Max Weber – Theory Of Entrepreneurship
Weber was a German (1864-1920) sociologist and philosopher who had many different interests, including religion and various aspects of bureaucracy. He, along with Durkheim and Marx,made some significant changes to the way in which we discuss social theories and social roles , with his new ideas concerning the role of religion and economics within everyday life. His main theory concerned changing the empirical studies which were favoured at the time with a study method which involved interpretation of results.
Weber was not someone who appreciated the way capitalism was turning, and so many of his arguments formed around the premise that capitalism is inherent to Protestantism, and therefore is something which should adhere closely to that religion’s structures. The new way of capitalism was something which was not appropriate in his mind, and was something which eventually led to his writing about his own theories of economics. Combining the sociology of religion with the sociology of economics was something which made Weber well-known in his time.
Max Weber wrote many books during his lifetime, but for his ideas on economics, the two most important books are Economy and Society (a book which was shortlisted as one of the most important sociological books of the twentieth century in 1998) and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Much as the rest of Weber’s work, the Economy and Society is a collection of essays which cover a huge range of topics, from religion to society, and how they related to capitalism and the economy.
Weber described himself nominally as a political economist, despite his views on how religion was tied with economics. He was also someone who made several important finds in the field, even though he is more often remembered for his contributions to the field of sociology. This is perhaps explainable by the fact that, in general, his economic theories belong a younger school than we generally use for our more common economic theories (ours are the neo-classical school in general).
Weber saw a connection between capitalism and the theories of exceptionalism (exceptionalism is a theory where a certain group of people are taught that they are better than others through some particular event or talent), which is something that, to his mind, explained the relationship between exceptionalism and production in places like America extremely well. This is the first way in which relates capitalism to Protestantism, because of his ideas concerning that sect of Christianity. In this way, Weber managed to combine the effects of pre-destination (a concept he borrowed from Luther’s writings on religion) to show how capitalism would naturally favour one group over another – in this case Protestants over other groups. Weber’s main problem with capitalism as it is, is that it creates a culture which takes many risks, some of which are too much.
Mainly Weber spoke about the conditions of capitalism as distinct from the capitalism which was inherent in the ancient world, since that capitalism depended heavily on the ongoing existence of slave labour and economics, as well as being primarily devoted to coastal cities and the opportunities which came with that. Modern capitalism had its roots in the Medieval period, when the political and economic systems of today began to form in the religious and societal milieus of those worlds and countries.
