The Iron Cage Revisited

ebook Max Weber in the Neoliberal Era · Classical and Contemporary Social Theory

By R. Bruce Douglass

cover image of The Iron Cage Revisited

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

Download Libby on the App Store Download Libby on Google Play

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Library Name Distance
Loading...

At the start of the twentieth century, when Germany, among other nations, was undergoing industrialization, Max Weber famously characterized modern life in words that have often been translated as "iron cage." During the industrial era, that image caught on and was often used by scholars to express concerns about the extent to which the actual character of modern life contradicted its emancipatory promise. But we are living in a different time now, when the conditions under which we live seem to be quite different from the ones that pertained in Weber's day. It is a time when, in some respects at least, life seems to be freer and more conducive to experimentation, which has led some people to conclude that our societies have escaped from Weber's "cage." But is that really true? This book challenges that notion, considering the consequences for our way of life of the triumph of neoliberalism as a political force.

The Iron Cage Revisited