no closer today than it did in Marx’s own time.
Max Weber
Like Marx, Max Weber (1864–1920) was not just a sociologist; his interests ranged across many areas. He was born in Germany, where he spent most of his academic career, and his work covered economics, law, philosophy and comparative history as well as sociology. He was also concerned with the development of capitalism and how modern societies differed from earlier types. In a series of studies, Weber set out some of the basic characteristics of modern industrial societies and identified key issues that remain central to sociology today.
Weber recognized class conflict but saw it as less significant than Marx. In Weber’s view, economic factors are important, but ideas and values can also bring about social change. His celebrated and much discussed work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1992 [1904–5]) proposed that religious values – especially those associated with Puritanism – were of fundamental importance in creating a capitalistic outlook. Unlike the other early sociologists, Weber argued that sociologists should study social action – the subjectively meaningful actions of people that are oriented towards others. It is the job of sociology to understand the meanings behind all of those individual actions.
An important element in Weber’s sociological perspective is the ideal type. Ideal types are models that are created to alert us to some social phenomenon and to help us to make sense of it. These hypothetical constructions can be very useful in pointing researchers towards a subject. For example, we could construct a simple idealtypical ‘terrorist group’, based on the most striking aspects that have been observed in the cases of the IRA in Northern Ireland, ETA in Spain, the Red Brigades in Italy and the global networks of ISIS/Daesh. We might note that all these groups operate outside mainstream politics; they use violence against the state and they often target civilians to demonstrate their power. We can then use this ideal type to analyse other real-world instances of political violence.
Of course, in reality there are many differences between our four groups. The Red Brigades were communist, the IRA was an Irish nationalist group, ETA was a Basque separatist organization and ISIS/Daesh is a global Islamist network. Nonetheless, using our ideal type we can accommodate these differences while also recognizing that they share enough features to be described collectively as ‘terrorist groups’. It is important to note that, by ‘ideal’ type, Weber did not mean that the conception was perfect or desirable. Ideal types are ‘pure’ or ‘one-sided’ forms of real social phenomena. But constructing an ideal type of terrorism (or anything else) from common aspects of many observed cases is more effective and useful than using one real terrorist group as a template for others.
Weber saw the emergence of modern society as accompanied by important shifts in patterns of social action. People were moving away from traditional beliefs grounded in superstition, religion, custom and longstanding habit. Instead, they engaged increasingly in rational, instrumental calculation that took into account efficiency and the future consequences of the action. In industrial society, there was little room for sentiment or doing things just because they had ‘always been done that way’. The emergence of science, modern technology and bureaucracy was described by Weber as rationalization – the organization of social life according to principles of efficiency and on the basis of technical knowledge. If religion and longstanding customs previously guided people’s attitudes and values, modern society was marked by the rationalization of politics, religion, economic activity and even music.
Weber had major concerns about the outcome of the rationalization process. He feared that the spread of bureaucracy, which is the most efficient form of administration, would stifle creativity and imprison individuals in a ‘steel-hard cage’ from which there would be little chance of escape. This bureaucratic domination, although based on rational principles, could crush the human spirit by over-regulating every aspect of life. For Weber, the seemingly progressive agenda of the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment, of scientific progress, rising wealth and increasing happiness, also brought with it a dark side with new dangers.
As we have seen, Durkheim, Marx and Weber adopted different approaches to their studies. Durkheim emphasized the coercive strength of social forces in generating shared values and consensus. Marx also saw social structures as powerful, but he argued that conflict and inequality were endemic in all societies. On the other hand, Max Weber focused attention on the meaningful character of social life and the social actions of individuals. These basic differences have persisted throughout the history of sociology, developing into three broad sociological traditions: functionalism (Durkheim), conflict theory (Marx) and social action or ‘interactionist’ approaches (Weber).
Some of the major trade and economic transactions today take place on the stock market in a highly rationalized form, with barely any personal interaction between traders. This is in stark contrast to the personalized bartering and market stall negotiations which continue in many local communities.
The three traditions are introduced briefly below, but you will encounter arguments and ideas that draw upon them throughout the book. After a while you should be able to identify which tradition any particular research study you come across is closest to.
We look in detail at more recently developed theoretical approaches, such as feminism, postmodernism and figurational studies, in chapter 3, ‘Theories and Perspectives’.
Functionalism
Functionalism holds that society is a complex system whose various parts work together to produce stability and that sociology should investigate their relationships. For example, we can analyse the religious beliefs and customs of a society by showing how they relate to other institutions because the different parts of a society always develop in close relation to one another. Functionalists, including Comte and Durkheim, have often used an organic analogy, comparing the operation of society to a living organism. They argue that the parts of society work together, just as the various parts of the human body do, for the benefit of society as a whole. To study a bodily organ such as the heart, we need to show how it relates to other parts of the body. By pumping blood around the body, the heart plays a vital role in the continuation of the life of the organism. Similarly, analysing the function of a social institution such as the education system means showing the part it plays in the smooth running of a society.
USING YOUR SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
1.1 Neglected founders of sociology?
Sociology, like many academic fields, has not always lived up to the ideal of acknowledging scholarly work on the basis of its intrinsic merit. Very few women or members of minority ethnic groups had the opportunity to become professional sociologists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And the few who did engage in sociological work of lasting importance have frequently been ignored and their work neglected. Here we introduce three important scholars whose work has attracted attention over recent years.
Harriet Martineau (1802–76)
Harriet Martineau has been called the ‘first woman sociologist’, but, like Marx and Weber, she cannot be thought of simply as a sociologist. She was born and