Max Weber: Biography, Ideas, Theories, and Contributions

Therefore, his writings portray the challenging journey that every human would take on. In this article, we will present an introduction to his life and his most important ideas and contributions that helped humanity progress and develop.

Biography of Max Weber

The sociology pioneer Max Weber, whose full name is Maximilian Karl Emil Weber, was born on April 21, 1864, in Erfurt, Prussia. He was the eldest of his eight brothers. His father held a number of positions as a lawyer, a civil servant, and a parliamentarian. His mother, Mrs. Helen Fallenstein, descended from French immigrants of Huguenot ethnicity.

Weber was a sociologist, historian, economist, politician, and jurist. He is considered one of the most important theorists of modern Western society's development. His ideas had a great and profound impact on social theory and research. He was greatly influenced by his father due to marital disputes and stress between his parents. His father enjoyed life and its pleasures, while his mother embraced and believed in absolute religious and moral ideas.

Max Weber Jr. and his brother Alfred, both of whom became sociologists, lived in an intellectual and literary atmosphere. At the age of 13, 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.”

Weber did not enjoy going to school. He was always bored in classes and unimpressed with school. At the same time, he was viewed as having poor and disrespectful behavior by the school staff.

However, Weber did not care about their opinions. He even replaced his textbooks with Johann Goethe's works, which he read secretly. He also read all of Kant's writings before enrolling in college. Reading Goethe's forty volumes marked a turning point in his life and influenced his thinking. He enrolled in Heidelberg University's law program in 1882, and after serving in the military, he transferred to Berlin University.

Weber resumed his studies of law and history in the 1980s and obtained a doctorate after submitting his thesis entitled On the History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages. Later, he joined the teaching staff at Berlin University.

In 1893, Weber married a relative of his called Marianne Chanter, who worked as an author and feminist activist. She collected Weber’s works in books and published them after his death. Weber did not have any children, and he died on the 14th of June, 1920.

Max Weber's Ideas

1. Weber’s ideas on establishing economic sociology

• When Max Weber studied the economic phenomenon, one of the ideas he was interested in was the study of social action through understanding individual and collective behaviors and how they create values and culture. He especially focused on the traits of the European bourgeoisie and how closely they were related to work organization and capitalist production patterns.
• Max Weber began his research by considering the individual as an active and aware being with all their actions and activities away from society, contrary to what Hegel, Marx, and other philosophers who favored social thought found. So, he began to approach the relationship between the state and politics by considering it a concept of control, subjugation, capitalism, and religion.
• The most advanced and appealing attempts to create economic sociology were captured in one of Weber's books, Essays on Economic Sociology, which was translated by Ibtisam Khadra, compiled by Richard Swedenborg, and published in English in 1999 AD. This book is one of Weber's most significant works. It revolves around some main topics: religion, culture, law, politics, and the relationship of modern capitalism to all of the above.
• The accomplishment that many economists and sociologists share today is what motivated Weber in his sociological and economic research, as the reader of this book will discover. The book also demonstrated the permanent relevance of Weber’s contribution to sociology and economics.
• Weber's interest in economic sociology appeared through some of his important works, such as General Economic History and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which demonstrated Weber's attempts to establish a conceptual basis for economic sociology.
• In Modern Capitalism, Weber discussed issues related to the role of authority in controlling markets and families as the oldest unit that supports continuous commercial activity everywhere. The second part deals with capitalism, law, and politics, or what was called “Weber’s theory of authority.” The third part includes ideas related to the impact of religious developments and their impact on the economy under the title Capitalism, Culture, and Religion. As for the fourth part, it deals with the social aspects and analyzes them from the simplest social relations in economics.

2. Max Weber’s ideas in politics

• His supporters disagreed over his political beliefs. In his book, Max Weber and Comparisons of the Modern Mind, Philippe Raynaud sought to highlight Weber, give a thorough explanation of his sociology, and establish a connection between modernity and rationalism. European modernity would not have been possible in all its political, technical, and administrative fields without what Weber presented.
• Weber's overall perspective caused his ideas to be isolated in a crucible where sociology meets the philosophy of history and the critical theory of economics and politics, society and ethics collide, and capitalism and protestantism intertwine. All of this made Max Weber a distinguished figure, a sociologist, and a unique philosopher.
• Weber's ideas made the thinkers of that period scrutinize, reconsider, and research what humans will be like in that century and what their relationships and communications will be like with the world of others whom they conquered intellectually, militarily, and technically. As much as they presented wonderful and lofty ideas, they also presented ideas of war, colonialism, and slavery.
• Philippe Raynaud found that Weber's sociology does not only include transferring the critical theory of knowledge to the social sciences field; rather, Weber defends the idea that there is a fundamental difference between mental sciences and natural sciences. This evolution represents the essence of an ancient legacy.
• According to many of his ideas, Weber proposed that politics is the sharing of state power among various groups, while political leaders are those who practice this power. He explained this with his famous theory.

Max Weber's Theories

1. Social Theory (Social Classes)

It included studies on the protestant ethic, the spirit of capitalism, inspired authority, bureaucracy, and rationality. Weber studied the ethics of puritanism and the spirit of austerity and asceticism. He discovered that the goal of the science that interests him is to investigate the basic values ​​that determine social behavior and to produce a number of basic hypotheses, such as:

• Social-sentimental action, or what is called “emotional-sentimental behavior.”
• A social action has meaning for the one who performs it, as they add subjective meaning to it, taking into account the behavior of others and directing their own behavior.
• Social actions vary and differ according to their level of rationality. He mentioned four types of social actions:
  • Traditional action.
  • Affective action.
  • Value-rational action.
  • Rational-purposeful action.
• Relationships are bonds and connections. Social control methods depend on power, while actions that are governed by rationality and faith are linked to legislative authority.
• The more rational forms of social behavior result from rivalry, which played a major role in selecting those with the best traits. This peaceful rivalry might turn into a violent one.
• Weber saw that rationality leads to a specific type of bureaucracy and a certain pattern that determines roles, standards, and sanctions.

2. Bureaucratic Theory

Historically, bureaucracy refers to the government administrative system that is managed in ministries by non-specialized officials. Nowadays, it is the administrative system that governs any large institution. Public administration in many countries around the world is considered an example of bureaucracy.

Max Weber was the first to study bureaucracy formally. After publishing an article on bureaucracy in his fourth book, Economy and Society, in 1922, his works contributed to the spread of this term. He presented three types of structures of authority:

• Charismatic authority.
• Traditional authority.
• Rational legal authority.

These three types, according to Max, cannot be combined into a single system. Furthermore, he explained that the first type practices authority by adopting personal specifications, the second type practices it using its position within the system, and the third type practices it using the bureaucracy within the system.

Researchers found that this theory has several characteristics, including:

• Hierarchy.
• Career orientation.
• Division of labor.
• Formal rules.
• Merit-based recruitment.
• Fairness.
• Written communication and record-keeping.

They found that Weber's theory had some advantages, such as division of labor, efficiency, accountability, transparency, decision-making, rules and regulations, and ease of management. Its drawbacks included routine, delays, corruption, bureaucracy, changing goals, tedious paperwork, favoritism, difficulty making decisions, and overlooking important aspects.

3. The Theory of Rationalization and Rational Thinking

This theory is intended to organize social and economic life, from the approved principles of efficiency to technical knowledge. Religion and inherited customs played the primary role in determining the values ​​and attitudes that individuals held in traditional societies.

Modern societies have adopted rationalization as various life aspects are enhanced, including political, religious, and economic aspects. Max Weber was concerned about the results of rationalization. He feared that the new society's efforts to ration and organize all aspects of social life would crush the human spirit. Furthermore, he feared the stifling effects of bureaucratic humanity and its repercussions on the fate of democracy.

4. Sociology of Religion Theory

Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism were all studied by Weber. He did not study other religions, like Christianity and Islam, as he passed away in 1920. His writings concentrated on the influence of religious beliefs on economic activity as well as the connection between religion and social class. Weber concluded that religion is one of the fundamental forces influencing society. To explain how religions change, he proposed a social evolutionary model, explaining that societies transitioned from magic to polytheism, existence to monotheism, and finally moral monotheism.

Max Weber's Contributions

1. Max Weber was able to develop a definite theory of bureaucracy, which is one of the major theories.
2. Social action is the basic subject of sociology.
3. Sociology of Religion: Religious perceptions are a determinant of economic behavior.
4. The theory of economic and social organization (sociological theories).

In Conclusion

Max Weber's theories were diverse, as they considered many horizons. They were circulated, analyzed, and explained in detail by many researchers, and were adopted in most countries. Weber's methodology was developed on a broader scale within the methodology of social sciences. His position was close to what is known as historicism.

He emphasized that social actions are closely connected to specific historical contexts and that we must understand the intrinsic motivations of individuals. Nobody can dispute what Max Weber accomplished or the influence his theories have had on the progress of humanity. No matter how many social scientists show up, Max Weber's influence remains evident.