Max Weber: A Biography - Coursework Example

Max Weber By 13 November Max Weber Max Weber, who was a sociologist, was born on April 18, 1881. In 1898, he was enrolled in the Pratt Institute where he pursued manual training in arts with main aim of becoming a teacher. After his graduation in 1900, he was employed in Virginia and Minnesota to teach manual training and drawing. In the year 1905, he went to Paris in France for further studies in life classes and soon acquired interests in Fauve art then began painting in a Fauve art style. In 1907, he took part in the exhibition of his arts in the Independents and Salon d’ Autonme as a painter and artist of the Fauve arts. He later returned to New York in 1909 (Radkau, & Camiller, 2009, 2). His artistic style changed in the year 1912 when he began to embrace more and more of cubism. One of his popular works of the era of 1915 is Chinese Restaurant. Although it is a thought, he embodies in it the atmosphere of a restaurant with such decorations as tile floors, festive garlands, and frenzied waiters. His support of cubist ideas can be seen from his use of bright colours and diversities of vigorous patterns. He moved away from abstraction in 1918 and his paintings of 1920s and 1030s features figures in conformations, which were mainly Cézannesque, poetic and contemplative. Due to his Jewish heritage, he exploited the Hasidic themes in an expressionist fashion. One of the important works of Max Weber was “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (Radkau, & Camiller, 2009, 3) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” occurred during the early modernity period at the time he was inquisitive to comprehend the development of the west and its inability to consider the earlier growing areas. Through his theory, these peoples had the capability to industrialize their economy, but never had to acknowledge this capability. Weber thus concludes that, without appropriate reinforcement of religious evolution, a society can never develop to its maximum capability with the mentality of traditional wealth endurance. He stated that, a man could not wish to earn more money, but live, as he is adapted to live and earn as considerable as is required for that persistence (Weber, 1958, 12). The protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism illustrate that, for modern capitalism to be achieved in a society, and then, the position of the protestant stand up sign in activity and profit should be significant. Even though the features of capitalism have been entwined during the course of trading past, the yields of wealth thorough trade triumphed as the ethics of society changed into a more industrial perspective. In a fashionable opinion, whereas it is unavoidable that people often tend to enjoy owning pleasant things and their manufacturers have often been willing to source those things, the evolution of values in the contemporary culture has permitted capitalism to control the everyday lifestyle (Weber, 1958, 32). In particular, the American society has established the perception that individuals are proficient in fashioning themselves as they may view it as appropriate. That in place of a protestant mark; choice is the feature of the day, eye-catching regardless of negative results. If an individual is discontented, then the capability to change things in the scenarios of becoming contented is probable; there is often a better choice that one can make with the aim of changing ones inacceptable (Weber, 1958, 112). Max Webers work in “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” is a reading about the bond between the ethics of austere. It is the study of Protestantism and the development of the essence of modern capitalism. He contended that the religious concepts of various religious groups such as the Calvinists played significant responsibility in making the capitalistic essence. He observed the relationship between being a Protestant and being intricate in business, and then declared his intention to discover religion as a possible reason of the modern trade and industry situations (Weber, 1958, 36). In his argument, the modern essence of capitalism views profit as finale in itself, and tracking profit as worthy. His aim was to comprehend the cause of profit spirit and turned to Protestantism as a potential explanation. Consequently, Protestantism proposed a worldly calling idea and assigned religious characters to worldly activity. Calvinists as a branch of Protestantism believed in predestination that God had determined whoever was saved and damned. They, therefore, developed a profound psychosomatic necessity for traces on whether an individual was really saved, and thus viewed their success in worldly activity for those signs. Therefore, they valued profit and material achievement as symbols of Gods favor (Weber, 1958, 87). Pietism that included the Pietists, Baptist, and Methodists, had a similar opinion on the source of the profit spirit but to a lesser degree. This new opinion divided the traditional economic structure, to pave the way for modern capitalism economic system. Nevertheless, after the emergence of capitalism, the significant values of the Protestants became unnecessary, and their ethics was transformed to another life of their own. Currently, societies are involved into the economy of capitalism due to its significance to the modern economic activity. According to Weber, capitalistic spirit was not solely caused by the Protestantism ideas but the ideas were a contributing factor towards the capitalism economy. Furthermore, he acknowledged that capitalism had influence on the progression of the religious ideas (Weber, 1958, 93). To focus on the work ethic among the Protestant comparative to the Catholics, he illustrated a common difficulty that industrialists often face when engaging pre-capitalist workers. He explained that, agricultural industrialists would often try to inspire time spent while harvesting by proposing a higher wages, hence attracting the labourers who would view the time spent working as more of value and thus engage it longer. Nonetheless, in pre-capitalist societies, this was viewed differently as worker spent less time harvesting. They argue that they can receive the same amount of wages, when they spend a little time working and more time having leisure. According to Weber, societies with more Protestants citizens have more developed capitalist economy as compared to others (Weber, 1958, 76). It is predominantly beneficial in technical professions for labourers to be exceptionally dedicated to their abilities. To interpret the skills as a finale in themselves or as a calling would aid this necessity well. According to Weber, the approach is well illustrious in definite societies, which have undergone religious teaching, especially, that of the Pietist background. He defined the essence of capitalism as the philosophies and esprit that helps the coherent hunt of economic achievement: nevertheless, the provisional use of the expression ‘spirit of capitalism’ for that attitude of dedication would endeavours analytically for profit (Weber, 1958, 43). Weber pointed out that the spirit of capitalism is not limited to Western societies and culture alone especially if the attitude and beliefs of individuals are considered, but unfortunately, such individuals could establish a capitalism economy as the new economic order by themselves. Additionally, he emphasized that the essence of capitalism could be separated from religion convictions, and that the ardent capitalists of his period were either zealous against the Church or indifferent to its beliefs (Radkau, & Camiller, 2009, 68). From his work on “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, the need for profit with slightest struggle and viewing work as a liability to be avoided, and finally doing less than what was is sufficient for modest life, are common values attitudes. He noted in his essays that, in order for a life manner, which is well adapted to the peculiarities of the capitalism to dominate in other non-capitalist economy, it had to initiate from somewhere, and not in solitary persons alone, but as a manner of life mutual to the entire clusters of man (Radkau, & Camiller, 2009, 77). Weber indicated that some divisions of Protestantism had reinforced worldly activities committed to economic achievement, viewing them as awarded with ethical and spiritual importance. This acknowledgement was not an objective in itself, but rather they represented consequence of other principles of belief that stimulated planning, hard work and selflessness in the hunt of worldly treasures (Radkau, & Camiller, 2009, 224). The hierarchy approach in developing the Competing Value Framework has a old-fashioned methodology to assembly and control from a authoritarian chain of command, which can be described through Max Weber’ s original view of bureaucracy in capitalism and its relationship to religious believes. Hierarchies respect society’s status and supremacy. The organizations depend on well-defined rules, manners, and procedures.  Leaders of hierarchies are planners, coordinators, and deeply observe whatever is happening Quinn, & Rohrbaugh, 1981, 56). Weber’s works on the spirit of capitalism normally indicates that bureaucracy often exists universally in a capitalistic culture. His conceptualizations of the capitalism in society, as well as the bureaucracy, are “conjointly compassionate structures” (Fry, 1998, 33). He argues that capitalism and bureaucracy necessitate similar objective type of communication, which are based on transactions that embroil legal and moral conduct in order to be accomplished successfully. Robert Merton (1952) critique Weber’s bureaucracy and capitalism by discerning that the bureaucratic structures, which Weber trusts in by improving rationality and efficiency, could essentially be related to irrationality and inefficiency. Robert thus determines that bureaucracy comprises the sources of its own devastation. Weber emphasized predominantly on the official elements of bureaucracy which comprises, hierarchy, rules, specialization, and others while on the other hand, leaving out the informal elements of bureaucracy comprising of human relationships, communication networks, leadership, motivation, and others yet they are significant in the operations of both the public and private establishments as well. The presence and significance of informal establishments, which are can be defined as the collective of the personal interactions and relations and the related assemblage of people (Barnard, 1968, 115), is extremely recognized in the arena of management and administration. According to Barnard (1968) “informal societies are essential to the function of formal societies as a mean of cohesion, of communication, and of defending the honesty of the people” (123). This significance of informal societies is not available in the bureaucratic ideal of Weber, which only emphasizes on the formal structures alone. Reference BARNARD, C. I. (1968). The functions of the executive. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. FRY, B. R. (1989). Mastering public administration: from Max Weber to Dwight Waldo. Chatham, N.J., Chatham House Publishers. MERTON, R. K. (1952). Reader in bureaucracy. Glencoe, Ill, Free Press. QUINN, R. E., & ROHRBAUGH, J. (1981). A Competing Values Approach to Organizational Effectiveness. Public Productivity Review. 5, 122-140. WEBER, M. (1958). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York, Scribner. RADKAU, J., & CAMILLER, P. (2009). Max Weber: a biography. Cambridge, U.K., Polity Read More