In this blog post, we will examine the historical context of the time, Weber’s life and thought, and the outline and structure of the two lectures—“Politics as a Vocation” and “Science as a Vocation”—that he delivered to university students amid the chaos of Germany as a defeated nation during and immediately after World War I, in order to better understand them.

Historical Context

The era in which Weber was active corresponds to the late modern period, spanning from the British Industrial Revolution to the early 20th century—primarily up to World War I. Therefore, let us examine several characteristics of modernity necessary for a deep understanding of the two lectures presented here.

Social and Political Background

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, European nations entered a transitional period in which feudal society began to disintegrate and modern civil society emerged. During this time, the feudal nobility—which was losing power and declining—clashed with the newly emerging bourgeoisie, leading to the emergence of an authoritarian political system known as “absolute monarchy.” In ‘Politics as a Vocation’, Weber explains this process as the king utilizing the emerging bourgeoisie to suppress the feudal nobility and concentrate power in the hands of the monarch alone. Under absolute monarchy, the king relied politically on the divine right of kings to establish a bureaucracy and a standing army, thereby strengthening royal authority; economically, mercantilist policies were implemented.
The Industrial Revolution refers to the technological innovations and inventions of new manufacturing processes that began in earnest in Britain in the late 18th century, as well as the major economic, social, and political changes that followed. In the late 18th century, as demand for cotton products increased and spinning technology advanced, large-scale spinning mills emerged; James Watt’s improvements to the steam engine led to revolutionary developments in mechanical engineering, the iron and steel industry, and the transportation sector, which became key driving forces behind the Industrial Revolution. As a result, large numbers of rural peasants migrated to the cities and became wage laborers, and British society transitioned from an agricultural society to an industrial one. With the emergence of a new bourgeois class that had accumulated capital through industrial activity, the power of the absolute monarchy began to wane. A power struggle between the monarchy and the bourgeoisie ensued, ultimately leading to the Civil Revolution.
The bourgeois revolution, also known as the civic revolution, was a revolution that occurred during the transition from feudal society or absolute monarchy to a civil society. Under absolute monarchy, the bourgeoisie—which had grown in power through the discovery of the New World, the opening of new trade routes, and the development of commerce and industry—played a leading role in the political transformation that laid the foundation for an industrial society. The English Puritan Revolution (1642–1649), the Glorious Revolution (1688), and the French Revolution (1789–1799) are cited as representative examples of bourgeois revolutions. With the civil revolutions, absolute monarchy—centered on the king’s unchecked authority—collapsed, and the dawn of a new modern state, which held freedom and equality as core values, began. Following the Glorious Revolution, England laid the foundation for a constitutional monarchy, limiting the power of the monarch while strengthening that of Parliament; France, meanwhile, abolished the monarchy and established a republic during the course of its revolution.

Ideological Background

We describe the characteristics that defined the modern era using the term “modernism (modernism). The term “modernism” refers to the unique ideas and worldview of the modern era, distinctly different from the feudal Middle Ages. Modernism—not as a single school of thought but as a term characterizing an entire era, that is, modernism in the broad sense—refers to an ideological tendency, particularly in the West, that believes in the power of humanity to achieve “progress” and seeks to reshape the human environment through experimentation, scientific knowledge, and technology. Therefore, it can be said that modernism was a philosophy and worldview that began with the Renaissance movement of the 14th to 16th centuries, continued through the Enlightenment movement of the 17th and 18th centuries, and aimed at the fulfillment of liberalism, individualism, and, above all, rationalism. The development of science, based on rationalist thinking—that is, thinking centered on reason and free from medieval theological thought—played a decisive role in the formation of modernism. While the Renaissance movement sought to revive ancient Greek and Roman culture, thereby dismantling the theological thought characteristic of medieval feudal society and establishing a human-centered, liberal, and individualistic “humanist philosophy,” the Enlightenment movement aimed to reform society by breaking down the remaining feudal order through faith in the power of “reason” and humanity’s “infinite progress.” Since the Enlightenment is a key topic in Weber’s lecture, it warrants a detailed examination.
The Enlightenment was a cultural, philosophical, literary, and intellectual movement that began in the late 17th century and spread throughout Europe in the 18th century. Prominent Enlightenment thinkers include Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), John Locke (1632–1704), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), and Isaac Newton (1643–1727). Enlightenment thinkers regarded themselves as a progressive elite and fought against religious and political persecution. Their writings had a profound influence on the major political upheavals of the late 18th century, including the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The Enlightenment movement spread from England—where it was rooted in empiricism and political philosophy—through France to Germany.
The Enlightenment movement shed the light of “reason” on the premodern darkness in the realms of politics, economics, society, religion, and thought. This premodern darkness refers to feudal and religious authority, privilege, corruption, oppression, custom, tradition, prejudice, and superstition. The Enlightenment thinkers used “reason” as a yardstick to criticize and condemn this darkness. Thought based solely on reason was presented as the crucial standard for judging human behavior and social structures, and truth and justice grounded in reason stood in stark contrast to the darkness and ignorance of the past. The Enlightenment overturned the worldview of the medieval feudal era—which had evaluated everything from a theological perspective—and adopted human reason as the primary criterion for judgment. Thus, the fervor of the rational spirit shook the world.
The British Enlightenment refers, broadly, to the empiricist and moral-philosophical tradition spanning from Francis Bacon in the early 17th century to Adam Smith and Bentham in the late 18th century; more narrowly, it refers to 18th-century philosophy extending from John Locke to Smith. The British Enlightenment promoted an anthropocentric optimism characterized by criticism of religious authority, an emphasis on humanity’s inner moral consciousness, and a tendency to prioritize experience and reason; however, compared to the French Enlightenment, it exhibited a relatively moderate and gradualist approach to social criticism.
In contrast, the French Enlightenment emerged under the influence of Descartes’ philosophy as a resistance to the authoritarianism of the Catholic faith and its ethic of asceticism and obedience; after the death of Louis XIV in 1715, it evolved into a movement of rational criticism. Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, and others criticized the religious prejudices and established social notions entrenched in the Ancien Régime. Voltaire, in particular, criticized the Church on the basis of deism and religious tolerance, while Montesquieu, in publishing ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ in 1748, developed a critique of the Ancien Régime based on the principles of the separation of powers and the rule of law. By around 1770, just before the French Revolution, the Enlightenment had become one of the dominant ideologies of the era, exerting a significant influence on the bourgeoisie and establishing itself as a philosophy of practical transformation.
The Enlightenment in Germany began with Thomasius (1655–1728), who introduced British empiricism to Germany and made outstanding contributions to jurisprudence, and continued to develop until around 1781, when Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ was published. At that time, Germany was fragmented into various monarchies and principalities, and and with feudal forces and religious authority still strong, the Enlightenment movement could not help but achieve more limited results compared to those in Britain or France.
Weber was a figure who lived during the late modern era. In the late modern period, on the one hand, socialism emerged as a reaction against modern capitalist industrial society and gained significant influence; on the other hand, the philosophy of life and Romanticism emerged out of disappointment with and opposition to modernism in the broad sense, which was based on rationalism and progressive thought. These three schools of thought had a significant influence on Weber as well. Let us first examine socialism.
Socialism is both an ideology—which argues that, in opposition to liberal individualism and capitalism, the means of production, such as capital and land, should be socially owned and managed for the benefit of all members of society—and the concrete, organized activities undertaken to implement that ideology. Here, we will examine scientific socialism—Marxism—developed by Marx (1818–1883) and Engels (1820–1895), which exerted significant influence throughout Europe and in various regions, including Russia, during the late modern period. Although socialist thought existed prior to this, Marxism was able to exert strong appeal in the late modern era—when the adverse effects of capitalism were becoming severely apparent—because it critically developed and synthesized the dialectics and materialism of 19th-century German classical philosophy (such as Hegel and Feuerbach), the labor theory of value from British classical economics, and French socialist thought.
Marxism, a communist ideology based on dialectical materialism, served as the ideological foundation for many labor movements that arose in Europe before World War I. Marxists believed that the laws of capitalist development discovered by Marx would lead to the inevitable collapse of capitalism and the advent of the communist revolution. However, Marx described socialism as a transitional stage in the process of transition from capitalism to communism. Consequently, when the revolution broke out in Russia in 1917 and the Bolsheviks seized power, a fierce debate and struggle ensued in Europe between “revolutionary socialists,” who argued that a communist state must be established through revolution, and “reformist socialists,” who argued that socialism should be realized gradually through reforms within the bourgeois system. In Russia, this conflict manifested as a confrontation between the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, and the Mensheviks, led by Martov. In Germany, revolutionary socialists within the Social Democratic Party—led by Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, among others—split off to form the Spartacus League.
Weber, who believed that sociocultural factors played a significant role in the economy—and who indeed substantiated his argument in ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’—stood in direct opposition to Marxism, which was based on materialism, in terms of his intellectual orientation. In other words, the Marxist movement, which functioned as an ideology, was at odds with Weber, a sociologist who pursued scientific rigor. This conflict is clearly evident in the two lectures presented in this book.
The philosophy of life refers to an irrationalist philosophical movement that developed in Europe from the late 19th century to the early 20th century in reaction to the rationalism and positivism that emerged with the advancement of the empirical sciences. Prominent figures include Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Dilthey, Simmel, and Bergson. Their common argument was that the “life” of humans, living beings in general, and indeed the entire universe is difficult to fully grasp through the rational and scientific thinking of the positive sciences alone—and may, in fact, be obscured by such thinking. Regarding the nature of “life,” Schopenhauer defined it as the “blind will to life”; Nietzsche as the “will to power”; Dilthey as “spiritual and historical life”; Simmel as the “immanence of the transcendent”; and Bergson as the “leap of life.” They share the common view that truth can only be grasped by moving beyond rational and scientific thought and returning to a form of “intuition” or direct “experience.”
The philosophy of life sought to acknowledge the irrationality of life as it is, in reaction to modernism’s pursuit of rationality and universality; however, in Weber’s view, the philosophy of life was an attempt to bring even the irrational realms—which scholarship had not yet touched—into the realm of rational cognition. The philosophy of life subsequently influenced various philosophical movements, including existentialism.
Romanticism was a literary and artistic movement that unfolded across Europe and the Americas from the late 18th century to the mid-19th century. Characterized by the liberation of emotion, a longing for and anxiety about the infinite, and a rebellion against order and logic, it stood in opposition to Classicism. In the 18th century, European nations inherited Classicism, which had been established in 17th-century France, while also being influenced by the Enlightenment, which regarded reason as a crucial means of cognition. Classicism established strict rules based on the concept of universal and absolute beauty, favoring simplicity over complexity, the static over the dynamic, urban sophistication over rusticity, and elegance over overt expression; balance over innovation. However, by the mid-18th century, on the one hand, the weakening of absolute monarchy and the emergence of the bourgeoisie gave rise to a desire to view humanity as it truly is; on the other hand, criticism of reason—the very foundation of the Enlightenment—began to surface. Although one of the major achievements of the Enlightenment was the overthrow of irrational political systems through reason, people could not help but despair upon witnessing the human frailty and the violence of the revolution revealed by the French Revolution (1789). People were bewildered by the collapse of the existing order and the ensuing chaos, and were gripped by extreme distrust as they witnessed the collapse of all principles. Amid these intellectual ruins, people sought the truth of humanity in senses and emotions that had previously gone unnoticed, while at the same time looking for the sources of culture not in the classical eras of Greece and Rome—which Classicism had held up as models—but in the individual, the nation, history, and nature. This is the very essence of the Romantic spirit.

The Situation in Germany

Weber (1864–1920) lived during the era of the German Empire (1871–1918). Prior to the establishment of the German Empire in the 19th century, Germany was divided into numerous small states. Then, in 1862, Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), the chancellor of the Kingdom of Prussia—the largest and strongest of these small states—pursued his “Iron and Blood” policy, unifying Germany in 1871 and establishing the German Empire. and Wilhelm I (1797–1888), who had been King of Prussia, ascended the throne as Emperor of the German Empire. Wilhelm II, who became emperor in 1888, forced Bismarck to resign in 1890 and pursued a more aggressive policy of expansion in place of Bismarck’s foreign policy. Amid this confrontation between the Central Powers—centered on the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires—and the Entente Powers—centered on Russia, Britain, and France—World War I (1914–1918) broke out.
The German Empire was a federal state comprising four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free cities, and the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine. The Federal Council, composed of representatives from each constituent state, served as the upper house and decided on important matters. However, each constituent state retained a significant portion of its traditional political institutions and laws while also exercising administrative authority. Although the Imperial Diet was formed through universal suffrage—which was limited to men—the Diet’s authority over the government was limited. Typically, the King of Prussia became the German Emperor, and the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia also served as the Imperial Chancellor. Consequently, the ministers of the federal government were appointed by the Emperor and were not accountable to the Diet. In ‘Politics as a Vocation’, Weber analyzes how the structure of the Imperial Diet and the federal government influenced German politics. Since the Kingdom of Prussia accounted for an overwhelming proportion of the German Empire’s territory and population among the federal states, Prussia’s influence in the politics of the German Empire was immense. Furthermore, because the Chancellor held significant authority in the German Empire, when a powerful figure like Bismarck served as Chancellor, his political influence was immense; conversely, when this was not the case, political leadership tended to weaken. Consequently, modern reforms in Germany could not help but be sluggish, as parliamentary democracy and liberalism had not fully developed, and the landed aristocracy—known as the “Junkers”—controlled key positions in the military and bureaucracy.
Major political parties active in the Imperial Parliament, which operated from 1871 until its dissolution in 1918, included the German Conservative Party, the Social Democratic Party, the German Progressive Party, and the German Center Party. The German Conservative Party (Deutschkonservative Partei, DkP) was a right-wing party of the German Empire founded in 1876. It was primarily supported by the “Junkers,” wealthy Prussian large landowners. The German Progressive Party (Deutsche Fortschrittspartei, DFP) was one of Germany’s first modern liberal parties, founded in 1861 by progressive members of the Prussian Parliament. Meanwhile, the German Center Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei, DZP), also known as the Catholic Center Party, was a Catholic party active during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. It was founded in 1870 to unite Germany’s Catholics and defend the interests of the Catholic Church after the Prussian government launched the Kulturkampf to reduce the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The party soon secured a significant number of seats in the Imperial German Parliament and played a key role in mediating various political issues from a centrist position.
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864) founded the General German Workers’ Association in 1863, and Marxists such as August Bebel (1840–1913) and Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) merged with it in 1875 to form the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. As the predecessor of the Social Democratic Party, this party maintained a critical stance toward the German Empire’s domestic and foreign policies. Although the party faced 12 years of hardship after the Bismarck government enacted the “Anti-Socialist Laws” in 1878, it evolved into the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) in 1890, when the laws were repealed, and subsequently incorporated Marxism into its platform. However, the early Social Democratic Party was closely linked to the labor union movement and, like other 19th-century European socialist parties, ideologically espoused revolutionary Marxism. Influenced by the British socialist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Bernstein (1850–1932) proposed revisionist Marxism. Revisionism, which advocated for “reformist socialism”—the idea of gaining power through democratic elections and promoting socialist reforms—sparked a prolonged debate within the party.
When World War I broke out in 1914, the German Social Democratic Party experienced serious internal strife over the issuance of war bonds. While the majority of party members and lawmakers voted in favor of issuing war bonds, a minority faction opposed the measure. Eventually, the rift between the two factions deepened, leading to a temporary split in the party. The majority faction, which had voted in favor, became known as the Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD), while the minority faction founded the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). The latter’s key leaders included the more left-wing Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) later split off from the Independent Social Democratic Party, while the USPD underwent several rounds of political realignment. In 1918, the German Revolution (November Revolution) broke out, leading to the collapse of the German Empire; the Weimar Republic was established as various democratic reforms—including women’s suffrage—were implemented. Weber also participated in political activities affiliated with the German Democratic Party and ran for a seat in the Constituent Assembly to establish the Weimar Republic, but was defeated.
The German Revolution, or November Revolution, was a revolution that took place in Germany in November 1918, as World War I was drawing to a close. This revolution led to the collapse of the German Empire and the birth of the Weimar Republic, which was oriented toward parliamentary democracy. The revolution was fueled by the extreme deprivation and exhaustion accumulated over more than four years of war, the immense shock of the German Empire’s defeat, and the undemocratic power structure maintained by the ruling elite. The immediate trigger was an incident in late October, when Germany’s defeat had become all but certain and the naval command issued a virtually reckless order to attack. On November 3, sailors in the port of Kiel rose up; workers joined them, forming “Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils” and seizing control of the Kiel area. The revolution spread rapidly throughout Germany, with “Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils” seizing political control at the local level in various regions. In Bavaria, where Weber was based, a revolution led by the socialist Kurt Eisner broke out on November 7, resulting in the proclamation of the Bavarian People’s Republic, and Berlin, too, was swept up in the fervor of the revolution. At this time, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) opposed the armed uprising. Ultimately, on November 9, Emperor Wilhelm II went into exile in the Netherlands, bringing down the monarchy. With the resignation of Chancellor Max von Baden, the initiative to form a government passed to Friedrich Ebert, leader of the Social Democratic Party, and the establishment of the republic was proclaimed that same day. World War I also came to an end when Ebert signed the Armistice Agreement on November 11.
Although the German Revolution led to the collapse of the monarchy and the proclamation of a republic, the formation of a government faced significant obstacles. Ebert, a parliamentary democrat, pushed for the swift convening of a constituent assembly. However, radical left-wing forces led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg opposed Ebert’s parliamentary approach and launched an anti-government struggle. The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was founded in late December 1918 and officially launched in early January 1919; an uprising broke out in Berlin in January 1919. Fearing civil war, Friedrich Ebert and the Social Democratic Party leadership did not immediately strip the bureaucrats of the former monarchy of their power; instead, they sought to use them to establish a new democratic order. In doing so, they sought to prevent the revolution from becoming more radical by cooperating with the military and volunteer forces. At this time, the volunteer forces (the Free Corps), led by Gustav Noske of the Social Democratic Party, brutally suppressed the uprisings and demonstrations, and Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg—key leaders of the Spartacus League—were arrested and killed. Consequently, the radical revolutionary movement lost momentum, and with the promulgation of the Weimar Constitution on August 11, 1919, the institutional framework for the new republic was established. Weber served as an advisor to the German delegation during the peace negotiations and also served as a member of the committee that drafted the Weimar Constitution.

The Life of Max Weber

Max Weber (Maximilian Karl Emil Weber), a German sociologist, political economist, historian, and legal scholar—and one of the key theorists for understanding modern Western society—was born on April 21, 1864, in Erfurt, Saxony, Germany, as the eldest of eight children of Max Weber I. His father, a lawyer and civil servant at the Erfurt City Hall, moved to Berlin in 1869 to pursue a political career in the Kingdom of Prussia and the Imperial Diet as a wealthy and influential politician of the People’s Liberal Party. Unlike his mother, Helene Fallenstein—who came from a wealthy family and possessed a devout Protestant faith and a background in the humanities—his father was a quintessential German bourgeois politician of the time, extremely pragmatic and focused on day-to-day politics. Because Weber Sr. was a lawyer and public official, numerous prominent scholars and notable figures, including the philosopher of life Wilhelm Dilthey, were regular visitors to their home. Thus, Weber grew up in an intellectual environment where he was exposed to politics and scholarship from an early age.
In 1872, at the age of eight, Weber enrolled in the Royal Empress Augusta Gymnasium. During this time, he read the works of Homer, Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, and wrote essays about them; before entering university, he had already acquired a deep understanding of Goethe, Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer. It is said that during class hours, he secretly read the entire 40-volume collected works of Goethe (1749–1832), which is said to have had a profound influence on his thought and methodology. On Christmas Day in 1877, when he was 13 years old, he even wrote two historical essays—“On the Course of German History Centered on the Positions of the Emperor and the Pope” and “On the Roman Empire from the Time of Constantine to the Great Migration”—as gifts for his parents. Two years later, he wrote a paper titled “Reflections on the National Character, National Development, and National History of Various Indo-Germanic Peoples.” Weber was not only fluent in Greek and Latin but also possessed considerable knowledge of Hebrew.
After graduating from the Gymnasium in Berlin, Weber entered the University of Heidelberg in 1882 to study law, but he also took courses in economics, medieval history, and theology. In 1883, he served in the military for one year in Strasbourg to fulfill his compulsory military service. During this time, his interactions with his relative, the geologist Beneke, and his uncle-in-law, the historian Baumgarten, greatly contributed to his academic development.
In the fall of 1884, he returned to his parents’ home to study at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. There, he pursued a wide range of subjects, including law, economics, philosophy, and history, developing a particular interest in history. In 1886, he passed the bar exam, and in 1888, he joined the Verein für Socialpolitik (Society for Social Policy), a new association of German economists affiliated with the Historical School. This society viewed the role of economics as primarily focused on solving the various social problems of the time and advocated for large-scale statistical research on economic issues.
In 1889, he earned his Doctor of Law degree from the University of Berlin with a dissertation on the history of legal institutions titled “The History of Medieval Commercial Companies.” In 1891, he obtained his professorial qualification with his habilitation thesis, ‘A History of Roman Agriculture from the Perspective of Public and Private Law’, and began his career as a professor in 1892 when he became a Privatdozent (lecturer) in commercial law and Roman law at the University of Berlin.
During the years he spent writing his doctoral dissertation and his habilitation thesis, Weber’s interests gradually shifted toward economic research, and he also took an interest in social policy at the time. Consequently, in 1892, he wrote papers such as “The Condition of Agricultural Workers in East Germany” and “The Nation-State and Economic Policy,” which led to his appointment as a professor of economics at the University of Freiburg in 1894. There, through his interactions with the philosopher Rickert (1863–1936), Weber was profoundly influenced academically.
In 1893, Weber married Marianne Schneidger, the daughter of his cousin’s sister. A scholar and feminist, she remained Weber’s lifelong companion for the next 27 years. After Weber’s death, Marianne Weber worked with his colleagues and students to organize his unpublished manuscripts and compile a collected works. She also authored the extensive biography ‘The Life of Max Weber’, which was published in 1926. This biography provides a detailed account not only of Weber’s upbringing, personality, family, and relationships but also of the development of his ideas and his academic activities.
In 1896, Weber was invited to become a professor of economics at the University of Heidelberg, succeeding Knis (1821–1898). There, he developed a relationship with the public law scholar Georg Jellinek (1851–1911) and the theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923). In the summer of 1897, while Weber was serving as a professor at Heidelberg University, his mother visited him and engaged in a heated argument with his father, who had arrived unexpectedly. Having witnessed for many years how his mother had been mistreated by his father, Weber expelled his father from his home; his father died seven weeks later. Following this incident, Weber suffered a severe nervous breakdown. In 1898, he developed a serious neurological disorder, and after ceasing to teach at the university in 1899, he underwent several periods of convalescence, but as his condition did not improve, he suspended his academic activities for a considerable period.
After effectively stepping down from his professorship, Weber’s health improved somewhat. Following a trip to the United States in 1904, he began editing the academic journal ‘Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik’ alongside his colleagues Edgar Jaffe (1865–1921) and Werner Sombart (1863–1941). During this period, he published papers such as “The Objectivity of Social Science and Social Policy,” “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” “A Critical Study of the Logic of Cultural Science,” “Overcoming Rudolf Stämler’s Materialist Conception of History,” and “The Problem of Economic Ethics in World Religions.”
When World War I broke out in 1914, Weber volunteered for military service and worked at a field hospital in Heidelberg; however, he later voiced criticism of the war and the German government’s policies. In 1918, he actively participated in Germany’s political reorganization, subsequently played a role in the country’s peace negotiations, and served on the committee that drafted the Weimar Constitution.
Weber experienced Germany’s defeat in World War I and the ensuing deepening political turmoil. In 1918, he briefly taught at the University of Vienna, and in 1919, he taught economics and sociology at the University of Munich. In 1919, he ran for election to the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting the Weimar Republic’s constitution but was defeated. Weber’s health deteriorated again beginning in the spring of 1920; after contracting the flu, which developed into pneumonia, he died on June 14 in Munich and was buried in Heidelberg.

Max Weber’s Works

In 1889, Max Weber earned his Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Berlin with a dissertation on legal history titled ‘Zur Geschichte der Handelgesellschaften im Mittelalter’ (On the History of Trading Companies in the Middle Ages). In this dissertation, he examined various legal principles in light of the profits, risks, and costs associated with private enterprises operated by individuals during the Middle Ages.
In 1891, he earned his habilitation with a dissertation titled “Roman Agricultural History in Its Significance for Public and Private Law” (Die Römische Agrargeschichte in ihrer Bedeutung für das Staats- und Privatrecht), thereby qualifying as a professor, and began his academic career in 1892 as a Privatdozent (lecturer) in commercial law and Roman law at the University of Berlin. In this dissertation, he examined the economic, social, and political development of Roman society through an analysis of literature on ancient Roman agriculture, methods of land surveys, and the terminology used to designate units of land to examine the economic, social, and political development of Roman society.
Government officials and experts affiliated with the Society for Social Policy, of which Weber was a member, decided in 1890 to study the situation of agricultural workers and landowners in Germany; Weber was tasked with reviewing data on the region east of the Elbe River. In this region, German workers sought to elevate their social status by transforming traditional labor-management relations, as workers at the time were often subject to short-term contractual arrangements. However, due to the influx of migrant workers from Poland, other parts of Eastern Europe, and Russia, they found themselves at a greater disadvantage than these migrants in the economic competition for survival. Weber interpreted these changes in labor-management relations as signs of widespread changes that would eventually unfold throughout German society. The book that details these findings is Weber’s ‘The Conditions of Agricultural Laborers in East Elbe Germany’ (Die Verhältnisse der Landarbeiter im ostelbischen Deutschland), written in 1892.
‘The Stock Exchange’ (‘Die Börse’) is a work Weber wrote in 1896. In the 1890s, the stock exchange was a symbol of German capitalism. Between 1894 and 1896, Weber wrote several essays on the stock exchange, refuting the popular view that it was a deceptive enterprise designed to defraud “honest, hardworking people.” He first argued that commercialization—which can both create and destroy cultural values—destroyed existing patriarchal values while simultaneously creating new opportunities for agricultural workers. Next, he contended that economic activity, while part of the ideas associated with the pursuit of economic interests, must be treated separately from economic behavior itself.
In 1894, upon taking up his post as professor of economics at the University of Freiburg, Weber delivered his inaugural lecture titled “The Nation-State and National Economic Policy” (Der Nationalstaat und die Volkswirtschaftspolitik) (1895). In this lecture, Weber diagnosed the German working class as politically immature to serve as the driving force of Germany’s future. This was because, while they engaged in organized struggles for economic gains, he viewed them as far less politically mature than the group of journalists who held sway over German workers. Weber compares the Roman aristocracy, the National Convention during the French Revolution (1792–1795), and the German working class. According to him, the German working class possessed neither the fiery, rebellious energy of the Roman nobleman Catiline, nor any trace of the powerful national passion that swept through the French National Convention, nor the great instinct for power typically seen in a class entrusted with a political leadership mandate. Furthermore, the German working class lacked proper political education, had low expectations for political change, and was accustomed to tradition and custom. Weber believed that people who had not received sufficient political education could become the most destructive group if they were to become political leaders.
In 1904–1905, Weber published what is considered his magnum opus, ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ (‘Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus’). In this book, he analyzed the development of Western capitalism in relation to Protestant, particularly Calvinist, ethics. He argued that as many believers worked in secular society, developed their own businesses, and engaged in trade to accumulate wealth, a specific religious ethic played a significant role in shaping the spirit of modern capitalism. In other words, he contended that the Protestant work ethic was one of the key forces driving the formation of modern capitalism.
‘Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology’ (‘Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie’) is one of Weber’s major works, published beginning in 1922 after his death, following the compilation of his unpublished manuscripts by his wife, Marianne. This work covers a wide range of topics, including religion, economics, political science, public policy, and sociology.
In 1998, the International Sociological Association conducted a survey of sociological works published in the 20th century and selected Weber’s ‘Economy and Society’ as the most important work. It was followed by Wright Mills’ ‘The Sociological Imagination’, Merton’s ‘Social Theory and Social Structure’, and Weber’s ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, among others. This survey was conducted among members of the International Sociological Association to select the most influential books published in the 20th century within the field of sociology.
Starting in 1919, Weber worked on compiling his previously published papers on the economic ethics of world religions into Volumes 1–3 of ‘Essays in the Sociology of Religion’, but he was unable to complete the project before his death; the collection was ultimately published posthumously in 1920–1921. Meanwhile, in 1923, ‘Economic History’ (‘Wirtschaftsgeschichte’), an economic theory text based on students’ lecture notes from Max Weber’s classes, was published. In this book, Weber argued that when studying economics, one should not limit oneself to economic theory alone but must also address economic sociology and economic history. Consequently, scholars regard this work as a work of economic history with an economic-sociological character. According to Weber, the economy, from a historical perspective, was confronted with various issues, such as the division of labor, economic orientation toward the generation of profit or rent, and the extent to which rationality and irrationality defined economic life.

Max Weber’s Thought

As can be seen from the analysis of the works mentioned above, Weber was a scholar who linked economics, sociology, and history to historically analyze the relationship between the economy and society. Although he was influenced by the Historical School in economics, his research approach—shaped by the influence of Rickert—was closer to that of the Neo-Kantian school in terms of academic methodology. Therefore, let us first examine the Classical and Historical schools in relation to economics, and then explore their relationship with Marxism.
In economics, the Classical school traces its origins to Adam Smith (1723–1790) of England, author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’, and includes Malthus (1766–1834), author of ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’, David Ricardo (1772–1823), author of ‘The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’. Emerging during the British Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century as a critique of mercantilism, the Classical School advocated for free competition within a free-market system, analyzed and theoretically systematized production and distribution in the market, and emphasized individual economic freedom and laissez-faire. The theoretical framework and academic approach of classical economics became an important foundation for the subsequent development of economics.
The Historical School is an economic school that developed primarily in Germany from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, influenced by German Romanticism and historicism. With Friedrich List (1789–1846) as its pioneer, it is distinguished into the Old Historical School—comprising figures such as Wilhelm Roscher (1817–1894), Adolf Knies (1821–1898), and Bruno Hildebrand (1812–1878)—and the New Historical School, represented by Schmoller (1838–1917) and Wagner (1835–1917) as representatives of the New Historical School. The Historical School provided a theoretical foundation for protecting German industry and promoting economic development at a time when British capitalism was expanding its influence over the German economy by leveraging its advanced status.
The Old Historical School criticized universal and abstract economic laws, arguing that the liberal economic theories of the British Classical School—including those of Adam Smith—could not be directly applied to Germany’s economic situation at the time. Furthermore, they viewed economic phenomena and national economies not as natural and immutable, but as relative and particular entities that varied by country and era, and thus placed great emphasis on historical research and statistical surveys. Moreover, they argued that different economic policies were necessary for each stage of economic development and contended that protectionist trade policies were essential for the development of German domestic industry, thereby opposing the Classical School’s free-trade ideology. From a socio-ethical standpoint, the New Historical School put forward theories of labor-management cooperation and social policy, achieving significant成果 in the history of economic thought and social policy theory; however, its excessive emphasis on history also led to the adverse effect of a tendency to neglect theoretical analysis.
The Historical School differs fundamentally from Marxist economics—which emphasizes the structural contradictions and class relations of capitalism—in that it views capitalism as a historically evolving economic system. In Historical School economics, the state is a key economic actor capable of coordinating the economic interests of society as a whole, whereas in Marxist economics, the state is understood as an instrument of class domination.
Although Weber began in the tradition of the German Historical School, he took a different path from the School by emphasizing the need to “interpret” economic history rather than merely describe it, and by advocating “methodological individualism.” “Methodological individualism” refers to the attitude that social phenomena can be explained through the subjective meanings and motivations of individuals, rather than solely through the attributes of fictitious and artificial classes or groups. Weber developed this concept into an important methodological premise for the social sciences in ‘Economy and Society’.
The Neo-Kantian school was a philosophical movement in Germany that, beginning in the late 19th century, aimed to revive and develop the critical spirit of Immanuel Kant—particularly his concept of the “thing-in-itself” and his moral philosophy. As the late 19th century approached and voices calling for a reevaluation of materialism grew louder, scholars began to discuss the significance of the mind, which cannot be reduced to matter. The school of thought that sought to find the philosophical foundation for this new trend in Kant is commonly referred to as the Neo-Kantian school. They sought to further refine the critical philosophy established by Kant while expanding its application to various cultural domains.
The Neo-Kantian school is divided into the Marburg School, centered on scholars such as Cohen and Natorp who were active at the University of Marburg, and the Southwest German School, centered on Windelband and Rickert, who were active in Heidelberg and the southwestern region of Germany. The former dealt primarily with issues of pure logic and epistemology, while the latter focused on issues of value and culture—particularly the distinction between fact and value—and Weber was influenced by the latter. Among the Neo-Kantian epistemological views, the perspective that reality is inherently chaotic and incomprehensible, and that rational order is constructed through the human intellect’s process of focusing on specific aspects of reality, was particularly significant in Weber’s research. Furthermore, influenced by the Neo-Kantian school, Weber emphasized the issues of culture and values in economics and sociology; he believed that, since the world of culture is linked to values, no social science research can be fully understood apart from values.
The German philosopher Karl Löwith (1897–1973) compared the works of Marx and Weber. He explained that while both men were interested in the causes and consequences of Western capitalism, Marx viewed capitalism through the concept of “alienation,” whereas Weber viewed it through the concept of “rationalization.”
Weber was one of the key figures who engaged in fierce academic debates with Marxism. While he acknowledged Marxist concepts as one perspective for explaining historical reality, he was critical of using them as a single, universal principle to explain all social phenomena. In particular, he did not agree with economic reductionism, which seeks to explain society and history solely through economic factors.
Weber did not believe that a collectivist socialist economy could fully liberate humanity. His reasoning was that, like all other activities, a socialist economy is subject to the limitations of real-world means and conditions and is therefore incapable of playing a role in saving the world. According to Weber, a socialist economy is, on the contrary, likely to lead to the oppression of humanity under bureaucratic mechanisms, and a fully collectivized economy could give rise to even greater bureaucracy than a market economy.
Weber argued that while a Marxist socialist revolution abstractly divides society into two opposing camps, such a schematic distinction is incorrect because, historically, every society comprises diverse strata and groups within both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. According to Weber, revolution often serves as a source of excitement and passion for intellectuals. He viewed the belief that humanity could abruptly transition through revolution to a utopia based on the vague concept of “de-alienation” as a malady of intellectuals caught in the trap of ideology and yearning for a cataclysmic upheaval, and he sharply criticized the intolerance of Marxist intellectuals.

Overview of “Politics as a Vocation” and “Science as a Vocation”

At the invitation of the Free Student Union (Freistudentische Bund) in Munich, Weber participated in a lecture series titled “Intellectual Work as a Vocation” and delivered two lectures. “Science as a Vocation” (Wissenschaft als Beruf) was delivered on November 7, 1917, and “Politics as a Vocation” (Politik als Beruf) was delivered 14 months later, on January 28, 1919. Both lectures took place in Munich; the former was addressed to German university students during the war, while the latter was delivered during a period of political upheaval following Germany’s defeat in World War I and the German Revolution.

The Context Surrounding the Two Lectures

Weber delivered these two lectures at a time when people were war-weary due to World War I. During this period, the February Revolution of 1917 broke out in Russia, leading to the collapse of the Russian Empire. The February Revolution occurred in February according to the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, which corresponds to March in the Gregorian calendar used in Western Europe. As a result, Soviets were formed nationwide, primarily by workers and soldiers, while a Provisional Government was established, consisting mainly of liberals and moderate socialists. Although the world had changed, the fundamental problems remained unresolved in the eyes of the people. The war was still raging, and hunger and starvation persisted. The exploitation of workers continued, land remained in the hands of landowners, and the issue of ethnic minorities remained unresolved. Although the Provisional Government bore the responsibility for resolving these issues, the people’s discontent grew even greater due to its policy of continuing the war. Amid this chaos, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, capitalized on the people’s grievances and demands, and ultimately seized power through the October Revolution of 1917, establishing a Soviet government.
The Russian Revolution had both direct and indirect influences on the November Revolution that occurred in Germany in 1918. In Germany, extreme fatigue and a sense of burden were widespread due to the war, which had lasted for over four years. In particular, as the defeat of the German Empire became certain, the shock of the war, social tensions, and the undemocratic political structure of the ruling elite formed the backdrop for the November Revolution. Triggered by a mutiny of sailors at the port of Kiel in November, this revolution rapidly spread throughout Germany, with “Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils”—composed of soldiers and workers—seizing political control at the local level in various regions. On November 7, a revolution led by Kurt Eisner broke out in Bavaria, where Weber was located, and in Berlin on November 9, the German Empire collapsed when Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated and went into exile in the Netherlands. Friedrich Ebert, leader of the Social Democratic Party, headed the new government, and the establishment of the republic was proclaimed on the same day. Ebert witnessed the end of World War I with the signing of the armistice on November 11. Meanwhile, radical leftist forces led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg waged an anti-government struggle in opposition to Ebert’s parliamentary approach, but they lost their momentum when the Berlin Uprising was suppressed in January 1919. Subsequently, the Weimar Constitution was enacted, laying the institutional foundation for the new republic.

“Politics as a Vocation”

The main point Weber sought to convey through this lecture—and the message he intended to send to Germany, which was in turmoil as a defeated nation of World War I—was that politics requires political leaders who possess both a sense of responsibility and passion. In particular, Weber believed that Germany’s bureaucratic political structure had hindered the emergence of strong political leaders; therefore, at the juncture when the German Empire collapsed and the new Weimar Republic was established, he argued that Germany should draw on the strengths of the party political systems and political organizations in Britain and the United States to build a state where strong political leadership and the bureaucracy coexist in harmony. To present this central argument, Weber develops his discussion as follows.
First, Weber defines the state as a political association possessing the exclusive authority to legitimately exercise physical coercion, and he defines politics as the pursuit of power or the influence over the distribution of power within the state or the group of people it encompasses. In particular, by emphasizing that the state holds the exclusive authority to legitimately exercise physical coercion, he argues that politicians occupy a unique position in that they manage this coercive power. Weber then explains traditional, charismatic, and legal forms of rule as internal conditions that legitimize state rule, while emphasizing the importance of charismatic rule. He also mentions human organization and material resources as external conditions for state rule, demonstrating that the separation of these two elements led to the emergence of the modern nation-state—absolute monarchy—as a replacement for the estates-based political system, and that professional politicians emerged during this process.
Weber first classifies and explains the various types of political participation, distinguishing between two approaches taken by those who engage in politics as a profession: living for politics and living off politics. Turning to history, Weber illustrates how the modern professional bureaucracy—a group distinct from professional politicians—has developed. While citing examples from France, China, Rome, and ancient Greece, he places particular emphasis on the cases of Britain, the United States, and Germany to explain the relationships among politicians, political parties, and bureaucrats.
Weber historically examines which groups have acted as professional politicians, describing in turn clergy, literati, court nobility, urban nobility, lawyers, and journalists. Here, Weber once again explains the differences between politicians and bureaucrats to emphasize that they are fundamentally distinct; this also serves to point out the limitations of the German bureaucratic system.
Weber then turns his attention to more recent times, demonstrating that with the emergence of modern political parties, parliament became the center of politics, and it was there that full-fledged professional politicians emerged. He explains that while parties centered on prominent figures dominated the early days of modern political parties in Britain, organized and mass-based parties gradually rose to prominence; he describes these party organizations as a new trend in politics, citing the British caucus system and the American boss system as examples. In contrast, Germany at that time remained in a political system where the influence of bureaucrats was still strong, and Weber diagnoses that the outlook was uncertain due to Germany’s political system.
Weber then moves on to the internal qualities required of professional politicians, stating that they must be individuals who possess passion, a sense of responsibility, and the insight to understand the times, and who are dedicated to the greater good.
As the lecture draws to a close, Weber states that the essence of politics—that is, the political ethos—is related to ethics, but adds that, unlike religion, politics does not aim for absolute ethics. He distinguishes between the ethics of conviction, which is the goal of religion and ideology, and the ethics of responsibility, which prevails in politics, and discusses the relationship between ends and means that arises when acting in accordance with the ethics of responsibility. Since politics involves the use of physical coercion, he addresses the question of whether the ends justify the means if the ends are just. In doing so, he introduces the ethics of various religions.
While those who follow a “conviction-based ethics” can maintain a certain distance from the consequences of their actions, politics—which follows a “responsibility-based ethics”—must take responsibility for those consequences. Therefore, he insists that politicians need to strike a balance between “conviction ethics” and “responsibility ethics.” In other words, he emphasizes that politicians must take responsibility for their political actions by steadfastly upholding their core convictions in accordance with conviction ethics, while also taking necessary measures in response to real-world situations in accordance with responsibility ethics.
Weber concludes this lecture by commenting on the German November Revolution of 1918 and expresses concern about the future consequences of a revolutionary movement fueled by emotional excitement and fervor. However, he leaves the reader with the lingering impression that there is hope for the future for those who faithfully carry out the tasks entrusted to them each day.

“Academia as a Vocation”

The core message Weber sought to convey through this lecture is as follows: Human beings must choose for themselves one of the countless value systems that exist in this world, and scholarship cannot dictate which value system to choose. Therefore, the duty of scholarship does not lie in presenting and rationalizing specific partisan views, but in helping individuals make their own choices by presenting the implications and consequences of various views without partisan bias. To convey this core idea, Weber develops his argument as follows.
First, by comparing a German lecturer to an American teaching assistant, Weber explains what happens externally when one chooses scholarship as a profession at a university—that is, he describes the external conditions one faces when choosing scholarship as a profession within the context of German universities at the time. Weber points out the flaws in the German professorial appointment system, noting that a scholar’s career is not determined by ability alone but is significantly influenced by chance and luck; he also states that the distinction between the qualities required of a scholar and those of a teacher is another contributing factor.
Next, Weber discusses the internal conditions—that is, the internal circumstances—faced by those who wish to pursue scholarship as a profession. He argues that scholars require passion, tenacious research, and inspiration, placing particular emphasis on the importance of inspiration in scholarship. However, young people of that era, influenced by the philosophy of life and Romanticism, placed great value on “individuality” and “experience,” and refused to engage in tenacious, reason-based research driven by passion and inspiration. Furthermore, Weber argues that what is crucial regarding the scholar’s inner conditions is that, unlike art—which can produce works of the highest perfection—scholarship always produces transitional results; that is, outcomes that inevitably become outdated and trite over time.
According to Weber, the world is undergoing a process of “progress” through desacralization—that is, continuous intellectualization and rationalization. Due to the provisional nature of scholarship, which is part of this process of progress, the question of the “meaning” of scholarship arises, and the question “What is the value of scholarship?” is posed. He then uses Leo Tolstoy as an example to explain the meaning of desacralization or progress and provides a historical account of this process. Furthermore, Weber argues that since no academic discipline can be free from presuppositions, scholarship holds no value for those who reject such presuppositions. Scholarship provides a means to explain and justify a particular position, but it cannot explain why it is worth adopting that position; according to Weber, the latter is the task of philosophy.
Speaking about the classroom and politics, Weber argues that since the vocation of scholarship lies in factual judgments rather than value judgments, professors should not express partisan views in the classroom. Weber then states that although this world has been desacralized, it is, metaphorically speaking, a battlefield where gods defend their respective values, and that scholarship cannot tell people which values to choose on this battlefield. He argues that this is the difference between a professor who makes factual judgments and a leader who makes value judgments, and that this is where the role and limits of scholarship lie. Meanwhile, according to Weber, since scholarship can never answer life’s fundamental questions, it cannot tell people how they should live their lives or what kind of life is valuable. “Values” are related to “beliefs,” such as those found in religion, and facts must be distinguished from values. Therefore, professors can only convey facts in the classroom and must not teach partisan views related to values.
Weber acknowledges that while scholarship has limitations in telling people which values to choose, it plays a role in aiding that choice by teaching the methodology of thought and providing the tools and training necessary to think clearly about the nature and consequences of any given problem. If people were to ask whether the discipline of theology even exists, Weber demonstrates that theology differs in nature from general empirical sciences in that it presupposes the reality of revelation in addition to what scholarship generally presupposes.
If a scholar attempts to use scholarship as a tool to support partisan views and thereby become a prophet, Weber views this as going against the destiny of modernity—a destiny characterized by the rationalization, intellectualization, and, above all, desacralization of the world. Such people would be better off turning to religion. Since scholarship is a field that demands the virtue of intellectual honesty, Weber advises those who wish to pursue scholarship as a profession not to try to become prophets, but rather to fulfill the duties of scholarship day by day—no matter how long it takes—while meeting the demands of everyday life. Finally, Weber concludes his lecture by raising the question of how each individual must choose certain values in their own life and live faithfully according to those values.