ABSTRACT
There are few intellectual relationships in the literature of sociology which present as great an interpretative problem as that posed by the assessment of the connections between the writings of Karl Marx and those of Max Weber. It has been the view of many that Weber's writings - particularly The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit 0/ CapitaIism - provide a 'refutation' of Marx's materiaIism; others have taken a completely opposite view, considering that much of Weber's sociology 'fits without difficulty into the Marxian scheme'.l
One main problem which has helped to obscure the nature of the relationship between the views of the two thinkers is that it is only relatively recently - since something like a decade after Weber's death - that it has become possible to evaluate Marx's writings in the light of works which, while of fundamental importance to the assessment of Marx's thought, were not published until almost a century after they were first written.2 These previously unpublished works have made two things clear. First, that Marx's conception of 'historical materialism'3 is considerably more subtle, and much less dogmatic, than would appear from certain of his oft-quoted statements in such sources as the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique 0/ Political Economy.4 Second, that Engels's contributions to Marxism5 have to be carefully distinguished from the underlying threads of Marx's own thought. 6 In order, therefore, to assess the main points of similarity and divergence between Marx and Weber, it is necessary to reconsider the nature of historical materiaIism in general, and Marx's conception of the genesis and trend of movement of capitalism in particular. While one must, of course, respect Weber's own statements on the subject of his relationship to Marx, these are not always a sufficient index.
