Читать книгу A City of Professions - Jordi Ludevid Anglada - Страница 20

Max Weber

Following the beginning of the industrialisation process with the expansion of capitalism, the next significant milestone was set by the German Calvinist sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920). Considered one of the founders of modern sociology, along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim, in his classic work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the sociologist and historian defines the term profession [Beruf] as follows: «the continuous activity of man on the basis of the division of labor, which is normally his source of income and thus a permanent economic living.»

This is, of course, a classic definition, which has survived to the present day – i.e., for more than a century. It was formulated at a time when, sociologically, the number of professionals was increasing considerably, and they were playing a new and significant role in the nation state and in the nascent industrial economy required by the new capitalism.

Weber’s definition emphasises two of the basic characteristics of the professions: their individual character and their economic dimension, and it does so within the framework of a defence of the close relationship he postulates between Protestantism and capitalism. The professions are seen as a means of subsistence for a growing number of individuals, which makes them an «individual instrument» for earning money, thus highlighting the autonomy of the subject, an aspect characteristic of the then nascent modernity. Max Weber’s Calvinism sees professional activities as the path to a person’s salvation or damnation. If he succeeds professionally, he is saved; if he fails, he is damned.

However, as some authors point out, today, this approach is limited and even outdated because it ignores the aims and the social activity of the professions, which are no longer elitist. That approach was still coherent in the early 20th century, but it has become totally inadequate at the beginning of the 21st.

Mention should also be made of the work of Émile Durkheim, an important French sociologist who provides a fundamental and complementary link when it comes to interpreting and describing the expansion and social impact of the professions in European countries and their role in social cohesion.