ABSTRACT
It is a difficult task, even at a time more than seventy years after Weber’s death, to grasp the central themes and ambitions of Weber’s work as a whole. Time no doubt washes away some naive and wrong interpretations of Weber, but it also generates many other versions of his work. Schluchter shares Tenbruck’s view that Weber expanded his theme beyond the economic studies of the rise of modern rational capitalism, but he differs from Tenbruck on his point that religious rationalization is merely one of the different dimensions of rationalization that Weber was interested in. One important heritage Weber obtained from his teachers from the German Historical School is the latter’s critique of the classical economists for being too narrow in the way in which they dealt with activities concerning material interests. The task Weber sets for economic policy studies and economic history is to understand the changing material condition of society.
