Weber as Precursor of Economics?

Helge Peukert

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2004, vol. 63, issue 5, pages 987-1020

Abstract: This paper argues that Weber's outline and research program is only of limited relevance for present-day economic sociology and heterodox economics because Weber had a rather narrow and static understanding of rationality and the economy. Uncertainty, both as a basic fact of economic life and in the interpretation of what rational action means in specific contexts, is missing in his approach. After a short discussion of the secondary literature on Weber's methodology, the paper focuses on the most important writings of Weber on methods and economics (e.g., his outline and some parts of "Economy and Society"). The result of our investigation is that Weber shared a rather narrow, neoclassical understanding of the Austrian variant of economics. His important construction of goal-oriented behavior as the major methodological advice to analyze human action presupposes the idealized assumptions of perfect knowledge. His understanding of the market exchange process, price setting, and the functioning of full competition are rather conventional and elementary. Weber's genius did not materialize in the field of economics, but in his sociology of religion and law and in his sociology of domination. Copyright 2004 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc..

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