The Press in the Light of Modern Capitalism: A planned survey by Max Weber on newspapers and journalism

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
G. Bastin
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
The Press

The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Point Of Departure

Max Weber is one of the most important modern social theorists. Using his work as a point of departure, The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber investigates the Weberian legacy today, identifying the enduring problems and themes associated with his thought that have contemporary significance: the nature of modern capitalism, neoliberal global economic policy, nationalism, religion and secularization, threats to legality, the culture of modernity, bureaucratic rule and leadership, politics and ethics, the value of science, and power and inequality. These problems are global in scope, and the Weberian approach has been used to address them in very different societies. Thus, the handbook also features chapters on Europe, Turkey, Islam, Judaism, China, India, and international politics. The handbook emphasizes the use and application of Weber’s ideas. It offers a journey through the intellectual terrain that scholars continue to explore using the tools and perspectives of Weberian analysis.

The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth. By Liah Greenfeld, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 541p. $45.00.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 803-804
Author(s):  
Mark N. Hagopian
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Peculiar Form ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
Prime Movers ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism ◽  
Precise Argument ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior

In this book Liah Greenfeld tackles the problem that preoccupied Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1930). Like many others, she disputes Weber's claim that modern capitalism emerged uniquely in Northwest Europe because of the attitudes and behavior promoted by Protestant Christianity, especially in its Calvinist variety: The “worldly asceticism” and peculiar form of economic rationality involved spawned an economic system that eventually helped change the world. Critical of this precise argument, Greenfeld is in the Weberian camp in centering the problem where he did and in stressing the differences between modern capitalism and age-old commercial profit making found virtually in all civilizations. Similarly sound is Weber's methodological posture that sees culture, that is, ideas, ideals, and values dramatically influencing the emergence, growth, and durability of economic systems. Those who, like the whole Marxist tradition, maintain that underlying “structural” factors such as technology and environment are the prime movers of history have succumbed to untenable deterministic philosophies. History and social structures, unlike the works of simple nature, are constructed by human agency, which itself is often provided by outstanding thinkers and doers.

Squaring Accounts: Commercial Bookkeeping Methods and Capitalist Rationalism in Late Qing and Republican China

1992 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Gardella
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
Republican China ◽  
The West ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Werner Sombart ◽  
Financial Events

Accounting has been defined as “the art of classifying, recording, and reporting significant financial events to facilitate effective economic activity” (Davidson 1968:14). The description, terse as it is, evokes the image of accounting's role as overseer in the global formation of mercantile and industrial capitalism. According to the historical sociologists Werner Sombart and Max Weber, methodical accounting methods were basic attributes of the development of modern capitalism in the West, and in the West alone. Yet, as Gary Hamilton observes, “uniqueness is a comparative claim, as well as a presumption underlying much historical research” (1985:66–67). In other words, claims of singularity should be redocumented by sound historical comparisons, rather than continually inferred on the basis of conventional wisdom.

The Attorney General's Commission and the New Politics of Pornography

1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (04) ◽  
pp. 641-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Downs
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Final Report ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Balanced Approach ◽  
The Press ◽  
Strong Concern

The 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography Report (the 1986 Commission) is an important, yet puzzling, document. It is important because of the significance of the pornography issue, and because the Commission contributes to our understanding of pornography. The Commission is puzzling, however, because its conclusions appear simultaneously reasonable and unreasonable. Despite the condemnations of the press (on grounds of runaway censorship), the final report was actually cautious and restrained in many respects. The Commission limited its recommendations for censorship to what it considered the most degrading forms of pornography, and refused to endorse legal prohibitions that went beyond the scope of the traditional “obscenity” exception to the First Amendment. But the Commission also expressed a strong concern about the harms that pornography might engender. Given the eruption of violent and other questionable forms of pornography in recent years, this concern is hardly unreasonable. Furthermore, recent polls show that a majority of Americans favor restricting violent forms of pornography. In these respects the Commission's efforts appear to embody a committed, yet balanced, approach that considered different values (what Max Weber termed the ethic of responsibility).

English Puritans, Dissenters, Quakers, and Recusants

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Covington
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
State Institution ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Atlantic History ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Church And Society ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Church

The Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 formally reestablished the Church of England as a state institution defined by standardized forms of worship and obedience to the Queen as its supreme governor. A vocal opposition almost immediately emerged, however, with responses to the settlement ranging from wary conformity or assertive nonconformity on the part of Puritans to Catholic refusal to attend church (a decision known as recusancy) to the emergence of more extreme separatist groups which would give rise to dissenters in the next century. The conflicting intentions and social identities of these groups, in addition to their connection to larger political developments, have made this one of the more tangled areas of English historiography, with the Puritanism bearing most of the burden. In the 19th century, for example, historians such as S. R. Gardiner equated puritanism with liberty and freedom; in the early 20th century, the sociologist Max Weber famously argued that modern capitalism was directly related to a Calvinist (and particularly English Calvinist) form of Christianity, with the Puritan divine Richard Baxter one of its foremost exponents. Such a view was criticized by, among others, Marxist historians such as Christopher Hill and Katherine George, who, nevertheless, imposed their own somewhat reified concepts onto nonmainstream groups. Recent years have witnessed such scholars as Patrick Collinson and Peter Lake exploring puritanism’s relation to the Elizabethan and early Stuart church and society, while David Como represents a new generation of historians, in this case focused on radicalism within the movement’s underground. This article attempts to encapsulate these trends, though its emphasis on English nonconformity admittedly excludes the new transatlantic focus promoted by historians such as Francis Bremer, or in the case of recusants, transcontinental perspectives. For such a perspective, see the Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History article on Protestantism by Carla Gardina Pestana.

scholarly journals The ancient economy, Modernity and the East and West relationship: the contributions of Karl Marx and Max Weber

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 484-505
Author(s):  
Alexandre Galvão Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Ancient Economy ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Old Economy

The work of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920) on the economy and society of the ancient world inaugurate a new perspective in relation to the economists of the 18th and 19th centuries and in debates about the old economy locked in Germany in the late 19th century. Different from neoclassical economists and the modernists and primitivism, these authors will defend the thesis of a radical break between the old world and the modern. A discontinuity marked, for Marx, the birth of the capitalist system, and for Weber, of modern capitalism. In addition to this similarity, these thinkers have reinforced the Eurocentric view by stating that the cultural and political roots of modern west lie in Classical Antiquity, reinforcing a tradition of thought of deep rifts between the ancient societies of the East and the societies of the Greco-Roman world, much contested in current historiography.

scholarly journals ECONOMY AS A RELIGIOUS PROBLEM. A POLITICAL APPROACH

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67
Author(s):  
Fabián Ludueña Romandini
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Political Approach ◽  
Ernst Troeltsch ◽  
Religious Aspects ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article tackles the problem of understanding money and economy with non-economic analytical categories. The first part is devoted to point out the differences between the exclusively economic approaches to money and the recent research, from anthropology to philosophy, that has laid stress on the political and religious aspects of the monetary phenomenon. The second part is focused on Georg Simmel’s fundamental contributions to a philosophical comprehension of money. Finally, a fragment by Walter Benjamin is the point of departure to consider the religious and political aspects of modern capitalism and their relationships with the works of Karl Marx, Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber.

scholarly journals MAX WEBER ON THE “SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM”. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE ANTECHAMBER OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (318) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Heinz D. Kurz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Economic Growth And Development ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism

<p align="center"><strong>ABSTRACT</strong><strong></strong></p><p>The paper has a fresh look at the work of Weber. The emphasis is on his “Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism”, which is frequently misrepresented. It is argued that Weber’s focus of attention is the historical importance of Protestant ideas to the extent to which they shape human action; the treatise does not seek to explain capitalism since its beginnings, but concentrates exclusively on “modern capitalism”; it deals with economic growth and development in the antechamber of the Industrial Revolution; it concerns essentially what Marx had called the production of “absolute” as opposed to relative surplus value. Weber’s argument is rephrased with the help of economic theory and its limitations are pointed out. </p><p align="center"> </p><p align="center">MAX WEBER SOBRE EL “ESPÍRITU DEL CAPITALISMO”</p><p align="center">CRECIMIENTO ECONÓMICO Y DESARROLLO EN LA ANTESALA DE LA REVOLUCIÓN INDUSTRIAL</p><p align="center"><strong>RESUMEN</strong></p><p>El artículo presenta un punto de vista nuevo sobre la obra de Max Weber. El énfasis está puesto en su “Ética Protestante y el ‘Espíritu’ del Capitalismo”, obra con frecuencia interpretada mal. La atención de Weber está en la importancia histórica de las ideas protestantes en cuanto perfilan la acción humana; no pretende explicar el capitalismo desde su origen, sino que se concentra sólo en el “capitalismo moderno”; trata del crecimiento y el desarrollo económico en la antesala de la Revolución Industrial; esencialmente de lo que Marx llamó producción de plusvalía “absoluta” por oposición a la relativa. Su argumento es reformulado aquí con la ayuda de la teoría económica y se hacen notar sus limitaciones.</p>

Law and the Development of Capitalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-109
Author(s):  
Laura R. Ford
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Commercial Law ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Central Interest ◽  
Finance Capitalism ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between law and capitalism was of central interest to Max Weber. His legal training sensitized Weber from the beginning of his scholarly career to the social and historical significance of law, a sensitivity that was reflected in his wide-ranging studies of capitalism. This chapter focuses on the linkages between law and capitalism that Weber elucidates in Economy and Society and in other works ranging from his dissertation and habilitation to his writings on financial exchanges. It concentrates on Weber’s writings about commercial law and modern finance capitalism, showing how these reflect the broader picture that he paints of the developmental trajectory of occidental law and, in turn, the development of modern, rational capitalism. The discussion also focuses attention on jurists as the culture-carriers of an intellectual tradition, who formulated a new commercial law for merchants and industrial guilds. This would become the legal basis for modern market finance capitalism. In helping to build a new Ordnung for modern capitalism, jurists were formulators of a type of this-worldly salvation system, one that Weber both admired and regretted.

Max Weber and the Idea of the Occident

2019 ◽  
pp. 518-533
Author(s):  
Joshua Derman
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Methodological Difficulty ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural World ◽  
Typical Method ◽  
The Ideal

Max Weber believed that the Occident had produced a set of unique institutions whose distinctiveness could be characterized using ideal types that accentuated their type and degree of “rationalism.” The rise of modern capitalism, one element within this set, had been enabled by the presence of other elements, he famously argued, none of which had indigenously arisen anywhere else in the world. This chapter reconstructs Weber’s idea of the Occident and examines how he understood the place of his own “modern European cultural world” within the development of occidental rationalism. It also considers the ways in which Weber’s comparative project might have been contaminated by various forms of “Eurocentric” biases, such as cultural prejudices, misapprehensions of Western uniqueness, and inept applications of the ideal-typical method. The most serious methodological difficulty with Weber’s comparative project is not his assertion of occidental difference, this chapter suggests, but rather his assumption that many paradigmatic cultural institutions were shared by societies whose developmental trajectories ultimately diverged. By attempting to understand non-Western institutions in terms of ideal types that were derived from European experiences, Weber often failed to appreciate the distinctive norms that structured the dynamism of non-Western societies.

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