Survival is the primary instinctive force that drives humans. In order to survive
a society has to adopt a mode of production
that is based on the prevailing
material conditions such as technology and raw materials. Each mode of social
production creates a set of supporting social relations which allocate
economic and ultimately political power. In capitalist societies obviouly the
capitalists held the bulk of economic and political power.
These social relations generate an ideology to justify the current social order
and to socialise offspring into it. In this way the system is self supporting.
Thus citizens could not arbitrarily choose any one of several forms of society,
but only that one which promotes the prevailing mode of production.
A system can come to an end through technological change, for example the
development of mechanised and power driven production, as occurred with
the industrial revolution. When this happens the dominant class will
immediately set out to create a new society to protect this new economic
order. A system can also come to an end through revolution, which was the
Marxist aim, because this was the only feasible way of ousting the dominance
of the capitalist classes.
Max Weber
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and
intellectualization and, above all, by the ''disenchantment of the world.''
Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public
life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness
of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest
art is intimate and not monumental.
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Natural science can achieve some sense of causal certainty through laboratory
experiments where variables are properly controlled because, in these
circumstances, the experiment can focus on the effect of just one variable. For
example, to some extent this can be done, and is frequently done, in
psychology.
Out in society, however, laboratory experiments are not possible. Society is a
complex system with many forces at work in many directions. Consequently,
as
Max Weber (1864-1920) argued, social phenomena had many causes.
Therefore it was generally impossible to make correct statements of
comprehensive causal laws.
In default of pure science, the best that could be done was to try to identify
social forces, especially those that contributed to major events or phenomena.
With this done, it might be possible to invoke putative social laws to forecast
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Max Weber (1918-1919) Science as a Vocation
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