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more than economic conditions—
has been adopted by a British
school of thought that has given
rise to the field of cultural studies.
Weber and Marx
In many ways, Weber’s analysis
proved more prescient than Marx’s.
Despite his dismissal of Marx’s
interpretation of the inevitability of
historical change, Weber predicted
the endurance, and global triumph,
of the capitalist economy over
traditional models as a result of
rationalization. He also foresaw
that a modern technological
society would rely upon an efficient
bureaucracy, and that any problems
would not be of structure but
management and competence:
too rigid a bureaucracy would
paradoxically decrease rather
than increase efficiency.
More significantly, Weber
realized that materialism and
rationalization created a soulless
“iron cage," and if unchecked would
lead to tyranny. Where Marx had
a vision of workers’ emancipation
and the establishment of a utopian
communist state, Weber argued
that in modern industrial society
everybody's lives—those of both
owners and workers—are shaped
by the ongoing conflict between
impersonal, organizational
efficiency and individual needs and
desires. And in recent decades, thisFOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY
has proved to be the case, as
economic “rational calculation”
has led to the eclipse of high-street
sole traders by supermarkets and
shopping malls, and the export of
manufacturing and clerical jobs
from the West to lower-wage
economies worldwide. The hopes
and desires of individuals have, in
many cases, been contained by the
iron cage of rationalization. ■Max Weber Max Weber is one of the founding
fathers of sociology, along with
Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim.
Born in Erfurt into a German
middle-class intellectual family,
Weber received his doctorate in
1888 and held professorial posts at
the universities of Berlin, Freiburg,
and Heidelberg. His knowledge
of economics, history, politics,
religion, and philosophy serve as
the terrain out of which so much
sociological thinking in these
areas has developed and grown.
Although Weber’s professional
legacy remains outstanding, his
personal life was a troubled one,and in 1897 he had a breakdown
following the death of his father.
In spite of his untimely death in
1920, at the age of 56, Weber’s
account of the role of religion in
the rise of capitalism remains
a sociological classic.Key works1904–1905 The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism
1919–1920 General Economic
History
1921–1922 Economy and Society:
An Outline of Interpretive
SociologyThe conditions within semiconductor
fabrication plants, where workers
wear masks and “bunny suits," are a
visible symptom of rationalization and
the stifling of human interactions.