Kelly:
>except, of course, that weber doesn't claim this at all.
No he doesn't. In fact he spills a lot of ink explaining why commerce in other eras wasn't like capitalism. But it's his enframing of the whole issue in terms of factors that "hindered" the free development of markets that Carrol's presumably referring to. As if markets and commerce and cities have built-in momentum in the direction of capitalism if not otherwise impeded.
Anyway Weber contains multitudes, and both proponents and critics of the commercialization model have some Weber in their arsenal. I know the antiquity anti-commercialization arguments through Finley and Polanyi, both of whom were influenced by Weber's work, especially his analysis of the role of status in non-capitalist societies.
Maureen