INTRODUCTION
In the 90s, in an attempt to instill market behavior in Russians, they were urged to abandon the use of dacha plots as subsidiary plots. A simple calculation showed that it is not profitable for the urban population to spend time and effort on growing vegetables and fruits with their own hands; it is much more profitable to spend this time on Additional income, and buy everything in the store. Dachnoe subsidiary farm unprofitable from the point of view of pure economic calculation. But this does not stop most Russians.
You can give dozens similar examples as from real life, and from experimental situations. People do not always do things economically meaningful actions as rational egoists.
Of course, the examples given have their own unconditional logic - within a small team it is extremely unprofitable (and psychologically unpleasant) to be a competing egoist; no one will simply do business with you, but country cottage area, unprofitable for 20 years in a row, maybe literally save lives in situations of food shortages and sudden economic crisis. For acceptance similar decisions influence not only cold selfish calculations, but also emotions, cultural and moral attitudes, psychological characteristics thinking. Moreover, if the mechanisms for making the most profitable decision are widely studied, for example, in game theory, and psychological specifics thinking and the role of “irrational”, emotional components in this are seriously studied by psychology; the role of cultural and moral attitudes of people in economic actions, despite the evidence, is not the subject of equally serious study to this day.
CHAPTER 1. ECONOMIC MAN AND RATIONAL BEHAVIOR
1.1 Economic man
An amazing but indisputable fact: from the time of Adam Smith to this day, in most economic theories and mathematical models, despite their emergency today complexity, as a subject receiving economic decisions, stands for an extremely primitive “model of man” known as Homo Economicus.
"Economicus" has four main qualities:
1. He operates in a competitive market, which implies minimal interaction with other economic people. "Others" are competitors.
2. Economic man is rational from the point of view of decision-making mechanisms. He is capable of setting a goal, consistently achieving it, and calculating the costs of choosing the means to achieve it.
3. An economic person has complete information about the situation in which he acts.
4. An economic person is selfish, that is, he strives to maximize his benefits.
It is these assumptions that lead to the fact that economic behavior is seen as an area free from everything “human”. It’s as if they are not the same people doing business, playing on the stock exchange, working and making purchases, driven by very diverse motives - here is the desire to be safe, and vanity, and excitement, and the need for love and respect, and envy, and struggle for world peace - and some abstract robots. And the main thing is that in their actions these people are not at all guided by their ideas about what is good and what is bad.
You don't need to have any special knowledge, in order to discern the obvious “attractiveness” of each item. People rarely act selfishly individually. Even the most cruel and cold-blooded person divides people into friends and foes, applying completely different rules. And any action “in the interests of the group” is already different from pure competition everyone with everyone. Point 2 about the rationality of all actions is refuted by the history of mankind, which is full of fatal miscalculations that cost the lives of millions of people. Even the most experienced military strategists and statesmen They constantly make mistakes both in setting goals and in methods of achieving them. What can we say about ordinary people or average businessmen.
The argument about the completeness of information is generally the most odious. A person almost never has complete information about what is happening around him. That is why the mechanisms of our psyche and thinking do not act like a computer, but are able to work in situations of high uncertainty, using so-called heuristic strategies. Far from always being correct and logical, and not guaranteeing errorlessness, they nevertheless allow a person to draw conclusions, generalize and make predictions where any computer would fail due to insufficient initial data. But if we talk about the situation of awareness in a purely economic situations– whether it’s a stock exchange game or corporate intrigue, the opportunities for access to information for large and ordinary players are simply incomparable, and access to “insider” information is therefore a key resource in these situations.
Maximizing personal gain is also not the only common strategy not only among people, but also in wildlife. Although we are accustomed to using the expression “like in the jungle” as a synonym for the ruthless struggle for survival, scientists have long known many examples when specific animals use altruistic strategies for this very survival of a pack or species. There is no need to even turn to examples among higher animals; just look at any anthill. Geneticists are coming to increasingly interesting conclusions about the nature of the “altruism genes” that are responsible for cooperative strategies in animals.
1.2 Theories of economic behavior
To better understand where the economic science all this modern entertaining mechanics"Instead of a holistic view of man, we need to take a closer look at when the first theories of economic behavior arose. Since the 18th century, ideas of progress and enlightenment began to conquer the minds of Europeans. Against the background of mysticism and superstition, the ideas of the triumph of reason and the materiality of the world, which can be studied to the end with a compass , microscope and test tube, are exciting and promising. Man is complex mechanical device which can only feel and think. The soul is “a term devoid of content, behind which no idea is hidden and which a sound mind can use only to clothe that part of our organism that thinks,” writes the philosopher and physician Julien de La Mettrie, who immortalized the idea of “man-machine” in the eponymous labor of 1748. It is not fashionable to be an idealist; it is fashionable to consider a person as a creature guided by natural instincts, the desire for profit and pleasure and the fear of deprivation and grief.
People are just as rational and selfish in the writings of most theorists economic thought XVIII and XIX centuries. For Adam Smith, autonomous individuals are driven by two natural motif: self-interest and tendency to exchange. According to John Stuart Mill, people are driven by the desire for wealth and at the same time an aversion to work and an unwillingness to put off until tomorrow what can be used today. Jeremy Bentham believed that man was capable of arithmetic operations to obtain maximum happiness and wrote: “Nature has placed man under the power of two sovereign rulers: suffering and joy. They indicate what we should do today, and they determine what we will do tomorrow. As the measure of truth and lies, so are the chains of reason and the consequences rest at their throne." Leon Walras saw man as a utility maximizer based on rational behavior. In the 20th century, on the basis of these ideas, game theory grew - a branch of mathematics that studies optimal strategies in processes where several participants fight to realize their interests.
It should be noted that the understanding of the limitations of the idea of a person in economics as a mechanistic rational subject existed in the past. Even the classic John Mill still recognized the influence national characteristics on economic man and wrote that in countries continental Europe“People are content with smaller monetary gains, not valuing them so much in comparison with their peace and their pleasure.” In the works of a representative of the German historical school economic theory XIX century B. Hildebrandt, man “as a social being is, first of all, a product of civilization and history. His needs, education and attitude towards material values, as well as towards people, never remain the same, but are constantly changing geographically and historically and develop together in all the education of mankind." Thornstein Veblen believed that people in economic actions are not driven by rational calculation, but by the desire to improve social status, not always rational, and depending on the cultural and historical context in which it occurs. Veblen, in a sense, can be considered the founder of current theories of prestige consumption in marketing.
However, supporters of the “anthropocentric economy” have always remained in the minority, and in public consciousness the idea that economics is a field in which main motive people and organizations - maximizing their profits, regardless of what kind of people and organizations they are, what country they are in and what worldviews they share.
1.3 Rational economic behavior
Even if you don’t refute abstract theories, then at least ask them a lot unpleasant questions became possible with the accumulation experimental experience psychology. The mechanisms described in game theory are not always implemented in real life. life situations.
Firstly, rational acceptance decisions are greatly hampered by the very structure of the human psyche. So, back in the 60s, psychologists discovered evidence of the surprisingly powerful influence of situations on people’s actions, the “fly and elephant” effect, where the fly is the rational motive and reasons for an action or decision, and the elephant is a momentary situation. We are all familiar with this effect. In one of Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes, the great detective explains to Watson why he did not include a lady on the list of suspects, who was obviously very nervous when answering his questions - her nose was simply not powdered. The most insignificant detail, something said at hand, the intonation of the interlocutor, a sudden change in mood can often influence a person’s behavior, outweighing all rational and long-thought-out arguments. When explaining their actions, people also often do not analyze at all, but try to find explanations that will please themselves and those around them, and even when analyzing, they tend to take into account precisely those arguments that confirm their initial position, they believe more probable events whom they themselves met in person.
The volume of accumulated data on such “deviations” from “normality” eventually became impossible to ignore. The fly of unimportant errors has turned into an elephant - unyielding simple explanations real person, and in 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to economist Daniel Kahneman for showing that “human decisions naturally deviate from standard model". Kahneman wrote that "in the decision-making process, subjects ignore the most basic principles and rules underlying the theory rational choice". Instead of calculating their benefits, people simply follow habits and traditions, ignoring probabilistic cranes, choosing reliable birds in their hands, underestimating the possibility of a negative outcome in “usual” situations (“professional mistake”), and are ready to take risks, as a rule, only in order to to avoid trouble, not to gain.
Can you remember famous stories about the reckless behavior of Russian merchants. Everyone knows the stories about lighting a cigarette with hundred-ruble bills that shocked enlightened Europeans. And here is another eloquent example of “irrationality” - the legend about how the Moscow Mental hospital No. 1 named after N. A. Alekseeva (known as “Kanatchikova dacha”). In 1894, funds were raised for construction on the initiative of the mayor of Moscow N.A. Alekseeva. One of the rich merchants told Alekseev: “Bow at my feet in front of everyone, and I will give a million for the hospital.” Alekseev bowed, and the hospital was built. And how many millions are spent today in order to stroke vanity, and not at all to rationally increase capital? It seems that all modern marketing technologies of the consumer society with its image goods and prestigious consumption refute the existence of Homo Economicus. On the contrary, “humanity”, playing on irrational desires and aspirations, has become a key commodity in consumer markets.
1.4 Collective interest
It is curious that even within the framework of the most formal-logical game theory, it is possible to refute the thesis about the rationality of selfish individualism.
One of the most famous games in game theory is the Prisoners' Dilemma. Its essence can be figuratively described as follows: – the police catch two criminals, A and B, for a minor offense. There is reason to believe that these are in fact gang members guilty of more serious crimes, but there is no evidence. If one prisoner testifies against another, and the latter remains silent, then the first is released for helping the investigation, and the second receives the maximum term of imprisonment (10 years). If both are silent, then they are sentenced to minimum term– 6 months. If both testify against each other, they get 2 years. Each prisoner chooses whether to remain silent or testify against the other. However, neither of them knows exactly what the other will do. In this game, if a player cares only about himself, it is always more profitable to betray, but if the players have a common interest, then it is more profitable for them to cooperate.
Successful strategy in this game it was considered “an eye for an eye” (tit-for-tat) - do not betray first, but then always respond to the opponent in the same way, if he betrayed - betray, if he is “friends” - “be friends”. But it turned out that this is beneficial only when everyone plays for himself. IN otherwise More successful is the strategy of cooperation, introduced in 2004 at the 20th anniversary of a repeatable dilemma competition by a team from the University of Southampton in England. It relies on interaction between programs to get the maximum score for one of them. The university entered 60 programs into the championship, which recognized each other by a number of actions in the first 5-10 moves, after which they began to “play giveaway” - one program always cooperated, and the other betrayed, which gave maximum points to the traitor. If the program understood that the opponent was not from Southampton, it would continue to betray him all the time in order to minimize the opponent’s result. The result saw the University of Southampton's programs take the top three places in the competition.
Thus, formal proof was obtained that in the presence of collective interest, an integrated strategy based on both competition and cooperation, as well as the principle of separation between “friends and foes” - that is, cooperation with “friends” and competition with “strangers” – has advantages. , compared to purely competitive strategies.
CONCLUSION
Why do these theories matter to us at all? Does it matter what ideas were shared by the figures of the era of “machine and steam”, and what beautiful constructions mathematicians build when describing abstract competing players? Unfortunately, theorists are guilty of launching “viruses” of supposedly simple ideas into people’s everyday consciousness. You don't have to read Adam Smith to know that "business is business." However, while talking about the fact that only personal good is the path to the common good, adherents of these theories forget that supergoals can only be achieved as a result of cooperation and willingness to work not only for personal gain. You cannot fly into space, study the ocean and search for cures for cancer based only on short-term goals of making a profit. Moreover, this is even harmful, since it can lead in the future to economic shocks and changes in established markets.
Another sad consequence of such ideas is the atomization of society. Because you can only compete rationally and ruthlessly with “strangers,” because even criminals don’t treat “their own” that way. The “economic man” is the more successful the fewer people around him whom he views as people and not as abstract competitors. That’s why clanism and nepotism flourish in our country – albeit in such primitive forms, but still people prefer to be with someone. A small team or group united common interests, is a serious obstacle to the ideas of universal competition, “the war of all against all.”
But the point is not only the limitations of the theories of economic man. The idea of immorality economic activity, taking out of brackets everything except profit and rational calculation, is much more dangerous than it seems at first glance. Hypocrisy, deceit and small betrayals that happen every day in large corporations, because, as you know, they make money here, and do not do charity. "Hackwork" instead of culture. Why are you so poor if you are so smart. Getting used to this reality, it is easy to justify everything with some abstract rules of the market, where there is no room for thinking about what is good and what is bad.
True, history knows at least one example of where you can go along this road. When Hannah Arendt came to Jerusalem in 1961 for the trial of Holocaust chief perpetrator Adolf Eichmann, she was struck by the ordinariness and ordinariness of the man and his arguments, subsequently calling her book about it The Banality of Evil. Unlike theory, in life, indifferent decisions - because “that’s how it’s done”, “it’s just work” and “we’re not like that - life is like that” - lead not only to abstract personal gain, but to very real troubles. And treating other people simply as a means to “win” – the main problem the entire modern economy.
"People can engage in persecution of their own interests without fear that it will cause harm to society, not only because of the restrictions prescribed by law, but also because they themselves are the products of restrictions resulting from morality, religion, customs and education." And this is not a quote from some philosopher - utopian, and the words of the ancestor market economy- Adam Smith. His followers threw out such ideas about moral and well-mannered entrepreneurs from their theories as unnecessary. As Milton Friedman stated briefly and clearly two centuries later, the only debt firms before society – profit maximization. Russians know firsthand how it is not enlightened entrepreneurs, but real “economists” who behave in real life. Moreover, in the market it is not only competing entrepreneurs who fight among themselves in the struggle for consumers’ wallets. Here is a recent example from this series. Workers at a locomotive depot in Moscow got into a fight using traumatic weapons with their potential competitors, who were heading to the depot to get a job for a lower salary. As a result, four people were injured. Competitive fight In his best.
These theories still tell us about their dead mechanical models, although she herself daily practice modern economics proves that the ideas about a person that confused and amazed the imagination of ladies at the balls of the gallant age, to put it mildly, are somewhat outdated. Isn’t it time to follow the advice of the aforementioned La Mettrie: “A sage must dare to express the truth in the interests of a small circle of people who want and know how to think. For for others, who are slaves of their own free will to prejudice, it is as impossible for them to comprehend the truth as it is for frogs to learn to fly”?
Tutoring
Need help studying a topic?
Our specialists will advise or provide tutoring services on topics that interest you.
Submit your application indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.
Recently I had the idea to write an article about types of resistance. And while the article is not ready, I will write a little on the blog about one of the types of resistance -. We are used to counting rational people smart and reasonable. Such people often inspire trust, they can explain anything and probably in any way, especially if they are businessmen or communicate a lot due to their line of work. Unfortunately, or, most likely, fortunately, not everything can be measured or logically explained. We have feelings and emotions, but they are irrational, and explaining why a person feels, one way or another, experiences such an emotion or another in relation to any situation is a rather thankless task.
What is resistance? In addition to electrical, mechanical or other resistance, which I will not consider, there is psychological resistance. This is a natural mechanism of the human psyche, aimed at protecting it from changes in behavioral, thought patterns, etc.
Human psyche is arranged in such a way that once having received the experience from which found a way out with the result of which one can exist - this experience is remembered. There are many such experiences (first, new ones) in our childhood. And since the child for the most part leads an unconscious way of life, all these experiences and exits from various situations unconsciously written down "on the tin". Further, this experience is protected from change, since it once led to an acceptable result, that is, after which it was possible to survive. In life little man, like animals, everything is organized precisely according to this principle - “you need to survive.” This is why the psyche of an adult is so inflexible.
Everything would be fine, but there are traumatic experiences, that is, those that cause serious damage mental development. There is no need to think that it must be a car accident or something else terrible. A child is small and lonely, in an existential sense, a creature like all people. Everything happens for the first time for him, and sometimes, having not received the support of his mother in some seemingly insignificant situation for an adult, he stumbled, tied his shoelaces incorrectly, got dirty, and at the same time received condemnation, a pathological irrational pattern of behavior is formed. For example, my mother scolded me for getting dirty - I should always be clean. In adult life this can turn into an obsession and will seriously interfere. When we begin to examine in a psychotherapeutic session why a person washes his hands every five minutes or why he should have perfectly clean and ironed clothes, we come up, for example, with the situation in childhood described above.
Then, as a child, the child received condemnation from the only loved one, whom he completely trusted and loved, because he got dirty - he suddenly became bad. Such an experience created a construct: in order for my mother to love me, I must always be clean. When we approach this in a therapeutic session, we begin to gradually transform this pathological connection, and resistance appears, because then for a small creature to be pure was the only chance to survive. So he decided based on his experience. Because if my mother doesn’t love me, then how can I continue to live? After all, at this age the child is completely dependent on the mother. Now, with our minds, we understand that this is not so or not entirely so, but our present mind is rational, but emotions have neither logic nor rationality, and then, having arisen in childhood, they remained to live, since emotion does not know , what is time. We transform the only correct decision made at that time, which helped the child survive, and go out into fear. In addition to the fear associated with that situation, which lives in conjunction with pathological behavior, we destroy this frozen behavioral decision, but the psyche does not yet know the new one, and how we can act differently too. And when the psyche does not know something, it resists - the old proven is better than the unknown new.
This is where the mechanism comes into play. A person begins, first of all, to explain to himself why this happened. “Our family has always been clean.” "I like cleanliness". “What’s so bad about that?” “You need to grow with mud, or what?” Often such people in life explain their position to others, and often impose it simply because they need support in their own. After all, in the depths of the soul lives that emotion that arose in a situation with condemnation, and a person feels it, although he is not aware of it, and also feels the instability of his judgments.
In the process of work, with the support of a therapist, as in the example described, the fear associated with condemnation and the impossibility of further existence without a pathological construct can be experienced. Human emotion, unlike ideas, is finite. After which the pathological structure is destroyed or transformed. Usually, a person feels better and becomes freer.
There are more understandable ones lying on the surface. I once had a client who drove himself to psychosomatic disturbances (bodily manifestations) by explaining to himself what a normal life he had, a good partner, children and work. There are very frequent cases when a partner, seeing a disregard for himself, his life or something shared, makes excuses for the other partner and rationalizes - “no time”, “work”, “haven’t grown up yet”, “we’ve lived together for many years” “,” “yes, in his heart he/she still loves”, etc. No matter how close this is to understand, it still has deep roots from childhood, mostly unhealthy. And deep down the feelings are completely different from positive justifications. I did this myself sometimes, - “ good job, I’m my own boss, I have time for my own affairs, I just feel sick when I go to see her, but that’s okay, there are disadvantages everywhere.” In the process of life, we often forget that feelings are the truth. This is us. No job or relationship will bring satisfaction if you do not experience emotions of joy, but tell how joyful they are.
Remember, in the movie "Inception" there was a very right idea, what idea can be implemented? Now, it's true. When building your assumptions on ideas and arguments, rationalizing, it is easy to make a mistake, because this idea may not be yours at all, but, for example, borrowed from someone. But an emotion or feeling cannot be implanted. Therefore, feel, learn to understand your feelings and emotions, trust them, and decide as they tell you.
Seems legitimate general division personality types on RATIONAL And IRRATIONAL, proposed by Jung.
So Thoughtful And Emotional personality types rely on Consciousness - a command module that “works” according to specific algorithm, consistent with the existing world order. It is the work of Consciousness that ensures the constant maintenance of a person “within the limits of what is permitted.” Belonging to one of these types says that the implementation of the plan set by the DP, during the formation and change of the FP, in the world we perceive, does not violate the control algorithm inherent in consciousness human body. Those. the conditions for applying the existing algorithm also include incoming changes to the existing information “hardwired” in it (specific consciousness). More precisely, the ability to process these changes within the existing algorithm exists.
These types are classified as Rational – based on certain principles that do not change throughout life this person, and to a large extent, corresponding to the existing world order, within the limits of their possible awareness.
Rationalism is an understanding and comprehension of both what has happened and what is to come, although in varying degrees at different people– ability to “see” and analyze life path. A rational approach to the environment and oneself consists of “working” with objects, which can also be ideas borrowed from outside. Consciousness builds objects, including ideas existing in society, into a certain picture, reflecting a certain integrity corresponding to the structure of a specific consciousness, i.e. V given system coordinates At the same time, the orientation of consciousness towards the environment places the perceiving subject himself in it. Focus on one’s own inner essence, on the contrary, adjusts the surrounding objects to the subject who perceives them, including his ideological orientation. But, in both cases, a complete picture is created, to one degree or another, like a frame or a cast of what is happening. This implies a certain static nature in the assessment of what is happening, since changes in objects or a subject “must correspond” to the existing algorithm in a given coordinate system.
Consciousness can rely on both intellectual and emotional areas, which “work” in parallel and sequentially, simultaneously. The sequence reflects the interchange of signals with qualitatively different parameters - from the area of thinking and intelligence, and from the area of feeling and emotions. In this way, inferences are formed as logically developing realizations of something (with the leading role of intellect), and judgments as evaluative categories of realized realizations in comparison with what is already known (with the leading role of feeling).
IntuitiveAnd Sensing personality types in to a greater extent subject to changes depending on newly received information, i.e. there is an “exit” beyond the boundaries of the possibility of using the currently existing algorithm of Consciousness of a given individual. In Consciousness there is a restructuring and search for a new optimal algorithm that takes into account these changes, i.e. the algorithm changes in accordance with new boundary conditions(in the case of intuitive perception) and a redistribution of significance in the incoming information occurs (with the leading role of sensations). These types are classified as Irrational – constantly searching for principles that most fully correspond to the current world order for a given specific person, and the invariability of the algorithm of work of Consciousness is possible only with sufficiently high stability in the surrounding world and internal state human body.
Irrationalism is, first of all, a change in the principles of “foreseeing” what is happening and “sensing” the future, developed to varying degrees in different people. But the common unifying factor is the prevalence of the parameters of personal life processes over the parameters of the forms of specific objects or the subject himself. Those. consciousness works with objects in a given sequence. And the characteristics of the process in which this or that object appears are decisive for the perception of the object’s parameters. For the sensing type, the process of change is decisive physical parameters the subject itself and the surrounding world, for the intuitive it is a process of changing consciousness, i.e. changes (usually inaccessible to personal perception) of the parameters of “reading” what is happening. It is for better understanding within the framework of a given process that the coordinate system is very flexible, just like the algorithm of the “work” of consciousness. Consciousness is focused on the processes of interaction of objects and the life processes of a specific perceiving subject.
The changes that occur with the intuitive type are associated with the “givenness” of the process of changing the structure of the individual’s consciousness and the corresponding algorithm to ensure the balanced existence of this individual “in the future.”
Changes of the sensing type are based on “adjusting” the algorithm to the “tomorrow” development of processes in the environment the world, with that the same goal.
The spheres of manifestation of processes that reflect the sequence of formation and development of a particular personality, and the areas of its interaction with the environment, form additional differences that exist between people.
The rational type of personality can be compared to a ship anchored at the bottom, and the irrational type is afloat. Hence, their methods of maneuvering when “weather” conditions change are different. Moreover, both one and the other may be, to a greater or lesser extent, reasonable or not reasonable.
In terms of theory and practice
– rational, more abstract in its theorizing (and to ensure the essential unity of this process, it is necessary to fix the coordinate system to which the abstractions are “tied”);
The irrational one is more specific and practically oriented (it uses the selection of a coordinate system in which, in his opinion, the essential unity is not violated and is most clearly perceived)
From the standpoint of rationalism, the behavior of an irrationalist is second-class rationality, leading him to critical situations. And vice versa, the irrationalist does not understand how any “reasonable” ideas can be placed above what is actually perceived. Relationships of these two types are usually built on the basis of transferring a personal projection onto a partner, which becomes a source of misunderstandings and resentment in further communication. personal relationships, and the reason for the impossibility of achieving consensus in society.
Generally, rational type relies on the analysis and synthesis of incoming information with subsequent forecasting of events, and the irrational one relies on a premonition and a premonition of what is happening. Pure “rationals” and “irrationals” do not exist in nature - this is only a characteristic of the prevailing tendency inherent in a particular individual.
IN social orientation Also important is the object-subject division, which characterizes what role - leading or driven - is characteristic of a particular individual in society.
And having found a rational person, Weber does not say that a person is a reasonable or rational person. He only asserts that “modern man, a child of European culture,” is rational.
It is not rational at all and not by virtue of a certain law, for example, the law of the gradual rationalization of culture. It is rational, as a result of a constellation of factors.
Weber's man suffers from that rationality (or experiences it as fate), which Weber himself calls formal. Formal rationality as rationality “for nothing” (I need the most need to), rationality in itself, taken as an end in itself, can be understood in opposition to material rationality, rationality for something (I need something For…)
Formal rationality is what, according to Weber, distinguishes traditional society from modern. In such a view, according to Gaidenko, Marx’s trace is clearly visible
And seeing modern man as rational, Weber will be forced to explain precisely this, precisely such a person, in particular in his study on the influence Protestant ethics on the formation of modern Western capitalism.
Modern capitalist society. About the concept of capitalism.
This has already been said in relation to man; the same thing can be seen in Weber's discussions of capitalism - Weber does not discuss what capitalism is in essence.
Let's take the “Protestant Ethic...”. There Weber introduces “capitalism” (1) as
the ideal type, (2) as found in reality and (3) it is not assumed that there cannot be another.
The Protestant Ethic introduces the concept of modern capitalism, which is clarified in contrast to “traditional capitalism.” (And, by the way, in the “Protestant Ethic” precisely such a dichotomy is set, which lies precisely within the framework of the problem of modernization.)
And in the future it will indeed turn out that capitalism can be something else. Thus, later, in the preface to “The Sociology of Religion,” Weber will talk more about adventurous capitalism, introducing the “adventuristic-Western” axis at an angle to the “modern-traditional” axis, thereby defining the continuum of “capitalisms.”
In the preface to The Sociology of Religions, discussing the fate of the West, Weber gives the concept of capitalism
Here we will call “capitalist” the type of economic management that is based on the expectation of profit through the use of opportunities exchange, that is peaceful(formally) acquisitions.
Decisive for all these types of acquisition is accounting capital in monetary form, be it in the form of modern accounting reports, be it in the form of the most primitive and superficial calculation.
That is, the emphasis is on profit calculation. Weber further writes that “To define the concept, all that is important is that economic activity really is focused on comparing income and costs in monetary terms, no matter how primitively this is done. " But the specified capital – income and costs (even if calculated in money) – is no longer quite Marx’s capital. For Marx, capital is itself moving value, Weber's capital is value between two people.
Marx does everything to get rid of people. He introduces capital as a “regulatory structure of the social structure” 27 and all sorts of human relations outputs to derivatives. Weber does everything to bring back a person, however, it’s hard for me now to say whether it’s possible to get rid of a person while trying to build an ideal type of capitalism.