Tag: Max Weber
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Socioeconomic Status: Definition and Measurement
What is socioeconomic status? Socio-economic status (SES) refers to a specific configuration of material conditions that impact how people think and behave; those conditions are income, education, and occupational prestige. In this post, we discuss how social scientists define and measure socioeconomic status (SES). We focus on surveys, but these can be adapted to other…
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Max Weber’s Theory of Class, Status, and Power
Sociologists love to cite and discuss Max Weber. Weber wrote a famous essay called, “Class, Status, and Party.” Weber designed the essay to set him apart from Karl Marx, who had a unidimensional view of classes, inequality, and society. Max Weber had a multidimensional view of classes, inequality, and society. Two main differences between Weber…
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Basic Sociology Concepts: Social Stratification and Inequality
What are the basic sociology concepts in social stratification and inequality? To understand basic sociological theories in social stratification and inequality, we must first understand basic concepts in this field. This post presents definitions of basic sociology concepts and concepts related to inequality and social stratification. It is based on classic theorists. You may be…
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Mythical Farmers and Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Where are the farmers in Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? Farming is the US capitalist ideal of a people: morally and spiritually strong, selling the products of their hard labor. We idolize them as the pure embodiment of what society should be. We gain insight into this national myth through the work…
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Choosing Concepts: An Application of Gerring’s Typology to Max Weber’s Class, Status, and Party
In a previous article, we discussed John Gerring’s (1999) typology of how to choose a concept. In this article, we apply this to a famous set of concepts by sociologist Max Weber. Class, Status and Party Let’s apply what we have learned about concepts to a classic, German sociologist Max Weber’s “Class, Status, and Party”…
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The Interactionist View of Power and Inequality
What is Power? Sociologists typically cite Weber in defining power as the capacity a person or a group has to realize their will despite the resistance of others (Weber 1946). Whether power is a capacity of one actor to change the behavior of another (Dahl 1961) or is a relationship in which one actor is…