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In sociology, the iron cage is a concept introduced by Max Weber to describe the increased rationalization inherent in social life, particularly in Western capitalist societies. The "iron cage" thus traps individuals in systems based purely on teleological efficiency, rational calculation and control.
But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage. (Page 181, 1953 Scribner's edition.) Weber maintained that while Puritan religious ideas had significantly impacted the development of economic systems in Europe and United States, there were other factors in play, as well.
Weber described the eventual effects of rationalization in his Economy and Society as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in an "iron cage" (or "steel-hard casing") of rule-based, rational control.
One of the most prominent examples of this was the work of German economist and social theorist Max Weber; Weber focused on the organizational structure (i.e. bureaucracy) within society, and the institutionalization created by means of the iron cage which organizational bureaucracies create. In Britain and the United States, the study of ...
Rationalisation caused the West to be trapped in the stahlhartes Gehäuse ("iron cage" or "steel-hard casing") that was the modern capitalist economic order. [164] Meanwhile, ideal types were representative figures, or case studies, that represented concepts.
Weber eventually realized that this odd custom (from a European point of view) acted as a kind of "credit check". [1] This worked for two reasons. First, membership in a Protestant sect was voluntary (unlike the state-sponsored Churches in Europe), and they only accepted members who had demonstrated a certain standard of behavior. Any member ...
Ritzer's idea of McDonaldization is an extension of Max Weber's (1864–1920) classical theory of the rationalization of modern society and culture. Weber famously used the terminology " iron cage " to describe the stultifying, Kafkaesque effects of bureaucratized life, [ 16 ] and Ritzer applied this idea to an influential social system in the ...
Its emphasis on the importance of one's calling encouraged the differentiation of life-spheres, while its rationality favoured an emphasis on natural law [8] – further aspects enhancing the impact Weber postulated such asceticism had upon the development of capitalism, [9] or rather the particular type of capitalism Weber saw as marked by ...