Weber

[joanna bujes]

At 11:16 PM 04/10/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>  I have long thought that progressive sociologists who have a
>soft spot for Max Weber do not know the real Weber.  As Mort Wenger used
>to say, they know the Americanized, sanitized, Parsonized Weber who was
>reinvented for Cold War purposes as an alternative to Marx.  They fail
>to see the profound Euro-centrism and racism that is at the core of
>Weber's sociology.  Perhaps that is also why those who see Weber as a
>sort of comrade-in-arms of Marx also tend to support some of the
>imperialist wars fought by the "Enlightenment West" against elements of
>the "culturally backward Orient."  Thus, clarification of the
>differences between Marx and Weber is connected to the contemporary
>struggle against imperialist war.

I remember reading Weber -- out of curiosity -- the Protestant Ethic and 
the Rise of  Capitalism. I found it somewhat interesting, mostly because 
I'm not a protestant and did not know much about the ideology. But, other 
than that, Weber does not hold a candle to Marx. Weber is an idealist and 
therefore not terribly useful.

Joanna