ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Max Weber's views on the nature and development of capitalism, contrast them with Marxian and Smithian views. It shows how they apply to the development of capitalism in Europe, and examines what they tell about whether capitalism exists in Africa and its possible chances for development there. The rise of the modern bureaucratic state is a central factor for Weber in the institutional underpinnings of the rise of modern capitalism. Like E. L. Jones, Barry Hindess and Paul Q. Hirst, despite their Marxian roots, also point to the autonomous importance of the actions of the state and to the eventual "displacement of dominance from the political to the economic level." The point is that in much of the European transition to full capitalism the political level did predominate, and that only with the complete development of capitalism was this dominance shifted more toward the economic level.
