Talk:Iron cage

A fact from Iron cage appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 April 2008, and was viewed approximately 3,044 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Max Weber argued that the increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in an "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/April.

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I'm not sure if this can be fitted here but unionisation of bureaucratic workers is an important further entrenchment. Wblakesx (talk) 23:53, 25 December 2011 (UTC)wblakesx[reply]

I have to write a paper on the "iron cage" by max weber, i need @ least 5 good pages on the subject, is there anyone out there that can give me his or her opinion on how the "iron cage" relates to modern day life? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.118.15 (talk • contribs) 18:44, March 22, 2008

Try Google Scholar and Google Print.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly recommend getting rid of the final paragraph. It's unsourced and highly misleading. As far as I can tell, Weber never argued that we can get free of the Iron cage if we just try hard enough to influence the bureaucracy. He does say this at the end of the 'Protestant Ethic' about the future beyond the Iron cage:

"No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. For of the last stage of this cultural development, it might well be truly said: "Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved." 131.111.213.38 (talk) 00:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalism not Bureaucracy

The quote reads:

In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.' But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.

Isn't Weber talking about capitalism here? Isn't this entire book about it? I have no understanding why this term became associated with bureaucracy.

My interpretation is that, like Marx, Weber sees commodities as powerful objects imbued with some power that will corrupt this ethic. The spiritual need to be successful by engaging in economic activity will be the source of the ethic's undoing, since these commodities will affect the maker in the long run. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.220.16 (talk) 16:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]