Re: Weber's Genteel Racism

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> rduchesn@xxxxxxxx 12/06/00 10:07AM >>>
let me add this about bookkeeping:
The central theme in W's entire
work is the notion of rationality. Only in Western Europe did a formal
rational orientation penetrate every sphere of life.  The rise of this
orientation is the *explanadum* of his historical analyses, the
phenomenom that he thinks requires explanation if we want
to understand the peculiarity of  the West.  Capital accounting
symbolized by  double entry bookkeeping is crucial to this explanation
because it is this very practice which directly exhibits this orientation in
the sphere of economic life. Double-entry bookkeeping, therefore, cannot
be defined as just another empirical-factor in the rise of  modern capitalism.

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CB: Is Weber saying there is some special relationship between rationality and double entry bookkeeping ?  That the latter is somekind of archtypical or essential expression of the former ?

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But neither should one pretend that a formal rational orientation exists within
the economy simply because one has detected the practice of
double-entry. For double-entry may be present yet capital accounting may
be limited by a whole range of  factors like the absence of free labor and
mechanized technology.