“…Where we find property as an object of trade utilized by individuals for profit‐makingenterprise in a market economy, there we have capitalism. If this is accepted, then it becomes perfectly clear that capitalism shaped whole periods of antiquity , and indeed precisely those periods we call ‘golden ages’ (Weber : 50; Nippel : 243–47; cf . Morris : xx‐xxiii; Morris and Manning : 10–15).…”
Section: The Ancient Economy In the Age Of Extremesmentioning
Modern scholarly accounts of ancient Greece and more particularly the research programme which broadly frames Moses Finley's contributions are generally traced to George Grote's politically anchored History of Greece and re-evaluationof Athenian democracy. However, notwithstanding their far-reachinginfluence, Finley's writings display an exceptional complexity that has invited a wide spectrum of contradictory interpretations and evaluations. This article extends my previous study of Finley's Athens by locating and exploring an unresolved and still significant debate that he held with himself through the major political and economic writings of his last period (1973–85). It thereby discloses the normative, theoretical, and empirical demands that, on the one hand, informed his account of ‘the ancient economy’ and necessitated its overall incoherence, and, on the other, allowed for a coherently normative account of ‘ancient politics’. In the process, some notable claims about Finley's work and politics are clarified, and it is shown why ‘Finley's ghost is [still] everywhere’ even though the short twentieth century that spanned his life, posed its major questions and set the context and constraints of his answers, has long been over.
“…Where we find property as an object of trade utilized by individuals for profit‐makingenterprise in a market economy, there we have capitalism. If this is accepted, then it becomes perfectly clear that capitalism shaped whole periods of antiquity , and indeed precisely those periods we call ‘golden ages’ (Weber : 50; Nippel : 243–47; cf . Morris : xx‐xxiii; Morris and Manning : 10–15).…”
Section: The Ancient Economy In the Age Of Extremesmentioning
Modern scholarly accounts of ancient Greece and more particularly the research programme which broadly frames Moses Finley's contributions are generally traced to George Grote's politically anchored History of Greece and re-evaluationof Athenian democracy. However, notwithstanding their far-reachinginfluence, Finley's writings display an exceptional complexity that has invited a wide spectrum of contradictory interpretations and evaluations. This article extends my previous study of Finley's Athens by locating and exploring an unresolved and still significant debate that he held with himself through the major political and economic writings of his last period (1973–85). It thereby discloses the normative, theoretical, and empirical demands that, on the one hand, informed his account of ‘the ancient economy’ and necessitated its overall incoherence, and, on the other, allowed for a coherently normative account of ‘ancient politics’. In the process, some notable claims about Finley's work and politics are clarified, and it is shown why ‘Finley's ghost is [still] everywhere’ even though the short twentieth century that spanned his life, posed its major questions and set the context and constraints of his answers, has long been over.
“…Weber's dissertation (1889) and Habilitation (1986), both written in the area of legal-economic history, are the inaugural works of his 'lost decade' and, as Sica underscores in his Introduction to Honigsheim's The Unknown Max Weber, 'Paul Honigsheim and Max Weber's Lost Decade', are known in Anglophone scholarship predominantly by name only (p. xiii). Along with his lesser known works extending up to 1912, Weber's writings from this period are of increasing interest today (Borchardt, 2002;Braun, 1999;Kaelber, 2002;Nippel, 2000;Schluchter, 2000). This interpretive turn has been galvanized by their intrinsic heuristic value.…”
Over the past four decades the field of Weberian scholarship has enjoyed a sustained period of diversification and expansion. To a considerable extent, this process has been driven by a series of attempts to unearth the 'true Weber', that is, to define his central question (Fragestellung) and outline the thematic unity (Gesamtdeutung) of his oeuvre. However, as his own conception of the inevitability of rationalization towards the irrational would predict, the result has been the proliferation of a multiplicity of Max Webers. This most important reason for his continued, and arguably dominant, sociological standing also speaks directly of the field's present-day vitality. This essay first considers what three recently published books have to say about issues of interest in Weber studies today, including subjects ranging from Weber's agrarian and physico-anthropological sociology, to his academic reception, methodological writings and relation to postmodern theory. Following this, I provide a critical commentary on the books' shared interest in the substantive underpinning of Weber's methodology, with an emphasis on the sociology of law and on his early work (pre-1898) and reception in particular, in light of current developments and areas of investigation. Lastly, I submit some concluding reflections regarding the reasons for the continuing relevance of Weber's sociology for modern social thought.
Reinhard Bendix made a major contribution to the early reception and interpretation of Max Weber's work. His classic study, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (1960), developed a remarkably consistent interpretation of Weber as a comparative historical sociologist. Bendix also emulated and subtly reinterpreted in his own work key aspects of Weber's comparative method and research strategies. By searching for a middle course between `Scylla and Charybdis', between the abstractions of theoretical concepts and the richness of empirical evidence, Bendix sought to reinterpret and renew the vital centre of Weber's comparative enterprise as a study of western uniqueness. In so doing, he decisively challenged Talcott Parsons's alternative methodological reading of Weber's work. Yet, curiously Bendix's status as a Weber interpreter and comparative historian profoundly influenced by Weber's legacy has often been neglected or misinterpreted. This article re-examines Bendix's classic reading of Weber's corpus, and the way in which he sought to keep alive in his substantive work the promise and spirit of Weber's comparative historical sociology.
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