In terms of government, Weber argued that states were defined by their monopoly on violence and categorised social authority into three distinct forms: charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal.

As a result of these works, he began to be regarded as a founding father of sociology, alongside Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim, and one of the central figures in the development of the social sciences more generally.

[5] Over time, Weber was affected by the marital and personality tensions between his father, who enjoyed material pleasures while overlooking religious and philanthropic causes, and his mother, a devout Calvinist and philanthropist.

[14] Under the tutelage of Levin Goldschmidt and Rudolf von Gneist, Weber earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a dissertation on legal history titled Development of the Principle of Joint Liability and a Separate Fund of the General Partnership out of the Household Communities and Commercial Associations in Italian Cities.

[19] He was a member of the Burschenschaft Allemannia Heidelberg [de], a Studentenverbindung ("student association"), and heavily drank beer and engaged in academic fencing during his first few years in university.

[30] In the same year, the Verein established a research program to examine the Ostflucht, which was the western migration of ethnically German agricultural labourers from eastern Germany and the corresponding influx of Polish farm workers into it.

Weber was put in charge of the study and wrote a large part of the final report, which generated considerable attention and controversy, marking the beginning of his renown as a social scientist.

[46] Also in 1904, he was invited to participate in the Congress of Arts and Sciences that was held in connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis alongside his wife, Werner Sombart, Ernst Troeltsch, and other German scholars.

According to Weber, they were difficult for liberal agrarian reformers to abolish due to a combination of their basis in natural law and the rising kulak class manipulating them for their own gain.

[59] In 1909, having become increasingly dissatisfied with the political conservatism and perceived lack of methodological discipline of the Verein, he co-founded the German Sociological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie) and served as its first treasurer.

[71] After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Weber volunteered for service and was appointed as a reserve officer in charge of organising the army hospitals in Heidelberg, a role he fulfilled until the end of 1915.

[74] He publicly criticised Germany's potential annexation of Belgium and unrestricted submarine warfare, later supporting calls for constitutional reform, democratisation, and universal suffrage.

[86] After the war ended, Weber unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919 as a member of the liberal German Democratic Party, which he had co-founded.

[97] Shortly before he left to join the delegation in Versailles on 13 May 1919, Weber used his connections with the German National People's Party's deputies to meet with Erich Ludendorff.

Since he held Ludendorff responsible for Germany's defeat in the war and having sent many young Germans to die on the battlefield, Weber thought that he should surrender himself and become a political martyr.

[135] The term "methodological individualism" was coined in 1908 by the Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter as a way of referring to Weber's views on how to explain social phenomena.

[177] Increasing rationality caused the development of Western monotheism, which resulted in groups focusing on specific gods for political and economic purposes, creating a universal religion.

[213] Weber ended his research of society and religion in India by bringing in insights from his previous work on China to discuss the similarities of the Asian belief systems.

[215] The social world was fundamentally divided between the educated elite who followed the guidance of a prophet or wise man and the uneducated masses whose beliefs are centered on magic.

[251] Weber listed six characteristics of an ideal type of bureaucracy:[252] The development of communication and transportation technologies made more efficient administration possible and popularly requested.

Recalling his arguments regarding the Protestant work ethic, Weber stated that the path forward in scholarship required the scholar to understand the potential for a lack of success and be methodical in their research.

[292] Like his colleague Werner Sombart, Weber regarded economic calculation, particularly double-entry bookkeeping, as having played a significant role in rationalisation and the development of capitalism.

[293] Weber's preoccupation with the importance of economic calculation led him to critique socialism as lacking a mechanism to efficiently allocate resources to satisfy human needs.

[294] Otto Neurath, a socialist thinker, thought that prices would not exist and central planners would use in-kind, rather than monetary, economic calculation in a completely socialised economy.

[314] Writing in 1932, Karl Löwith contrasted the work of Marx and Weber, arguing that both were interested in the causes and effects of Western capitalism, but they viewed it through different lenses.

Left-leaning social theorists – such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, György Lukács, and Jürgen Habermas – were influenced by his discussion of modernity and its friction with modernisation.

[321] Right-leaning scholars – including Carl Schmitt, Joseph Schumpeter, Leo Strauss, Hans Morgenthau, and Raymond Aron – emphasised different elements of his thought.

[305] The scholars who have examined his works philosophically, including Strauss, Hans Henrik Bruun, and Alfred Schütz, have traditionally looked at them through the lens of Continental philosophy.

[326] These scholars began to involve themselves in American and British scholarship at a time when Weber's writings, such as the General Economic History, were beginning to be translated into English.

That effort coincided with the continued writing of critical commentaries on his works and idea, including the creation of a scholarly journal in 2000, Max Weber Studies, that is devoted to such scholarship.