Max Weber 1864 – 1920
Max Weber was a German sociologist, jurist, and political economist, one of the founders of modern social science. His Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism argued for an elective affinity between Calvinist asceticism and the rationalizing logic of modern capitalism, while Economy and Society laid out a vast comparative analysis of forms of authority, rationality, and law. He developed the methodology of ideal types and the sociology of domination, and his late lectures Politics as a Vocation and Science as a Vocation remain touchstones of reflection on the modern condition.
Key facts
- Nationality
- German
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Continental
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Max Weber:
“Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.”
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Attributed to Max Weber:
“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.”
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Attributed to Max Weber:
“He who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers.”
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Attributed to Max Weber:
“The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so.”
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Attributed to Max Weber:
“An iron cage of bureaucratic rationality.”