MAX WEBER: THE METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Weber rejected the natural science approach in sociology, especially its search for deterministic and universal laws. He did so for the following reasons:
2. Individual free will and choice make deterministic laws impossible.
3. The processes of abstraction and selection utilized by the social sciences make the notions of invariability and universality untenable.
4. The multiple causation found in social phenomena makes the assumption of invariability untenable.
5. The social sciences are interested in the "individuality of a phenomenon" rather than in its universality.
6. Particularistic statements rather than general statements or systems of statements (theories) are most fruitful and contain the most information.
7. Society is characterized by change rather than stability. New conditions arise constantly which require new analysis.
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MAX WEBER: THE PROTESTANT ET'HIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
OUTLINE
Conditions contributing to capitalism in Western Europe:
1. Free labor
2. Money economy
3. Separation of business from home
4. Rational bookkeeping
5. Rationalization of law and administration
6. Rational science (technological development)
7. Religious ethic conducive to capitalism
Chapter 2 - The Spirit of Capitalism
Illustration from Benjamin Franklin
Example of textile industry
Ideal type capitalist entrepreneur
Chapter 3 - Luther's Conception of the Calling
Catholic belief--other-worldly asceticism
Luther's contribution: The division of labor and Service to others
Chapter 4 - The Religious Foundations of worldly Asceticism Calvinism
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MAX WEBER: TYPES OF SOCIAL ACTION
1. Wertrationalitat: a given value is put into practice b the most effective available means, regardless of cost or other values.
2. Zweckrationalitat: action is rationally oriented to the maximum attainment of a plurality of ends Which are weighted against one another. In choice of means, both technical efficiency and cost are considered.
3. Traditional action: adherence to established pattern without question. Departure from rationality. Absence of calculation in terms of efficiency of effectiveness.
4. Affectual action: neither rational nor traditional. Motivated in terms of feeling, emotion, sentiment, etc.
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TYPES OF AUTHORITY (Reasons why followers obey leaders)
2. Traditional. Rests on an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of the status of those exercising authority. Obedience is to the person. But traditions determine the content of the commands and the objects and extent of authority. to overstep traditional limitations on authority would endanger the leaders traditional status. However, tradition leaves a certain sphere of action open to the ruler, who has some freedom of personal choice, especially with regard to new situations.
3 . Charismatic. Rests on devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism, or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him. (Charisma--a certain quality of an individual person by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with super-natural, superhuman, or exceptional powers or qualities. These qualities are not accessible to the ordinary person.) Decisive factor is recognition of charisma by followers. Usually involves absolute trust and devotion to the leader, based on emotion. Followers feel it is their duty to recognize this quality and follow the leader. Charismatic authority is outside the realm of everyday routine--neither rational nor traditional. Whatever the leader says must be followed.
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WEBER: CHARACTERISTICS OF BUREAUCRACY
1. Officials appointed, not elected. Appointment made on the basis of ability and merit.
2. Official has tenure for life, or as long as competent.
3. Official receives fixed compensation or salary.
4. Each position has fixed areas ofjurisdiction, ordered by rules; regular activities defined and fixed by rules. Authority and responsibility commensurate with position.
5. Firmly fixed system of stratification. Line of command; channels.
6. Incumbents interchangeable.
7. Public life or occupational activity of official segregated from his private life and his private qualities or status.
8. Based on written documents.
9. Specialized training of office-holders.
10. Office-holding is a vocation. Official is not a personal servant of the ruler, but is a servant of the total society. Official remains in office even when change of administration or ruler occurs.
11. Official enjoys high rank (position of prestige).
High rank correlated with:
a. Strong demand for administration by experts.
b. Stratum from which officials recruited.
c. Costliness of training
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PRECONDITIONS FOR BUREAUCRACY
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COMMENTARIES ON WEBER'S THESIS
WERNER SOMBART
Supporter. Studied the role which Jews played in the development of capitalism in Western Europe. Demonstrated a close correlation between the distribution of Jews and the development of capitalism. Analyzed the major ideational themes of capitalism and found them similar to the major ideational characteristics of "the Jewish personality."
ERNST TROELTSCH
Supporter. Religion and economic structure are closely related and exert a reciprocal influence upon each other. Weber overstated the causal independence of religious ideas, but Troeltsch argued that religious ideas are not mere reflections of economic conditions but can exert a causal influence on structural conditions. Most important work is a study of Protestantism in The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches. Accepted the Verstehende tradition.
RICHARD TAWNEY
British Historian. Took middle position. In Religion and the Rise of Capitalism he emphasized the close connection between religion and capitalism. He pointed out the growth of individualism as an ideological belief had an influence on capitalistic development. Economic conditions exerted great influence upon religious ideas and their acceptance in Switzerland, England and Holland. He played down Luther's influence, and recognized Calvinism as a diverse and changing religion. Yet he sustained Weber's thesis that religious ideas cannot be treated as mere reflections of economic conditions.
HECTOR ROBERTSON
Critic. In Aspects of the Rise of Economic Individualism he criticized Weber for the use of ideal types instead of historical proof Weber neglected data which showed that Catholics held the spirit of capitalism as strongly as Protestants. In both Catholic and Protestant theology, emphasis on individualism and ambition developed slowly. Both were largely traditional and only gradually came to accept usury, worldly activity and rationality. Gradual changes in theology were cased by the gradual development of capitalism.
KURT SAMUELSSON
Critic. Swedish economist. In Religion and Economic Action he argued that there is no evidence that religion had any influence on the rise of capitalism. In fact, capitalism developed in spite of the opposition of both Protestant and Catholic churches. There is no evidence that Protestantism is found in the economically best developed areas; Amsterdam, for example, was strongly Catholic and yet a center of capitalistic economic activity.
What caused capitalism? Samuelsson pointed to such factors as special education, the influence of the family, and the role of aliens and minorities. However, he was more interested in criticizing Weber than in explaining the rise of capitalism.
All critics have focused upon Weber's study of Western Europe and neglected
his further studies of China, India and the Middle East.
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Cause Effect
Social Structure:
Other aspects of Social Life:
e.g. Economic Organization
e.g. Family Life, Education,
(Capitalism vs. Communism)
Religion, Government,
Values, Attitudes, Culture,
Personality
Behavior Patterns
Change comes about through:
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Weber: THE SUBJECTTVE ORIENTATION
Cause Effect
Cultural "Ethic" or Value
Other Aspects of Social Life
System of the Society
e.g. Social Structure
e.g. The Protestant Ethic
Personality
vs. The Traditional
Ethic
Behavior Patterns
1 . Major Cultural Changes (changes
of ideas)
2. Infusion of New Ideas or New
Values
3. Religious or Ideological Movements
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STRUCTURALISTS VS. SUBJECTIVIST IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
STRUCTURALISTS SUBJECTIVISTS
Marx Weber
Dahrendorf Sumner
Durkheim Ward
Comte
Spencer
Behaviorism
Symbolic Interaction
Watson
Cooley
Skinner
Mead
Blumer
Goffman
Positivists
Lundberg
Blalock
Ethnomethodology
Garfinkel
Exchange Theorists
Homans
Blau
Structural-Functionalism
"Pure" Functionalism
Radcliffe-Brown
Malinowski
Levy-Strauss
Piaget
Social Action Theory
Parsons
Sorokin
Maclver
Toennies
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THE FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL CONFLICT
By Lewis Coser
2. Conflict is not always dysfunctional for the relationship within which it occurs; often conflict is necessary to maintain such a relationship. Without ways to vent hostility toward each other, and to express dissent, group members might feel completely crushed and might react by withdrawal. By setting free pent-up feelings of hostility, conflicts serve to maintain a relationship.
3. Aggressive or hostile "impulses" do not suffice to account for social conflict. Hatred, just as love, needs some object. Conflict can occur only in the interaction between subject and object; it always presupposes a relationship.
4. Close social relationships, characterized as they are by frequent interaction and involving the total personality of the participants, may be said to include in their motivational structure an essential ambivalence in that they contain both positive and negative cathexes inextricably intertwined
5. A conflict is more passionate and more radical when it arises out of close relationships. Enmity calls forth deeper and more violent reactions, the greater the involvement of the parties among whom it originates.
6. Conflict may serve to remove dissociating elements in a relationship and to re-establish unity. Insofar as conflict is the resolution of tension between antagonists it has stabilizing functions and becomes an integrating component of the relationship.
7. The absence of conflict cannot be taken as an index of the strength and stability of a relationship. Stable relationships may be characterized by conflicting behavior. Closeness gives rise to frequent occasions for conflict, but if the participants feel that their relationships are tenuous, they will avoid conflict, fearing that it might endanger the continuance of the relation. When close relationships are characterized by frequent conflicts rather than by the accumulation of hostile and ambivalent feelings, we may be justified, given that such conflicts are not likely to concern basic consensus, in taking these frequent conflicts as an index of the stability of these relationships.
8. Conflict with another group leads to the mobilization of the energies of group members and hence to increased cohesion of the group. Whether increase in centralization accompanies this increase in cohesion depends upon both the character of the conflict and the type of group. Social systems lacking social solidarity are likely to disintegrate in the face of outside conflict, although some unity may be despotically enforced.
9. Groups engaged in continued struggle with the outside tend to be intolerant within. They are unlikely to tolerate more than limited departures from the group unity. They select membership in terms of special characteristics and so tend to be limited in size, and they lay claim to the total personality involvement of their members. Their social cohesion depends upon total sharing of all aspects of group life and is reinforced by the assertion of group unity against the dissenter. The only way they can solve the problem of dissent is through the dissenter's voluntary or forced withdrawal.
10. Rigidly organized struggle groups may actually search for enemies with the deliberate purpose of the unwitting result maintaining unity and internal cohesion. Such groups may actually perceive an outside threat although no threat is present.
11. Conflicts in which the participants feel that they are merely the representatives of collectivities and groups, fighting not for self but only for the ideals of the group they represent, are likely to be more radical and merciless than those that are fought for personal reasons.
12. Conflict may initiate other types of interaction between antagonists, even previously unrelated antagonists. It also usually takes place within a universe of norms prescribing the forms in which it is to be carried out. Conflict acts as a stimulus for establishing new rules, norms, and institutions, thus serving as an agent of socialization for both contending parties. Furthermore, conflict reaffirms dormant norms and thus intensifies participation in social life.
13. In view of the advantages of unified organization for purposes of winning the conflict, it might be supposed that each party would strongly desire the absence of unity in the opposing party. Yet this is not always true. If a relative balance of forces exists between the two parties, a unified party prefers a unified opponent.
14. Conflict consists in a test of power between antagonistic parties. Accommodation between them is possible only if each is aware of the relative strength of both parties. However, paradoxical as it may seem, such knowledge can most frequently be attained only through conflict, since other mechanisms for testing the respective strength of antagonists seem to be unavailable.
15. Struggle may bring together otherwise unrelated persons and groups. Coalitions and associations give structure to an individualistic society and prevent it from disintegrating through atomizations.