Henderson Alexander Morell - 2009;2013;

MAX WEBER

THE FREE PRESS

THE FREE PRESS
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Copyright 1947 by Professor Talcott Parsons

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First Paperback Edition 1964

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ISBN 0-684-83640-8
ISBN 13: 978-0-684-83640-9
eISBN 13: 978-1-439-18887-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7

Preface

THE volume herewith presented to the English-speaking public is a translation of Part I of Max Webers Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, which was in turn originally published as Volume III of the collaborative work Grundriss der Sozialoekonomik, in the planning of which Weber played a major role. Its relation to Webers work as a whole is explained in the editors Introduction. It is, however, relatively self-contained so as to appear suitable for separate publication in translation. The choice of an English title, for which the editor is wholly responsible, is meant to designate this independent significance.

The project for publication of this translation antedates the war. Its origin lay in a draft translation of Chapters I and II which was made by Mr. A. M. Henderson for Messrs. William Hodge & Co. Ltd. of London and Edinburgh. The present editor undertook, at the publishers request, to revise and edit this draft. It was originally planned that Mr. Henderson would submit drafts also of Chapters III and IV, but his war service prevented this. Hence the present translation of the first two chapters is a rather free revision of Mr. Hendersons draft; the translation of the third and fourth chapters is wholly the editors. Mr. Henderson has had no opportunity to see the final version, so entire responsibility for departures from his draft must be taken by the editor.

Publication has been long delayed by difficulties created by the war. I can only express my admiration for the persistence of the English publishers in continuing to adhere to the enterprise in spite of these difficulties and in bringing it to final fruition, and for their tolerance in publishing a fundamental work by an enemy national at such a time. We can, however, agree that the universality of science transcends even the conflict of war. The American edition has been reprinted from the page proofs of the English.

Besides the aid given by Mr. Hendersons draft, I should like to acknowledge the help derived from a draft translation of Chapter I, Section I, by Alexander von Schelting and Edward Shils, which the authors kindly put at my disposal. A number of my professional colleagues, notably the late Professor Edwin F. Gay and Professor Robert K. Merton, made valuable criticisms of the manuscript translation and the Introduction at different stages. I should like also to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. Bernard Barber and Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood Dean Fox in preparation of the index, and of Mr. Ozzie G. Simmons in correction of the proof.

Finally I should like to record my gratification that this translation does not stand alone in bringing to the English reader some of the more comprehensive and fundamental works of Max Weber. There has also recently appeared, published by the Oxford University Press, a volume of selections from Webers most important sociological writings translated and edited by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills.

TALCOTT PARSONS

Cambridge, Massachusetts

24 March 1947

Contents

MAX WEBER: The Theory of Social and Economic Organization

The Author and His Career

THOUGH an increasing number of scholars in the English-speaking world have in recent years come to know Max Webers work in the original German editions, the part of it which has heretofore been available in English translation has formed a wholly inadequate basis on which to understand the general character of his contributions to social science. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Webers was the type of mind which was continually developing throughout his intellectually productive life. He explicitly repudiated the desire to set up a system of scientific theory, and never completed a systematic work. There are, however, exceedingly important systematic elements in his thought, and the volume herewith presented to the world of English-speaking scholarship has been selected for translation precisely because it contains the nearest approach to a comprehensive statement of these elements of all his published works. It contains both a greatly condensed statement of the methodological foundations of his empirical and theoretical work, most of which had been more fully discussed in his earlier methodological essays, and the systematic development not of all, but of a very important part, of a comprehensive, logically integrated scheme of ideal types of social action and relationships.

But this system of sociological theory was not meant by Weber to stand alone. It was conceived rather as the introduction to an enormously ambitious comparative historical study of the sociological and institutional foundations of the modern economic and social order. It has been published, in the German, as Part I of the much larger work, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. This work, even in Part I, but still more so in the later parts, was left seriously incomplete at its authors premature death, so that the editors did not even have an authoritative table of contents in terms of which to decide on the arrangement of the existing manuscript material. Though a fragment it is still an exceedingly comprehensive one, and gives a better conception than does any other single work of its authors extraordinary erudition, scope of interest, and analytical power.

Before entering upon the discussion of some of the more important technical questions of social science methodology, theory, and empirical generalization which are raised by the work here translated, it will be well to give the reader a brief sketch of the author and of the more general character and setting of his work.

Max Weber work for about four years. After that, during the most fruitful years of his life, he lived as a private scholar in a state of semi-invalidism in Heidelberg. During the latter part of World War I, however, he accepted a temporary teaching appointment at the University of Vienna, and finally, in 1919, a regular appointment to the Chair of Economics at Munich. He died suddenly of pneumonia in the second semester of his incumbency there, at the height of his intellectual powers.

Though Webers formal career was mainly confined to the academic sphere, his interest never was. From an early age he took a passionate interest in political affairs. For many years he was on terms of intimacy with politically important persons, and gave them considerable advice behind the scenes. He was among the first to develop strong opposition to the regime of Wilhelm II, though by no means mainly from the point of view of the ordinary left parties. During the War he submitted several memoranda to the Government, and in the latter part of it began writing articles on current events for the