Early life and education

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was born on 21 April 1864 in Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Prussia, but his family moved to Berlin in 1869.^[1] He was the oldest of eight children to Max Weber Sr. and his wife Helene Fallenstein.^[2] Over the course of his life, Weber Sr. held posts as a lawyer, civil servant, and parliamentarian for the National Liberal Party in the Prussian Landtag and German Reichstag.^[3] Fallenstein was partly descended from French Huguenot immigrants and came from a wealthy background.^[4] Over time, Weber Jr. would be affected by the marital and personality tensions between his father, "a man who enjoyed earthly pleasures" while overlooking religious and philanthropic causes, and his mother, a devout Calvinist "who sought to lead an ascetic life" and held moral absolutist ideas.^[5]

Max Weber (left) and his brothers, Alfred (center) and Karl (right), in 1879

Weber Sr.'s involvement in public life immersed his home in both politics and academia, as his salon welcomed scholars and public figures such as the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, the jurist Levin Goldschmidt, and the historian Theodor Mommsen. The young Max Weber and his brother Alfred, who also became a sociologist, passed their formative years in this intellectual atmosphere.^[6] In 1870, Weber entered the Döbbelin private school in Charlottenburg.^[7] While in class, bored and unimpressed with his teachers, Weber secretly read all forty volumes by the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.^[8] Goethe would later exert an important influence on his thought and methodology.^[9] Before entering university, he read many other classical works, including those by the philosopher Immanuel Kant.^[10] For Christmas in 1877, a thirteen-year-old Max Weber gifted his parents two historical essays, entitled "About the Course of German history, with Special Reference to the Positions of the Emperor and the Pope", and "About the Roman Imperial Period from Constantine to the Migration Period". Two years later, at roughly the same time of the year, he wrote another historical essay, "Observations on the Ethnic Character, Development, and History of the Indo-European Nations". All of these essays were non-derivative contributions to the philosophy of history and were derived from Weber's reading of "numerous sources".^[11]

In 1882, Weber enrolled in Heidelberg University as a law student, later studying at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and the University of Göttingen.^[12] Simultaneously with his studies, he practiced law and worked as a lecturer.^[13] In 1886, Weber passed the examination for Referendar, comparable to the bar association examination in the British and U.S. legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, Weber continued his study of law and history.^[14] Under the tutelage of Levin Goldschmidt and Rudolf von Gneist, Weber earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a dissertation on legal history titled Development of the Principle of Joint Liability and a Separate Fund of the General Partnership out of the Household Communities and Commercial Associations in Italian Cities. This work would be used as part of a longer work, On the History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages, Based on Southern European Documents, published in the same year.^[15] Two years later, working with the statistician August Meitzen, Weber completed his habilitation, a post-doctoral thesis, titled Roman Agrarian History and Its Significance for Public and Private Law.^[16] Having thus become a privatdozent, Weber joined the faculty of Friedrich Wilhelm University, lecturing, doing research, and consulting for the government.^[17]

Weber's years as a university student were dotted with several periods of military service, the longest of which lasted between October 1883 to September 1884. During this time, he was in Strasbourg and attended classes taught by his uncle, the historian Hermann Baumgarten.^[18] Weber befriended Baumgarten and he influenced Weber's growing liberalism and criticism of Otto von Bismarck's domination of German politics.^[19] During his first few years in university, he acted similarly to the other students, who were members of fraternities and placed emphasis on drinking beer and fencing.^[20] He was a member of the Burschenschaft Allemannia Heidelberg and obtained several duelling scars on the left side of his face as the result of his duelling.^[21] His mother was displeased by his behaviour and slapped him when he came home after his third semester ended in 1883. However, Weber matured, increasingly began to take his mother's side in family arguments, and grew estranged from his father.^[22]

Marriage

Max Weber and his wife Marianne in 1894

Max Weber had a relationship and semi-engagement with Emmy Baumgarten, the daughter of Hermann Baumgarten, from 1887 until her declining mental health caused him to break off their relationship five years later.^[23] Afterwards, he entered a relationship with his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger in 1893 and married her on 20 September.^[24] The marriage granted long-awaited financial independence to Weber, allowing him to finally leave his parents' household.^[25] They had no children.^[26] Marianne was a feminist activist and an author in her own right.^[27] She was instrumental in collecting, editing, and publishing Weber's writings in book form after his death, while her biography of him is an important source for understanding Weber's life.^[28] In 1909, they befriended a former student of his, Else von Richthofen, and the pianist Mina Tobler. After a failed attempt to court Richthofen, Weber began an affair with Tobler in 1911.^[29] Eight years later, he began a sadomasochistic affair with Richthofen, who was also conducting an affair with his brother, Alfred. These affairs lasted until his death in 1920.^[30]

Early work and breakdown

In the years between the completion of his dissertation and habilitation, Weber took an interest in contemporary social policy. In 1888, he joined the Verein für Socialpolitik, a new professional association of German economists affiliated with the historical school. They saw the role of economics primarily as finding solutions to the social problems of the age and pioneered large scale statistical studies of economic issues. He also involved himself in politics, joining the left-leaning Evangelical Social Congress.^[31] In 1890, the Verein established a research program to examine "the Polish question", or ostflucht: the influx of Polish farm workers into eastern Germany as local labourers migrated to Germany's rapidly industrialising cities.^[32] Weber was put in charge of the study and wrote a large part of the final report, which generated considerable attention and controversy, marking the beginning of Weber's renown as a social scientist.^[33]

From 1893 to 1899, Weber was a member of the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband), an organisation that campaigned against the influx of Polish workers; the degree of his support for the Germanisation of Poles and similar nationalist policies continues to be debated by modern scholars.^[34] Weber and his wife moved to Freiburg in 1894, where he was appointed professor of economics at the University of Freiburg.^[35] During his tenure there, in 1895, he gave a provocative lecture titled "The Nation State and Economic Policy", where he criticised the immigration of Poles and blamed the Junkers for perpetuating Slavic immigration to serve their selfish interests.^[36] It influenced the politician Friedrich Naumann to create the National-Social Association, which was a Christian socialist and nationalist political organisation.^[37] Weber was pessimistic regarding the association's ability to succeed, and it dissolved after winning a single seat in the Reichstag during the 1903 German federal election.^[38] In 1896, Weber accepted an appointment to a chair in economics and finance at Heidelberg University.^[39] There, Weber and his wife became the central figures in the eponymous "Weber Circle", which included Georg Jellinek, Ernst Troeltsch, and Werner Sombart. Younger scholars, such as György Lukács and Robert Michels, also joined it.^[40]

In 1897, Weber Sr. died two months after a severe quarrel with his son that was never resolved.^[41] After this, Weber became increasingly prone to depression, nervousness, and insomnia, which made it difficult for him to fulfill his duties as a professor.^[42] His condition forced him seek an exemption from his teaching obligations, which he was granted in 1899. He spent time in the Konstanzer Hof sanatorium in 1898 and a different one near the Swabian Jura in 1900. Weber also travelled to Corsica and Italy between 1899 and 1903 in order to alleviate his illness.^[43] He would fully withdraw from teaching in 1903 and did not return to it until 1918.^[44] Weber's ordeal with mental illness was carefully described in a personal chronology that was later destroyed by his widow. The reason for its destruction was possibly because Marianne feared that Weber's work would be discredited by the Nazis if his experience with mental illness were widely known.^[45]

Later work

Max Weber in 1907

Once he had recovered from his illness, he accepted a position as an associate editor of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik in 1904, alongside his colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Werner Sombart. It facilitated his reintroduction to academia and became one of the most prominent social science journals as a result of his efforts.^[46] Weber published some of his most seminal papers in this journal, notably his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which became his most famous work and laid the foundations for his later research on the impact of religion on the development of economic systems.^[47] In it, he argued that the source for the "spirit of capitalism" was in the Reformation. More specifically, he traced it to the Puritan religions. They placed great importance on work, to a degree where other actions mattered less.^[48] They had a religious calling to work that caused them to systematically obtain wealth. The Puritans wished to prove that they were members of the elect who were destined to go to Heaven.^[49] Benjamin Franklin's personal ethic, as described in his "Advice to a Young Tradesman", was used as an example of the economic ethic that the Protestant sects had.^[50] The thesis also contained themes that Weber would later prove central to his scholarship: rationalisation and the ideal type.^[51] Rationalisation pertained to the increasing systemisation of life that ultimately caused religious influence to decline.^[52] Rationalisation also caused Western society to be caught in the "stahlhartes Gehäuse" ("iron cage" or "steel-hard casing") that was the economic order that was created by modern capitalism.^[53] The ideal types were representative figures, or case studies, that represented concepts.^[54]

Also in 1904, Max Weber was invited to participate in the Congress of Arts and Sciences held in connection with the World's fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) in St. Louis, alongside his wife, Werner Sombart, Ernst Troeltsch, and other German scholars.^[55] Taking advantage of the fair, the Webers embarked on a trip that began and ended in New York City and lasted for almost three months. They travelled throughout the country, from New England to the Deep South. Different communities were visited, including German immigrant towns and African American communities.^[56] Among the places visited was North Carolina, where some of his relatives in the Fallenstein family had settled.^[57] Weber used the trip to learn more about America and this experience played a role in the development of the Protestant work ethic. He used the trip to find social and theological conditions that could contribute to his thesis. Weber also used the trip to further his knowledge of the United States' social and economic conditions more generally.^[58] After returning, Weber felt that he was unable to resume regular teaching at that time and continued on as a private scholar, helped by an inheritance in 1907.^[59] In 1909, disappointed with the Verein, he co-founded the German Sociological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie) and served as its first treasurer. He resigned from the position in 1912.^[60]

Political involvements

Later, during the spring of 1913, Weber holidayed in the Monte Verità community in Ascona.^[61] While holidaying, he was advising Frieda Gross in her custody battle for her children. He opposed Erich Mühsam's involvement due to Mühsam's support for anarchism, arguing that the case needed to be dealt with by bourgeois reformers who were not "derailed".^[62] A year later, also in spring, he again holidayed in Ascona.^[63] In the community, there were several different expressions of the radical political and lifestyle reform movements that were in existence at the time. They included naturism, free love, and Western esotericism, among others. Weber was critical of the anarchist and erotic movements in Ascona, as he viewed their fusion as having been politically absurd.^[64]

First World War

At the outbreak of First World War, Weber, aged 50, volunteered for service and was appointed as a reserve officer in charge of organising the army hospitals in Heidelberg, a role he fulfilled until the end of 1915.^[65] Weber's views on the war and the expansion of the German Empire changed during the course of the conflict.^[66] Early on, he supported nationalist rhetoric and the war effort, though with some hesitation, viewing the war as a necessity to fulfill German duty as a leading state power. In time, however, Weber became one of the most prominent critics of both German expansionism and the Kaiser's war policies.^[67] Weber publicly criticised the Belgian annexation policy and unrestricted submarine warfare, later supporting calls for constitutional reform, democratisation, and universal suffrage.^[68]

Max Weber (facing right) with Ernst Toller (facing camera) during the Lauenstein Conferences in 1917

He and his wife also participated in the 1917 Lauenstein Conferences that were held at Lauenstein Castle in Bavaria.^[69] These conferences were planned by the publisher Eugen Diederichs for the purpose of bringing together intellectuals who would create a new age for Germany. Theodor Heuss, Ernst Toller, and Werner Sombart were among the other intellectuals who were invited.^[70] Weber's presence elevated his profile in Germany and served to dispel some of the romantic atmosphere of the event. After he spoke at the first one, he became involved in the planning for the second one, as Diederichs thought that the conferences needed someone who could serve as an oppositional figure. In this capacity, he argued against the political romanticism that was being espoused by Max Maurenbrecher, a former theologian. Weber also opposed what he saw as the excessive rhetoric of the youth groups and nationalists at Lauenstein, instead supporting the democratisation of Germany.^[71] For Weber and the younger participants, the romantic intent of the conferences was irrelevant to the determination of Germany's future.^[72]

In November, shortly after the second conference, Weber was invited by the Free Student Youth, a student organisation, to give a lecture in Munich. The resulting lecture was titled "Science as a Vocation".^[73] In it, he described an inner calling as having been necessary for one to enter scholarship. The potential for a lack of success and career advancement was also an aspect of the career path. Weber thought that only a particular type of person would be able to make a career in academia. He used his own career as an example of a person whose career was in academia. Recalling the arguments that he made regarding the Protestant ethic, he stated that the path forward in scholarship required the scholar to be self-denying and methodical in their research. The modern scholar was to be a specialist who would be able to avoid amateurism.^[74] A major aspect of his commentary on the role of the scholar in modernity related to disenchantment and intellectual rationalisation. These processes resulted in the nature of life itself being questioned, creating the further question of the role of scholarship in life. Weber argued that scholarship could provide certainty through the use of its starting presumptions, in spite of its inability to give absolute answers.^[75]

Weimar Republic

Following the end of the war, Weber unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919 as a member of the liberal German Democratic Party, which he had co-founded.^[76] He also advised the National Assembly in its drafting of the Weimar Constitution.^[77] While he was campaigning for his party, Weber critiqued the left and complained about the leaders of the leftist Spartacus League, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, that controlled the city government of Berlin at the time. He regarded the German Revolution of 1918–1919 as having been responsible for Germany's inability to fight against Poland's claims on its territory in the east.^[78] His opposition to it may have prevented Friedrich Ebert, the new president of Germany and a member of the Social Democratic Party, from appointing Weber as a minister or ambassador.^[79] Weber was, at the same time, critical of the Treaty of Versailles, which he believed unjustly assigned war guilt to Germany. Instead, Weber believed that many countries were guilty of starting it, not just Germany.^[80] In making this case, Weber argued that Russia was the only great power that actually desired the war. He also regarded Germany as not having been culpable for the invasion of Belgium.^[81] Overall, Weber's political efforts were largely unsuccessful, with the exception of his support for a strong presidency that would be democratically elected.^[82]

Max Weber in 1918

On 28 January 1919, after his electoral defeat, Weber delivered a lecture titled "Politics as a Vocation", which commented on what he saw as the inherent violence and dishonesty among politicians.^[83] About the nature of politicians, he concluded that, "in nine out of ten cases they are windbags puffed up with hot air about themselves. They are not in touch with reality, and they do not feel the burden they need to shoulder; they just intoxicate themselves with romantic sensations."^[84] His lecture was prompted by the political turmoil of the early Weimar Republic and was requested by the Free Student Youth. He defined politics as having been divided into three aspects: passion, judgment, and responsibility. There was also a division between conviction and responsibility. These two concepts were sharply divided, but it was possible for them to be present in a single individual, particularly the ideal politician.^[85] The types of authority were themselves divided into traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal.^[86] Ultimately, Weber thought that the resolution to the political issues of his day required consistent effort, rather than the quick solutions that the students preferred.^[87]

Shortly before he left to join the delegation in Versailles on 13 May 1919, Max Weber used his connections with the deputies of the German National People's Party to meet with Erich Ludendorff. He spent several hours unsuccessfully trying to convince Ludendorff to surrender himself to the Allies.^[88] This debate also shifted to other subjects, such as who was culpable for the failure of the war effort. Weber thought that the high command had failed, while Ludendorff regarded Weber as a supporter of democracy who was partially responsible for the revolution. Weber tried to disabuse him of that notion by arguing in favour of a democracy that would have a strong executive power. Since he held Ludendorff responsible for the failure of the German war effort and having sent many young Germans to die on the battlefield, Weber thought that he should surrender himself and assume the status of a political martyr. However, Ludendorff was not willing to do so and wished to simply live off of his pension.^[89]

Last years

Weber's grave in Heidelberg

Frustrated with politics, Weber resumed teaching, first at the University of Vienna in 1918, then at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1919.^[90] Some of his lectures from that period were later collected into the General Economic History, which was published in 1923.^[91] In Vienna, Weber filled a previously vacant chair in political economy that he had been in consideration for since October 1917.^[92] Later, in Munich, he was appointed to Lujo Brentano's chair in social science, economic history, and political economy. He accepted the appointment in order to be closer to his mistress, Else von Richthofen.^[93] Many colleagues and students in Munich attacked his response to the German Revolution, while some right-wing students held protests in front of his home.^[94]

In early 1920, Max Weber gave a seminar that contained a discussion of Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West.^[95] Weber respected him and privately described him as having been "a very brilliant and scholarly dilettante".^[96] That seminar provoked some of his students, who knew Spengler personally, to suggest that he debate Spengler alongside other scholars. They met in the Munich town hall and debated for two days.^[97] The audience was primarily young Germans of different political perspectives, including communists. While neither Weber nor Spengler were able to convince the other of their points, Weber was more cautious and careful in his arguments against Spengler than the other debaters were. After the debate, the students did not feel that they had an answer to the question of what should be done to resolve the issues that Germany faced after the end of the First World War.^[96]

Lili, one of Max Weber's sisters, committed suicide on 7 April 1920 as a result of the end of her affair with the pedagogue Paul Geheeb.^[98] Weber and his wife took in their four children and planned to raise them. He was uncomfortable with his newfound role as a father figure, but thought that Marianne had been fulfilled as a woman by this event. She later formally adopted the children in 1928. Weber wished for her to stay with the children in Heidelberg or move closer to Geheeb's Odenwaldschule ("Odenwald School"), so that he could be alone in Munich with his mistress, Else von Richthofen. He left the decision to Marianne, who said that only he could make the decision to leave for himself.^[99]

On 4 June 1920, Weber's students were informed that he needed to cancel classes due to a cold. By 14 June 1920, the cold had turned into influenza and he died of pneumonia in Munich.^[100] He had likely contracted the Spanish flu and been subjected to insufficient medical care. Else von Richthofen, who was present for his death alongside his wife, thought that he could have survived his illness if he had been given better treatment.^[101] His body was cremated and the ashes were buried in Heidelberg.^[102] At the time of his death, Weber had not finished writing his magnum opus on sociological theory: Economy and Society. His widow, Marianne, helped prepare it for its publication in 1922.^[103]

Verstehen

In terms of methodology, Weber was primarily concerned with the question of objectivity and subjectivity, going on to distinguish social action from social behavior, noting that social action must be understood through how individuals subjectively relate to one another.^[107] According to him, the study of social action through interpretive means or verstehen ("to understand") needed to be based upon understanding the subjective meaning and purpose that individuals attached to their actions.^[108] Social actions may have had easily identifiable and objective means, but might have had much more subjective ends.^[109] Weber noted that the importance of subjectivity in the social sciences made the creation of fool-proof, universal laws much more difficult than in the natural sciences and that the amount of objective knowledge that social sciences were able to create was limited. Overall, Weber supported the goal of objective science as one worth striving for, though he noted that it was ultimately an unreachable goal.^[110]

The principle of methodological individualism, which holds that social scientists should seek to understand collectivities solely as the result and the context of the actions of individual persons, can be traced to Weber, particularly to the first chapter of Economy and Society, in which he argued that only individuals "can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action".^[112] In other words, Weber contended that social phenomena can be understood scientifically only to the extent that they are captured by models of the behaviour of purposeful individuals – models that Weber called "ideal types" – from which actual historical events necessarily deviate due to accidental and irrational factors.^[113] The analytical constructs of an ideal type never exist in reality, but provide objective benchmarks against which real-life constructs can be measured.^[114]

Weber's methodology was developed in the context of wider debates about methodology of social sciences.^[115] The first of which was the Methodenstreit ("method dispute").^[116] His position was close to historicism, as he understood social actions as being heavily tied to particular historical contexts and its analysis required the understanding of subjective motivations of individuals.^[117] Therefore, his methodology emphasised the use of comparative historical analysis.^[118] As such, he was more interested in explaining how a certain outcome was the result of various historical processes rather than predicting an outcome of those processes in the future.^[119] The second debate that shaped Weber's perspective on methodology was the Werturteilsstreit ("value-judgment dispute").^[120] This debate was held between 1909 and 1914 on the subject of value-judgements in the social sciences. It originated with a debate between the supporters of the idea that ethics was an important consideration in the field of economics and those who opposed that in the Verein für Socialpolitik.^[121] Weber's position was that the social sciences should strive to be value-free. In his view, scholars and students needed to avoid using their position to promote political values in the classroom. The choosing of values was something that science had no part in. With regards to economics, he argued that the productivity was not a useful scientific concept, as it could impede the proper evaluation of economic phenomena.^[122]

Rationalisation

rationalisation and the question of individual freedom in an increasingly rational society, was a central theme in Weber's scholarship.^[123] This theme was situated in the larger context of the relationship between psychological motivations, cultural values, and beliefs, and the structure of the society.^[119] Weber understood rationalisation as the individual cost-benefit calculation, the wider bureaucratic organisation of the organisations, and the opposite of understanding the reality through mystery and magic.^[124] Weber's studies of the subject began with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.^[51] In it, he argued that the redefinition of the connection between work and piety in Protestantism and especially in ascetic Protestant denominations, particularly Calvinism, shifted human effort towards rational efforts aimed at achieving economic gain.^[125] In Protestantism, piety towards God was expressed through one's secular vocation.^[126] The rational roots of this doctrine, he argued, soon grew incompatible with and larger than the religious and so the latter were eventually discarded.^[127]

Weber continued his investigation into this matter in later works, notably in his studies on bureaucracy and on the classification of legitimate authority into three types – rational-legal, traditional, and charismatic – of which rational-legal was the dominant one in the modern world.^[129] In these works, Weber described what he saw as society's movement towards rationalisation.^[130] Rationalisation could also be seen in the economy, with the development of highly rational and calculating capitalism.^[131] State bureaucracy and capitalism served as the twin pillars of the developing rational society. The preexisting traditions that relied on the trades were eliminated as a result of those changes.^[128] Weber also saw rationalisation as one of the main factors setting the European West apart from the rest of the world.^[132]

Features of rationalisation included increasing knowledge, growing impersonality and enhanced control of social and material life.^[133] Weber was ambivalent towards rationalisation. He admitted that it was responsible for many advances, particularly freeing humans from traditional, restrictive, and illogical social guidelines. However, he also criticised it for dehumanising individuals as "cogs in the machine" and curtailing their freedom, trapping them in the bureaucratic "iron cage" of rationality and bureaucracy.^[134] Related to rationalisation was the process of disenchantment, in which the world was becoming more explained and less mystical, moving from polytheistic religions to monotheistic ones and finally to the Godless science of modernity.^[135] However, another interpretation of Weber's theory of disenchantment, advanced by the philosopher Jason Josephson Storm, claimed that Weber did not envision a binary between rationalisation and magical thinking, and that Weber actually referred to the sequestering and professionalisation of magic when he described disenchantment, not to the disappearances of magic.^[136] Regardless, for Weber the processes of rationalisation affected all of society, removing "sublime values … from public life" and making art less creative.^[137]

Sociology of religion

Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion began with the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.^[47] It continued with his analyses in The Religion of China, The Religion of India, and Ancient Judaism.^[142] His work on other religions, however, would be interrupted by his sudden death in 1920, which prevented him from following Ancient Judaism with studies of early Christianity and Islam.^[143] The three main themes within the books were: religious ideas' effect on economic activities, the relationship between social stratification and religious ideas, and the distinguishable characteristics of Western civilisation.^[144] His goal was to find reasons for the different developmental paths of the cultures of the Western world and the Eastern world, without making value judgments, unlike the contemporaneous social Darwinists. Weber simply wanted to explain the distinctive elements of Western civilisation.^[145] Weber also proposed a socio-evolutionary model of religious change where societies moved from magic to ethical monotheism, with the intermediatory steps of polytheism, pantheism, and monotheism. According to him, this was the result of growing economic stability, which allowed for professionalisation and the evolution of an increasingly sophisticated priesthood.^[146] As societies grew more complex and encompassed different groups, a hierarchy of gods developed. Meanwhile, as their power became more centralised, the concept of a universal God became more popular and desirable.^[147]

The state, politics, and government

In political sociology, one of Weber's most influential contributions is his lecture "Politics as a Vocation", in which he defined "the state" as an entity that was "based on the legitimate use of force".^[190] Accordingly, Weber proposed that politics is the sharing of state power between various groups, whereas political leaders were those who wield this power.^[191] A politician needed to marry the oppositional gesinnungsethik and verantwortungsethik (the "ethic of conviction" and the "ethic of responsibility").^[192] An adherent of the verantwortungsethik would justify their actions based on their consequences. Meanwhile, an adherent of the gesinnungsethik would justify their actions based on their ideals. While Weber thought that they would ideally be present in a politician, he associated them with different types of people and mindsets. These different types of people and mindsets reflected the pacifists and those who wanted to undo Germany's loss in the First World War, respectively.^[193]

Weber distinguished three ideal types of legitimate authority:^[194]

1. Charismatic authority – familial and religious
2. Traditional authority – patriarchs, patrimonialism, feudalism
3. Rational-legal authority – modern law and state, bureaucracy

In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements, which could be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.^[195] Weber noted that the instability of charismatic authority forces it to routinise into a more structured form of authority.^[196] In an ideal type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a ruler would lead to a "traditional revolution". The move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, using a bureaucratic structure, is inevitable in the end.^[197] Therefore, this theory could sometimes be viewed as part of the sociocultural evolution theory. That was tied to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.^[198]

Weber described many ideal types of public administration and government in his Economy and Society. His critical study of the bureaucratisation of society became one of the most enduring parts of his work.^[199] Weber began the study of bureaucracy and his works led to the popularisation of the term.^[200] Many aspects of contemporary public administration date back to him and a classic, hierarchically organised civil service of the Continental type is called "Weberian civil service".^[201] As the most efficient and rational way of organising, bureaucratisation for Weber was the key part of the rational-legal authority. Furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the ongoing rationalisation of the Western society.^[199]

Weber listed several preconditions for the emergence of the bureaucracy, which resulted in a need for a more efficient administrative system, including:^[202]

1. The growth in space and population being administered
2. The growth in complexity of the administrative tasks being carried out and the existence of a monetary economy

The development of communication and transportation technologies made more efficient administration possible, and popularly requested, and the democratisation and rationalisation of culture resulted in demands that the new system treat everyone equally.^[202] Weber's ideal bureaucracy was characterised by hierarchical organisation, delineated lines of authority in a fixed area of activity, action taken on the basis of written rules, bureaucratic officials needing expert training, rules being implemented neutrally, and career advancement depending on technical qualifications judged by organisations.^[203] While recognising bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organisation and even indispensable for the modern state, Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms and the ongoing bureaucratisation as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalisation of human life traps individuals in the aforementioned "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control.^[204] To counteract bureaucrats, the system needed entrepreneurs and politicians.^[205]

Study of the city

As part of his overarching effort to understand the unique development of the Western world, Weber produced a detailed general study of the city as the characteristic locus of the social and economic relations, political arrangements, and ideas that eventually came to define the West. This resulted in a monograph, The City.^[211] According to Weber, the city as a politically autonomous organisation of people living in close proximity, employed in a variety of specialised trades, and physically separated from the surrounding countryside. That structure only fully developed in the West and significantly shaped its cultural evolution.^[212] Weber argued that Judaism, early Christianity, theology, and later the political party and modern science, were only possible in the urban context that reached a full development in the West alone.^[213] He also saw in the history of medieval European cities the rise of a unique form of "non-legitimate domination" that successfully challenged the existing forms of legitimate domination (traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal) that had prevailed until then in the Medieval world.^[214]

Economics

Weber regarded himself primarily as an economist, and all his professorial appointments were in economics, though today his contributions in that field are largely overshadowed by his role as a founder of modern sociology.^[215] As a political economist and economic historian, Weber belonged to the German historical school of economics, represented by academics such as Gustav von Schmoller and his student Werner Sombart.^[216] However, even though Weber's research interests were very much in line with this school, his views on methodology and marginal utility diverged significantly from those of other German historicists. Instead, they were closer to those of Carl Menger and the Austrian school, the traditional rivals of the historical school.^[217] The division caused by the Methodenstreit caused Weber to support a broad interpretation of economics that combined economic theory, economic history, and economic sociology in the form of Sozialökonomik ("social economics").^[218]

Economy and Society

Main article: Economy and Society

A page from the manuscript of the sociology of law within Economy and Society

Weber's magnum opus Economy and Society is an essay collection that he was working on at the time of his death in 1920. After his death, the final organisation and editing of the book fell to his widow Marianne. The final German form published in 1922 reflected Marianne's editorial work and intellectual commitment.^[219] The composition includes a wide range of essays dealing with Weber's views regarding sociology, social philosophy, politics, social stratification, world religion, diplomacy, and other subjects.^[220] Beginning in 1956, the German jurist Johannes Winckelmann began editing and organising the German edition of Economy and Society based on his study of the papers that Weber left at his death. English versions of the work were published as a collected volume in 1968, as edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. As a result of the various editions in German and English, there are differences between the organisation of the different volumes.^[221]

Weber studies

Weberian scholarship's beginnings were delayed by the ongoing disruption of academic life in the Weimar Republic. Hyper-inflation caused Weber's support for parliamentary democracy to be countered by the decline the respect that professors had for it. The alienation that they experienced from politics caused many of them to become pessimistic and closer to the historical viewpoints espoused by Oswald Spengler in his The Decline of the West.^[259] Furthermore, universities were coming under increased state control and influence. After the Nazi Party took power, that process accelerated. The previously dominant style of sociology, that of Alfred Vierkandt and Leopold von Wiese, was largely replaced by a sociology that was dominated by support for the Nazis. Hans Freyer and Othmar Spann were representative of that movement, while Werner Sombart moved towards support for collectivism. The rise of the Nazi Party had relegated Weber's scholarship to a marginal position in the Germany academy. However, some Weberian scholars had left Germany while this process was going on, with most of them settling in the United States and the United Kingdom.^[260]

These scholars began to involve themselves in American and British scholarship at a time when Weber's writings, such as the General Economic History, were beginning to be translated into English. Talcott Parsons, an American scholar, was influenced by his readings of Weber and Sombart as a student in Germany during the 1920s. He obtained permission from Marianne Weber to publish a translation of The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in his 1930 essay collection, the Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion. This translated version, which was heavily edited by the publisher, was not initially successful.^[261] Parsons had been using this translation as part of his effort to create an academic sociology, which resulted in his 1937 book the Structure of Social Action. In it, Parson's argued that Weber and Durkheim were foundational figures in sociology. His book was not successful until after the Second World War. He then published a translation of Economy and Society as The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. His increasing prominence as a scholar led to this volume's own elevated influence. Other translations began to appear, including C. Wright Mills and Hans Gerth's From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology in 1946. Their volume was a collection of excerpts from Weber's writings. In the last year of the decade, Edward Shils edited a translation of Weber's Collected Essays on Methodology, which was published as The Methodology of the Social Sciences.^[262]

As the 1940s ended, Max Weber's reputation as a scholar had been rising through its interpretation through the lenses of Parsons's structural functionalism and Mills's conflict theory.^[263] Over the course of the next few decades, continued publications of translated versions of Weber's works began to appear, including ones on law, religion, music, and the city. Despite the flawed nature of many of the translations, it became possible to obtain a largely complete view of Weber's scholarship. That was still impeded by the unorganised way in which the translations were published, which prevented scholars from knowing the connections between the different texts. In 1968, a complete translation of Economy and Society in the way that it was prepared by Marianne Weber was published.^[264] While an interpretation of Weber that was separate from Parson's structural functionalism had begun with From Max Weber, a more political and historical interpretation was forwarded by Reinhard Bendix's 1948 Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, Ralf Dahrendorf's 1957 Class and Conflict in an Industrial Society, and John Rex's 1962 Key Problems in Sociological Theory. Raymond Aron's interpretation of Weber in his 1965 text, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, gave an alternative to Parson's perspective on the history of sociology. Weber, while still integral to it, was being framed as one of the three foundational figures, the other two were Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim. Anthony Giddens solidified that interpretation of the three scholars with the publication of his Capitalism and Modern Social Theory in 1971. After the end of the 1970s, more of Weber's less prominent publications began to be published. That effort coincided with the continued writings of critical commentaries on his works and idea, including the creation of a scholarly journal in 2000, Max Weber Studies, that is devoted to such scholarship.^[265]

Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe

The idea of publishing a collected edition of Max Weber's complete works was pushed forward by Horst Baier in 1972. A year later, the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe, a multi-volume set of all of Max Weber's writings, began to take shape.^[266] Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Wolfgang Schluchter, Johannes Winckelmann, M. Rainer Lepsius, and Horst Baier were the initial editors. After Mommsen's death in 2004, Gangolf Hübinger succeeded him. Winckelmann, Lepsius, and Baier also died before the completion of the project.^[267] The writings were organised in a combination of chronological order and by subject, with the material that was not intended to be published by Weber in purely chronological order. The final editions of each text were used, with the exception of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which was published in both its first and final forms.^[268] Mohr Siebeck was selected to publish the volumes.^[269] The project was presented to the academic community in 1981 with the publication of a prospectus that was colloquially referred to as the "green brochure". It outlined the three sections of the series: "Writings and Speeches", "Letters", and "Lecture Manuscripts and Lecture Notes".^[270] Four years later, the project entered publication.^[271] It concluded in June 2020 and contains forty-seven volumes, including two index volumes.^[272]

Online editions

• Works by or about Max Weber at Internet Archive
• Works by Max Weber at Projekt Gutenberg-DE (in German)
• Max Weber at Zeno.org (in German)
• Max Weber at SocioSite
• Works by Max Weber at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)