Sociology of Power: What is Power?

What is power?

Being at the heart of social stratification, many people view power as the ability to influence or control another person's behavior.

Economic Sociology: Max Weber and ‘The Protestant Ethic and Capitalism’

(Max Weber)

Max Weber was raised by parents who held polar ideologies about life. His father, a bureaucrat, enjoyed the pleasures of life. His mother, on the other hand, was a devout Calvinist who lived an ascetic life and constantly pursued salvation. Because of the differences in his parent’s personality, Weber was able to experience the two sides of living, even though it affected him psychologically as the tension of having to choose a side played a great deal of stress on his mind.

In his early college career, he followed in his father’s footsteps by joining a fraternity, where he developed socially by going out and drinking large amounts of beer with his frat brothers. However, as he got older, he became more like his mother. In his late 20s, he developed a compulsion for work and lived ascetically.

It was these first-hand experiences (and extensive research in religious studies) that helped him write his most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and Capitalism (affiliate link) in 1904-1905.

What is Economic Sociology?

(Max Weber)

Economic sociology, which was coined by William Stanley Jevons in the late 1800s, is used by many sociologists to examine how the processes of the economy affect the organisms of society and vice versa.

This field of study is broken up into two periods, classical and contemporary.

Must Know Max Weber's Concepts on Social Stratification

(Max Weber)

Max Weber was a German sociologist who was interested in the areas of economics and politics. He attended the University of Heidelberg, but after three terms, he left for military service. Two years later, he returned home and attended the University of Berlin, where he completed his studies (Ph. D) and became a lawyer. He also received a teaching position at this institution upon graduation.

Growing up, Weber was conflicted to find an identity as his father was a bureaucrat who enjoyed the earthly pleasures, and his mother was a Calvinist who lived an ascetic life. Because of having to deal with these dueling ideologies most of his life, Weber was able to fuse both religion and politics into his works.

When it came to stratification, Weber saw it as multidimensional and refused to boil it down to just economics, as he felt that economics, status, and power were all factors for stratification. He said that some people may rank high on one or two of these, but low on the others.