Social Science and Political Commitments in the Young Max Weber

Abstract

In 1892 the Verein für Sozialpolitik (Association for Social Policy) published six studies of agricultural workers in Germany (1). Five of the six authors were Karl Kaerger, H. Losch, Kuno Frankenstein, Friedrich Grossman, and Otto Auhagen. The sixth author was Max Weber. He was only 28 years old. But his study of agricultural workers touched on many themes that he developed in his more mature scholarship, and on some of the dilemmas that he faced in his later political writings and political activities.