Max Weber and the Path from Political Economy to Economic Sociology

145 Pages·2021·3.981 MB·English

by  Christopher Adair-Toteff

Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought
MAX WEBER AND THE PATH
FROM POLITICAL ECONOMY
TO ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY
Christopher Adair-Toteff
Max Weber and the Path from
Political Economy to Economic
Sociology
This book examines the largely-neglected shift in Max Weber’s work from
political economy to economic sociology. Considering the importance of his
recognition—made during his research on the Protestant Ethic—of the reciprocal
influences that exist between economics and society and the role of this
realization in prompting him to rethink the study of political economy, the
author sheds fresh light on his emerging belief that the study of the relationship
between economic factors and social issues required a new discipline. A study
that charts an important development in the thought of one of the founding
figures of sociology, this volume will appeal to scholars of social theory with
interests in the history of the field and the legacy of Max Weber.
Christopher Adair-Toteff is Fellow at the Center for Social and Political Thought,
University of South Florida, USA. A philosopher, sociologist, and social theorist,
he has published widely in the field of classical sociology. He is the author of
Raymond Aron’s Philosophy of Political Responsibility, Max Weber’s Sociology of
Religion, Fundamental Concepts in Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion, Re
introducing Toennies and Sociological Beginnings. He is the editor of The Anthem
Companion to Ernst Troeltsch and The Anthem Companion to Ferdinand Tönnies,
and the co-editor of The Calling of Social Thought: Rediscovering the Work of
Edward Shils and The Anthem Companion to Raymond Aron.
Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought
Accumulating Capital Today
Contemporary Strategies of Profit and Dispossessive Policies
Marlène Benquet and Théo Bourgeron
Critical Rationalism and the Theory of Society
Critical Rationalism and the Open Society Volume 1
Masoud Mohammadi Alamuti
Functionalist Construction Work in Social Science
The Lost Heritage
Peter Sohlberg
Critical Theory and New Materialisms
Hartmut Rosa, Christoph Henning and Arthur Bueno
Max Weber’s Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction
Stephen Kalberg
Temporal Regimes
Materiality, Politics, Technology
Felipe Torres
Citizenship in a Globalized World
Christine Hobden
The World as Idea
A Conceptual History
Charles P. Webel
Max Weber and the Path from Political Economy to Economic Sociology
Christopher Adair-Toteff
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/series/RSSPT
Max Weber and the Path
from Political Economy to
Economic Sociology
Christopher Adair-Toteff
First published 2022
by Routledge
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© 2022 Christopher Adair-Toteff
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978-0-367-62007-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-62009-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-10746-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003107460
Typeset in Times New Roman
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
Preface vi
1 Introduction 1
2 Nineteenth-century German political economy 6
3 Max Weber and becoming a political economist.
1890–1900 34
4 Max Weber and becoming a social economist.
1900–1910 71
5 Max Weber and “Sozial Ökonomik.” 1910–1920 92
6 Max Weber’s social economics—the path not taken 124
Index 132
Preface
As I will indicate in Chapter One much of my interest in writing this book is
prompted by the lack of concern with Max Weber as a political economist. In
that Chapter I offer a discussion of this scholarly situation. But much of my
decision to write this book on Weber as an economic sociologist is driven by my
experience in teaching at the American University in Bulgaria. My wife and I
moved to Bulgaria in 1994 where I had been offered an assistant professorship in
philosophy and my wife was hired to teach German and sociology. The
university had only been established a few years previously which provided
both opportunities and challenges. The opportunities included being able to offer
new courses, but the challenges included the scarcity of food and the lack of
reliable electricity and water. In the mid-1990s, Bulgaria was an impoverished
country and had just rejected communism. The lack of money and the culture of
corruption made the students suspicious of the faculty. While many of the
American Universities in foreign countries attracted both American and foreign
students, American University in Bulgaria (AUBG) drew students primarily
from Bulgaria and other eastern European countries. After a few weeks of initial
distrust, our students realized that my wife and I were not like either the
expatriate faculty or the local professors and that we were genuinely interested in
their learning and their well-being. This led to some formal meetings and many
informal gatherings where we learned much about our students’ lives as well as
some about our own. While many of the students had come from relatively well-
connected families, they were not financially well-off, and they relied heavily on
economic assistance. That made many of them feel even more dependent and
concerned about their futures. While AUBG regarded itself as a Western-styled
liberal arts university, most of the students were majoring in economics, finance,
and management. They hoped to be employed by western companies, in Bulgaria
or preferably in Europe or the United States. But the period between 1994 and
2001 was one that began with hope but began to darken with the economic
collapse during 1996–1997. There are numerous ways in which I can try to
convey these bleak years. The inflation was so high that prices were often not
displayed because they changed several times during the day. And, then there was
the question of was there even something to buy. I recall a February morning
standing in a breadline with twenty other people and there was only enough for
Preface vii
the first ten. Even though I had regularly given the shop keeper a considerable
amount of money to help out others, I would not accept her offer to give a loaf of
bread at the expense of others. Later that day I had a phone call from my father
in Florida. He had gone through the depression but had not suffered much.
When he reminded me that there were breadlines in the United States during the
early 1930s, I responded by pointing out that people had got bread then, but in
Bulgaria many did not. In terms of inflation, when we arrived in 1994, the leva
(the Bulgarian currency) was worth about three leva to the dollar and the largest
leva bill was one hundred. During the years 1996–1997 the bills expanded to
include 500, then 1,000, then 5,000, then 10,000, and finally 50,000 leva bills.
Finally, in 1998, the economic situation seemed to have stabilized, but we realized
how much of the pain had been caused by the government. Officials sold grain to
other countries and then bought it back at a higher price—and pocketed money
in both the sales and the purchase of that grain. The distrust was pervasive—an
American colleague taught an economics course at the state university in the
capitol Sophia and he knew that close to 50% of the 130 students were cheating
on exams. We knew that many of the students at AUBG were also not
honest—at least with many professors. The professors did not trust the students
and the students had no trust in their professors—after all, like all people with
social-economic power, the professors sought to use it. Another experience: my
wife and I had a student who had been an officer in the Romanian army. The
young man was very bright and engaged in both her sociology course and my
philosophy class. However, he failed the first exam in my wife’s class and when
asked, explained that he suffered from major headaches. We arranged to have
the university physician examine him and the doctor found that the student
suffered migraines because of bad eyesight. With the doctor’s help we had the
student be examined by a local ophthalmologist who recommended glasses. We
paid the total cost—which was the equivalent to twenty-five US dollars. This was
a person who needed glasses from the time he was eleven until he finally got them
fourteen years later. The point is not so much about our payment (although that
was another instance where students trusted us); rather, that politics and social
standing influence economics and vice-versa. And, that people with political and
socio-economic power use it, often to the detriment of others. While I decried the
inequality, I was fascinated by those interactions. As a result of the economic
crises of 1996/1997, I realized that the students did not need lectures on Plato and
Kant. What they needed and wanted was someone who could help them make
sense of their social and economic lives. And, that person was Max Weber. I
began to use Weber’s writings in classes, then I gave a course on his work that
was rather well attended. In my final semester I proposed a course that was
intended to draw some philosophy students and a few others and it was designed
around Weber’s Economy and Society. I had hoped for around ten but found
that I had sixty-three, so I offered two courses. Almost every student was a senior
finishing a major in economics, finance, or business administration, thus not
likely to be interested in socio-economics. As everyone who has attempted to
master Weber’s great works knows what a challenge it is. So, to my surprise, and
viii Preface
my great satisfaction, the students exerted themselves and made great efforts to
understand Weber’s points. Their efforts were successful to the point that the
grades were mostly A’s with some B’s and only one C. And, I was regarded as a
strict but fair grader. More than a dozen said that that was both the most
challenging and the most rewarding course they ever had and that they had
learned more useful economic knowledge from Weber than they had from all of
the economic textbooks they had used. Since they were graduating and we were
leaving, they had no reason to try to flatter me. Besides, they were not compli-
menting me as much as they were Max Weber. In light of this, my interest in
Weber’s work continued to grow and not just in economics but in many different
aspects of his work. Finally, I credit my study of Weber’s thinking for helping me
understand contemporary social-economic problems—which brings me to the
current pandemic situation.
The Covid virus has affected different countries in different ways, many of the
poorer nations have suffered more than others. However, Britain and Germany
are among the countries which have had significant problems in confronting the
virus. But it has hit different communities within the US in different ways.
Communities of color have been disproportionally affected while rural areas
discovered that they were not exempt from the illness. Thus, social and economic
factors shaped not only the spread of the disease, but also the various regions
differing responses. Thus, much of my early understanding about social
economic interactions have served to help me grasp some of the social and
economic impacts on the pandemic. Thus, I owe a debt of gratitude to my
students and our Bulgarian friends and neighbors for these insights into the
intersection of economics and social politics, not just for the past, but now
as well.
Perhaps, I should apologize both for the length of this Preface and its
highly personal nature. But I believe it is important to convey how my own
experiences have shaped my understanding of, and my approach to, Max
Weber’s social economics.
Christopher Adair-Toteff
10 April 2021
Traunstein, Oberbayern
1 Introduction
I
Max Weber has long been regarded as one of Germany’s leading sociol-
ogists and for many different reasons. Some scholars point to his two
major contributions to the discipline of sociology: Economy and Society
and the Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. Both works appear
at the top of almost any list of the most important books in sociology.
Other scholars point to the fact that Weber, along with Ernst Troeltsch,
was responsible for the development of the sociology of religion while
some others point to Weber’s contributions to establish the Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Soziologie (German Society for Sociology). However, it is
important to keep in mind that Weber was not trained in sociology, he held
no professorship in sociology, and he had an ambivalent attitude toward it.
Yet, he is rightly regarded as one of the leading founders of sociology and
he has been considered as one of Germany’s leading sociologists; but for
almost his entire life he regarded himself as an “economist” and not a
sociologist. He never explicitly referred to himself as an “economist” be-
cause that was not a term commonly used during that time in Germany.
Instead, scholars in that field, which encompassed “economics” considered
themselves either “political economists” or “national economists,” and
Weber referred to himself by both phrases.
This book was born out of several developments. The first was when I
wrote Capitalism and Criticism. Weber on Economic History (Adair-Toteff
2013). This effort prompted me to rethink how Weber was regarded as an
economic historian. The second was when I wrote the chapter on “Max
Weber and the Agrarian Question” for Alan Sica’s Anthem Companion to
Max Weber (Adair-Toteff 2016). The focus on Weber’s early writings on
agrarian problems made me realize how important social and political
factors were to his approach to economic issues. The third was when I wrote
the section on “Economic Sociology” for Bryan Turner’s Wiley Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Social Theory (Adair-Toteff 2018). In doing research for it, I
realized that, with the exception of Richard Swedberg’s Max Weber and the
Idea of Economic Sociology, there was little work done in this area
DOI: 10.4324/9781003107460-1