Weber on Class and Status

Weber is famous as one of the founders of sociology. He sees history as broken into two key periods. Ancient societies where different ‘life chances’ were allocated on the basis of status. A social estimation of honour. And modernity where life chances are allocated based on a person’s position in the market – their ownership of monetary property or the value of their labour on the market. There is a change between ancient societies based in various kinds of magical ideas and modernity, based in rationality. In this podcast I explain the problems with this viewpoint.