The Sociology Book

41

The 1936 film Modern Times
depicts actor Charlie Chaplin as
an assembly line worker subject
to the dehumanizing effects of
modernity and rationalization.

interact. This action is necessarily
subjective, and needs to be
interpreted by focusing on the
subjective values that individuals
associate with their actions.
This interpretive approach, also
called verstehen (“understanding”),
was almost the antithesis of the
objective study of society. Whereas
Durkheim’s approach examined
the structure of society as a whole,
and the “organic” nature of its
many interdependent parts, Weber
sought to study the experience of
the individual.
Weber was heavily influenced
by Marx’s theories, especially the
idea that modern capitalist society
is depersonalizing and alienating.
He disagreed, however, with
Marx’s materialist approach and
its emphasis on economics rather
than culture and ideas, and with
Marx’s belief in the inevitability
of proletarian revolution. Instead,

Weber synthesized ideas from both

Marx and Durkheim to develop

his own distinctive sociological

analysis, examining the effects of

what he saw as the most pervasive

aspect of modernity: rationalization.

An “iron cage”

In arguably his best-known work,

The Protestant Ethic and the

Spirit of Capitalism (1904 – 05),

Weber describes the evolution of

the West from a society governed

by tribal custom or religious

obligations to an increasingly

secular organization based on

the goal of economic gain.

Industrialization had been

achieved through advances in

science and engineering, and the

capitalism that accompanied it

called for purely rational decisions

based on efficiency and cost-benefit

analysis (assessing the benefits and

costs of projects). While the rise

of capitalism had brought many

material benefits, it also had

numerous social drawbacks;

traditional cultural and spiritual

values had been supplanted by

rationalization, which brought

with it a sense of what Weber

called “disenchantment” as the ❯❯

See also: Auguste Comte 22–25 ■ Émile Durkheim 34–37 ■ Charles Wright Mills 46–49 ■ Georg Simmel 104–05 ■
George Ritzer 120–23 ■ Max Weber 220–23 ■ Karl Marx 254–59 ■ Jürgen Habermas 286–87 ■ Talcott Parsons 300–01

FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY

...the world could one day be

filled with nothing but those

little cogs, little men clinging

to little jobs and striving

toward bigger ones.

Max Weber

The fate of our times

is characterized...

above all... by the

disenchantment of

the world.

Max Weber