**2.2 Max Weber's notion of "society and economy"**

In his work, Weber puts economic action and economic institutions center-stage. To him: "(modern, A.M.) 'economic action' is any peaceful exercise of an actor's control over resources which is in its main impulse oriented toward economic ends" (Weber, 1978: 63).1 According to Weber, economic action in modern economy is thus defined as means-end oriented action in order to produce, consume, or distribute scarce goods and services. In Weberian sociology, it is most important to show what specific forms of production, consumption, or distribution are generated by this kind of action in modern societies and, secondly, by which social-cultural background they are caused. Especially the overwhelming rationalization of individual actions and economic structure is given priority in those analyses. Weber's notion of the mutual relation of "economy and society" is that they are strongly interrelated. For example, different processes of rationalization work on the level of cultural ideas (see for example the rational system of Protestant ideas), individual behavior (especially a systematic way of life and work), and social and economic institutions (authority systems, markets, firms, money, bookkeeping, etc.) work together when the modern rational capitalism comes into being (Weber, 1946; Weber, 1978). According to Weber, widespread rational institutions in economy like hierarchical organizations, especially large firms as well as large markets for consumer goods or money (Weber, 1978: chapter 2; Weber, 2000), are the result of the entanglement of a cultural belief system (that of Protestant sects) and the institutionalization of certain action patterns (that of systematic working and living) and specific social structures (primarily a rational state and a rational public administration). The main thesis states that through institutionalization the individual level and the macro level become interlinked, and different processes of rationalization are enforced.
