Max Weber's ‘Four-Stage Rationalization-Scale of Social Action and Order’ in the ‘Categories’ and its Significance to the ‘Old Manuscript’ of his ‘Economy and Society’: A Positive Critique of Wolfgang Schluchter

The basic concepts laid out in Weber’s 1913 essay: ‘Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology’ constitute ‘the four-stage rationalization-scale of social action and order’. The first stage—the germinal similar action of plural individuals (gleichartiges Massenhandeln); the second—the orderless social action among plural individuals (amorphes Gemeinschaftshandeln); the third—the social action among plural individuals oriented one another to the non-enacted order (Einverstandnishandeln); the fourth—the social action among plural individuals oriented one another to the rationally enacted order (Gesellschaftshandeln). This article aims to show that this scale, unique to the ‘Categories’, is not only an outcome of Weber’s critic of Rudorf Stammler, but also is validly applied throughout the whole ‘Old Manuscript’ of the ‘Economy and Society’.