Max Weber (born April 21, 1864, in Erfurt, died on June 14, 1920, in Munich) was a German sociologist and economist. He is considered one of the classics of sociology as well as the entire cultural, social and historical sciences. With his theories and terminology, he had a great influence in particular on the sociology of economics, rule, and religion.
They are linked to his name“Protestantism-capitalism thesis”, the principle of “freedom of judgment”, the concept of “charisma” and the distinction between “ethical ” and “ responsible ethics”. Politics was not just a field of research for him, but as a class-conscious citizen and out of a liberal conviction, he expressed his commitment to the current political issues of the Empire and the Weimar Republic.
As an early theorist of bureaucracy, he was elected one of the founding fathers of organizational sociology via the detour of the US reception.
Quick Facts: Max Weber
- Born: Maximilian Karl Emil Weber on 21 April 1864
- Known For: sociologist and economist
- Parents: (Father: Max Weber Sr.), (Mother: Helene Fallenstein)
- Nationality: Prussia (1864–1871), German Empire (1871–1918), Weimar Republic (1918–1920)
- Spouse: Marianne Schnitger (1893–1920)
- Died: 14 June 1920 (aged 56) in Munich, Bavaria, Germany
- Quotes: “It is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant.” – Max Weber
The Early Life of Max Weber
Max Weber was born on April 21, 1864, in Erfurt, the first of eight children, six of whom (four sons and two daughters) reached adulthood. His parents were the lawyer and later member of parliament of the National Liberal Party Max Weber sen. (1836-1897) and Helene Weber, born Fallenstein (1844-1919).
His brother Alfred, born in 1868, also became an economist and university professor in sociology, while his brother Karl, born in 1870, became an architect. He was on the maternal line nephew of Hermann Baumgarten and cousin of Fritz Baumgarten and Otto Baumgarten.
Max Weber experienced a relatively intact family, “whose cohesion was manifested not least in disputes”. He was considered a problem child that at the early age of two years, meningitis was diagnosed. He asserted the rights of the firstborn early on; he felt himself to be the mediator of disputes between children and parents in the family.
He mastered the school requirements “effortlessly and with flying colors”. At the age of thirteen, he read works of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, Baruch Spinoza, and Kant, but also literary writers such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
Max Weber Education
Max Weber studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, and Gottingen, taking a special interest in law, history, and economics.
In 1882, Weber entered Heidelberg University as a law student. He joined the fraternity of his father and chose the field of law like him. Apart from these studies, he took economics classes and studied medieval history.
He had as teachers, among others, his uncle, the German liberal historian Hermann Baumgarten, author of two voluminous works on ancient and modern Spanish history and son and grandson of Protestant pastors. Additionally, Weber made extensive readings on theological topics.
He intermittently served in the German army in Strasbourg and, in the autumn of 1884, returned to his parents’ house to study at the University of Berlin. For the next eight years, Weber lived at his parents’ house, first as a student, then as an assistant in the Berlin courts and finally as a teacher at the university.
His residence at his parents’ house was interrupted only by a semester of study at the University of Göttingen and by occasional short periods of additional military training. In 1886 Weber passed the “Referendar” exams, which allowed him to practice as a lawyer.
In the late 1880s, Weber deepened his studies of history. He obtained a doctorate in law in 1889, with a thesis on legal history titled The History of Medieval Business Organizations. Two years later, Weber completed his Habilitation with the thesis on the Roman agrarian history and its significance for public and private law.
Having qualified – he was already able to practice as a Privatdozent – Weber was qualified in Germany to obtain a position as a university professor.
University and political Career
In 1892 he did his habilitation in Roman (constitutional and private) law and commercial law in Berlin with August Meitzen. Weber’s postdoctoral thesis was entitled The Roman Agricultural History in Its Significance for Public and Private Law.
A year later, in 1893, he was at the age of 29 years an associate professor of Commercial Law in Berlin. In the same year, he married his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger in Oerlinghausen, who later became active as a women’s rights activist, writer, and politician. There is much to suggest that the two have a so-called companion marriage led. The marriage remained childless.
Also in 1893, Max Weber was co-opted for the first time in the committee of the Association for Social Policy. This was preceded by the large empirical study on the situation of agricultural workers in East Elbe Germany, which appeared in the association’s publication series in 1892.
The club was one of Weber until his death. Weber belonged to the younger left-liberal generation of the association, not to the older generation of the so-called Catheter Socialists around Gustav Schmoller and Adolph Wagner.
In 1893 Weber also joined the All-German Association, which was a nationalist Represented politics. However, he left this organization in 1899 when he was unable to assert himself on the so-called “Poland question” with his demand for the closure of the borders for Polish migrant workers.