suppress working class organizations whenever necessary
• Germany was unified in 1871, encouraged rapid economic growth
• Germans workers got a state run system of social security
• the Spartacus League became extremely militant
• the Independent Socialists refused to support German militarism
• government troops suppressed unrest in the streets
• Weber believed leftists put class before nation
• Hitler became the German chancellor
• Kant: natural sciences give us knowledge
• moral philosophy based on innate morals
• Weber believed intellectuals were not good at making moral judgments
• "intellectual vigor, analysis, and clear thinking are associated with the life of free men."-William Ellery Channing(1780-1842)
• Weber treated political participation as a pragmatic, not philosophical problem
• Weber: "It is not possible to live in terms of ethical ideals without withdrawing from the world."
• Weber was only exposed to Marx through secondary sources
• Weber's work complements Marx's
• didn't believe societies followed general laws of development

Four types of action:

1. Rationally purposeful( Zweckrational) sell drugs to improve economic position

2. Value-rational (vetrarational) Buddhists define "salvation" differently than Protestants

3. Affective action: emotional and impulsive

4. traditional action: rites of succession for group leaders

power, probability someone will do what you say

domination, probability a command will be obeyed

• class differences determine power differentials in society
• status from property ownership
• political parties: power for power's sake

a) Class

b) Status

c) Party

• states use rational/legal or traditional authority
• bureaucrats, authority from offices
• traditional authority: the English crown
• charismatic leader, emerge during a crisis
• Weber believed religion was an important part of social action

What Religions do

• problem of human suffering, tragedy, and death
• cultural order of how life can be meaningful
• goals and values of ultimate significance
• Protestant: ascetic and methodical lifestyle
• society: network of social relationships
• human freedom: make informed choices among many different types of commitment
• ethic of success(pragmatism) vs. ethic of responsibility (morality)
• we can be reflective and cautious
• capitalism standardized the experiences of many individuals
• institutionalized impersonal leadership
• modern life excludes shared value commitments, a charismatic leader is needed
• asceticism and mysticism: ways of escape
• ascetics: pleasure from the task
• mystics: states of mind. Drugs, meditation, sexual promiscuity, sport, travel. p. 239