Max Weber's vision of economic sociology

Abstract

Max Weber's economic sociology is usually associated with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905), but in this paper I show that what Weber himself called his "Wirtschaftssoziologie", or economic sociology, looked quite different and was something that he developed during the last year of his life, 1919-1920. I present and outline Weber's (later) economic sociology and pay particular attention to his ideas of "economic (social) action" and of the three different forms of capitalism (rational capitalism, political capitalism and traditional capitalism). I also show that to Weber, economic sociology was part of a more general science of economics that he often referred to as "social economics" ("Sozialökonomik"). The paper ends with a comparison between the paradigm of economic sociology, which can be found in the work of Max Weber, and the paradigm of what is known as New Economic Sociology.