Understanding Weber

Weber before Weberian sociology, revisited 15
two questionnaires. The aims of the survey (‘Enquete’) were to gather exact
data on the forms of payment relationships and the developments in the
social and cultural conditions of the agricultural worker. Over and beyond
these goals there was a concern about the consequences of the loss of profitability
of farming, debt and the shortage of farmworkers. The first questionnaire,
which gathered quantitative data on prices, wages, crop areas, etc.,
was sent out in December 1891 to 3,180 landowners/farmers. The second,
which asked for more descriptive reports, was sent out in February 1892 to
562 ‘key informants’ (‘Generalberichterstatter’). Weber started work on the
analysis of the questionnaires in the middle of February 1892, and he was
given six months to complete his report, ready in time for a debate at the
general meeting of the Verein für Sozialpolitik that was to take place that
same autumn. 13
This was a massive empirical undertaking on Weber’s part, and it resulted
in an 800-page report. Weber received back 650 completed questionnaires
from the farmowners in his regions. From these, he tabulated the data for
each area within each region. More specifically, to give an idea just how
detailed the research was, he carried out the following cross-tabulations:
length of the working day for each season for male workers, their wives,
the children and servants tabulated against each county (‘Kreis’) in a region;
wages and payment in kind for each type of farm work (and the extent of
each sort of farm work, e.g. wheat, root crops, cows, etc.) tabulated against
county; income and yield for each sort of farm work against county; the
proportionality of wages to payment in kind for each type of farmworker;
annualized wages for farmworkers and their wives against county. Weber
then had to collect data on seasonal migratory labour. Here, he tabulated
the duration of seasonal work, its purpose on the farm, place of origin of the
seasonal workers, their wages and costs, the daily wages of domestic workers
and their destination as migrants off the land – all this tabulated against
county. Finally, he provided a table of the annual costs of the independent
farmworker (the ‘Instmann’) – cost of seed, housing, fuel, rent, consumption,
payments to farmworkers, fodder for livestock, wages for domestic maids.
Weber repeated the same tabulations for each of the eight provinces and
their dozen or so counties, providing descriptive material for each category
of data. Summaries were given for each province, and an overall summary
was provided in the final chapter.
The Verein für Sozialpolitik would collect the reports from the other German
provinces. The reports would be debated at the Verein’s annual meeting,
and a series of conclusions and recommendations would be made and
publicized, not least to the government. 14 From the standpoint of nationaleconomy
as a policy science, the Verein tended towards an inductive empiricism
whereby the data would speak for itself. 15 Wages, prices, migration and
emigration, types of agricultural production – all of this would tell its own
story. But as any competent methods student will point out, data have to be
interpreted, and it is through the process of interpretation that the policy