Max Weber

Max Weber

Whitmore, Quadree

Allied American University

Author Note

This paper was prepared for SOC135, Module 1 homework “Max Weber” taught by Prof. Barbara-leigh Tonelli.

Max Weber is a German born sociologist who started his educational endeavors with studying law, which was eventually switched to social science. Weber theorized that the Roman Catholic and the Protestant belief system may have brought about what we now know as capitalism. The reasons Weber believed this is because of the teachings each religion taught their believers. Roman Catholic was taught to hold a much more traditional life. Protestant believes that “God” showed is blessing depending on some sort of financial success. Weber identified this way of life as the “Protestant ethic”, which basically means the virtue of hard work. Weber’s work focused on four types of social action with complemented his ideology sociology. The Zweck rational action is an action that is performed in relation to a goal. For example, an action of a football player is to play as a team to win footballs games. This football player knows exactly what he has to do to win. Next is the Wert rational action which is a valued leaning rationality, which is like a Marine braving enemy fire to retrieve a wound brother because, it is considered brave and honorable. Now affective action is dictated to an emotion such as a dad making his son perform a series of push-ups because of his behavior. Lastly, the Traditional action is pretty much the action of habit. Max Weber’s contribution really fascinated me for a number of reasons, but the one reason that sticks out the most for me was his theory on capitalism. For someone like me who invests into the U.S stock market, Weber’s look on the protestant religion and their belief that wealth is “Gods” blessing interests me. I would like to research other religions to see what their beliefs are when it comes to wealth, and how do they prepare themselves to obtain this wealth....