A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
Max WeberRead
Capitalism may even be identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse. But capitalism is identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse. But capitalism is identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on capitalism as a system that balances irrational desires with rational enterprise focused on profit.
Max Weber discusses capitalism as a dualistic force where on one hand, it restrains irrational impulses and on the other, it fosters the continuous pursuit of profit through rational enterprise. This relationship between restraint and the drive for profit highlights capitalism's complex nature, suggesting it is both a necessary regulatory mechanism and an aggressive promoter of individual gain.
In practice
In a discussion on economic systems at a university seminar.
A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
'Culture' is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance.
The modern view of criminal justice, broadly, is that public concern with morality or expediency decrees expiation for the violation of a norm; this concern finds expression in the infliction of punishment on the evil doer by agents of the state, the evil doer, however, enjoying the protection of a regular procedure.
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.
The purely emotional form of Pietism is, as Ritschl has pointed out, a religious dilettantism for the leisure class.
Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.
In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.
Lots of my dying patients say they grow in bounds and leaps, and finish all the unfinished business. But assisting a suicide is cheating them of these lessons, like taking a student out of school before final exams. That's not love, it's projecting your own unfinished business
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it. To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
You can't carve up the world. It's not a pie.
Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.
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