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Explain “social action” through an appropriate example

Maximilian Karl Emile Weber (21 April 1864-14 June 1920) was a German
sociologist, philosopher, jurist, and political economist. He was born in Prussia to
quite a wealthy family where his father was a business and his brother was in politics.
It is fair to say that Weber experience things from the capitalist point of view. He was
also a religious person and a Lutheran. It was during one of his hardest moment in life
where he had a fallout with his father and developed mental problem that he produced
two of his greatest works- the Protestant Ethic and Economy and Society.
One of Weber strongest influencer was George Simmel. He was the one
interested in the conception of social action which can be seen in Weber’s work.
Therefore, Weber has become one of the most relevant and important classical
thinkers.
In this essay, we will be looking at social action by constructing ‘ideal types’
which can be seen in the Protestant Ethic.

1.1 Social Action and Ideal Types

Sociologist tries to interpret social action in order to arrive at a conclusion. For
sociologist, it means all human behavior to which an individual attaches a subjective
meaning to it. According to Weber, “an action is ‘social’ if the acting individual takes
account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course.” Thus, an
action can be called “social action” only when the individual considers the act of the
behavior of the other and when subjective meaning is attached to it. The subjective
meaning is of two types- actual type: the actual, concrete action that the individual
does and theoretical type: it is an average type also known as ‘pure type’ and there is
a hypothetical element to it.
Thus, Weber say that, when we study a social action, there is never a no correct
meaning and we must do away with the bias in our head. He further mentioned that
there are many types of social action which we cannot understand. For instance,
mystical experiences of people. He says in order to study social action, there need not
be a verified national accuracy. If one does not understand a social action, it is
possible for others to do so. It is not necessary to put yourself in others place to
understand them in order to get meaningful interpretation. It is possible to not
understand a reason behind an action because the understandable and non-
understandable exist together.
Weber says that the more distant a particular action course from rationality, an action
will be less understandable if the researcher value is different from the others. The
more open we are to other as researcher, the more we will be able to understand other
actions behind it.
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1.1.2 For the purpose of understanding social action better, sociologist determined the
ideal course of action(hypothesis) and the actual course of action and what are the
factors that led to the actors to take the actual course. It is only in this way that we can
possibly access the causal course of irrational and the effect of irrational actions. This
particular structure is referred to as ideal type. It is a theoretical tool which allow the
researcher to understand an action without any confusion through rationality.
However, confusion and ambiguity will come in when comparing ideal type with
actual type.
Ideal type work by the process of comparing with the actual course. Once ideal types
are constructed, researcher interpret it by understanding it in two ways-
direct/observational understanding and explanatory understanding.
Direct/observational is whenever the researcher asked direct question behind the
subject action. On the other hand, explanatory is when the researcher tries and
understand the real motive behind the subject action. Here, the researcher doesn’t
fully believe but dwell into their meaning and motivation behind their action that is, to
look beyond what you see.
1.1.3 On the basis of constructing ‘ideal type’, Weber has device four ideal types of
social action.
1. Rational action/ZWECK Rational action- Mathematically more intelligent.
There is a reasoning behind a person action and is rational.
2. WERT Rational action- Also called ‘value-oriented action’. It is when an
action of an individual is due to a belief in value.
3. Affectual action- When an individual action is out of emotions or feelings.
4. Traditional action- It is the result of a long habit which can be in the form of
customs, norms, tradition, etc.
Weber says that it will be nearly impossible to find these social actions in isolation of
one another. Our action is a combination of all these actions.

1.1.4 Weber say, natural scientist also works by constructing ideal type too. Pure
economic theory is based on strictly rational action and devoid of human interference.
In reality, if we were to study economic actions of people, we will see that their action
is motivated by so called ‘irrational action/factor’. When we begin to further study the
meaning behind people action, we find that the real intended meaning is something
and people act because of conflict or opposing actions. This may be complex and
conflicting. Unfortunately, sociologist shouldn’t look beyond this but rather by
psychologist. Weber further argued that rather to take help from psychologist, it is
better to take from history as it offers largest possible number of similar cases
happening before. And by comparing, we can arrive at a higher probability of
meaning behind an action. However, this kind of interpretation must necessarily
remain a hypothesis. Therefore, as a sociologist, we must look at the subjective
meaning which an actor carries with herself constantly, a ‘complex of subjective
meaning’ which is an entire collection of emotion you have within yourself and your
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action is a result of it. As sociologist, we should be able to understand the ‘complex of

subjective meaning’ in two ways-
1. Adequacy at the level of meaning
2. Causally adequate meaning
3. Correct causal explanation which is to say when the study has both the
above mentioned together. It by looking at historical analysis of cause and effect, then
you can construct ideal types and compared it to the real type. And thus, we arrive at
correct causal explanation.
1.1.5 Weber also look at history and sociology as a discipline and how one
compliments one another. It is from history that sociologist as a researcher can
borrowed and give it back to history as a discipline. As long as we can borrowed from
history, it allowed to developed data and concept that is, by taking content or actual
data from history and give back by giving this concept a meaningful understanding.
For Weber, history is the only relatable discipline and not psychology. History can
give us content to construct ideal type. This content is average type containing
average behavior. And by selecting similarity/pattern, you can compare the ideal type
to that of reality. However, if there is no pattern between action, we cannot have
average type. When the ideal type is better constructed, the most distant it is from
reality. Thus, a good ideal type is distinct to reality.

1.2 Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism

Weber give an illustration of social action by looking at two ideal types- Protestant
Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism and he connect the two.
1.2.1 Weber says that protestants were more successful in business as compare to the
Catholics and is the reason why he took interest in studying protestant ethic.
Protestant ethic began with an observation. He finds that people (German) who are
well-off economically are overwhelming protestants. The general participation in
capitalism was done by protestants, and the reason behind this is that they can afford
education and the position in capitalism.
In Catholicism, there is domination of the priest. In protestants, the church invades the
lives of the people and regulates their behavior. It is the Calvinist sect which is most
strict among the other protestants like baptism, pietism, methodism. The followers
of Calvinism are the strongest supportive of their beliefs. At the same time, they are
economically well-to-do. Weber also mentioned Martin Luther King who was one
of the founding fathers of protestant. His formulation is called Lutheranism. He used
the word ‘calling’ and the German word ‘bereft’. He used it to describe a task set by
God. This concept of calling as religious is not found in catholic but in protestant. He
further talks about how individual has duty towards society that is worldly affair. His
concept of calling is focus more on everyday duties/activities.
1.2.2 Weber says that the spirit of capitalism is not the rise of capitalism in the west
among protestants and is unique to the west. Although it has a religious connection,
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which gave the protestants a business acumen. In order to understand this, we look at
Benjamin Franklin’s book Picture of American Culture where he talks about
maxims(proverbs) on how Americans should be. Franklin was also protestant himself.
One of his famous quotes, “Time is money” is something the capitalists stood by.
Weber say, it is here what he calls the ‘spirit of capitalism’ emerge. In Franklin’s
writing we find it is the duty of the individual to earn more, thus increasing of earning
has to be done in a principled way. Basically, he is talking about leading your life in
an ethical way.
1.2.3 Linking protestant ethic with capitalism, Weber begin by mentioning protestant
ethic and its impact on everyday economic behavior. He uses the writing of Richard
Baxter who was a Presbyterian to explain it. Baxter was a puritan writer and
according to him, religion should have practical and realistic aspect of religion. And
the most practical religious activity was ‘the act of labor.’ Labor therefore is the
highest moral activity and because of this there was a remarkable emphasis on
acquisition of wealth. However, the danger of acquiring wealth lies in becoming lazy
about it and start spending impulsively and give in the temptation of the flesh.
Therefore, wealth according to Baxter, was not for leisure and enjoyment but for the
glory of God. He also says that wasting of time is a deadliest of sin because human
live was short and precious.
Weber also mentioned that since in protestant there is importance on fixed calling,
this provide an ethical justification for modern day division of labor and moral
justification of capitalism. Thus, making profit also find moral justification. The
protestant ethic, therefore gives a very important push to business activity.

1.3 Criticism
1.3.1 Criticism on Ideal Type-
a. Weber say to be value neutral and not to bring biases into analysis. However,
the very construction of ideal type has the scope for biases/prone to it and the
assumption of the researcher.
b. Critics argues that the concept of ideal type is very complex and only expert
sociologists can efficiently use it, because it is open to biasedness.
c. Radical critics argued that ideal type can only explain specific cases and not
general concepts and theories. Thus, concept of ideal type can be drop all together.
1.3.2 Criticism on Protestant Ethic-
a. Tom Bottomore argued that Weber’s thesis on protestant ethic is based on
serious assumptions and these assumptions pertain to misunderstanding the tenant of
protestant ethic.
b. Historian H.M Robertson argued that Weber asserted calling was unique to
protestant ethic. He sites that the concept of protestant ethic was also present in
Catholicism throughout 16th and 18th century. He also argues that this idea of calling in
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either protestant and catholic has nothing to do with everyday work rather it is specific
to spiritual and religious activity.
c. Weber criticize by stating that protestant ethic encourages risk-taking
behavior. However, critics have argued that during the reformation period, protestant
were persecuted, fleeing, and migrating. Therefore, protestant had to adopt to risk-
taking behavior because they were migrating, fleeing and not because of work.

Conclusion
Therefore, we see how Weber incorporate social action into ideal type and by
looking at protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism, we see how the spirit of capitalism
is different in the west and religious connotation has a bigger role to play in the pursue
of economic well-being. It is for the glory of God rather than enjoyment and the very
act of labor is given the highest moral activity.
Bibliography
Weber, Max. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: The
Free Press, pp.87-123
Weber, Max. 2002. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London:
Blackwell Publishers, PP. 3-54, 103-126, Chapters I, II, III, IV, & V.

Submitted by-
OLIVIA LHINGNEINIANG
160676
SOCIOLOGY(HONS.) 3rd Year
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