To what degree is society being rationalised and in what sense is technology involved this process? It is pivotal to first understand what is meant by complex terms such as ‘rationalisation’ which also calls for the understanding of ‘capitalism’ as the link between them is significant. It must also be noted that these terms are not used universally. ‘Rationalisation’ is a societal concept created by Max Weber (1864 - 1920) and used by him “as a term of art, to describe an economic system based not on custom or tradition, but on deliberate and systematic adjustment of economic means to the attainment of the objective of pecuniary profit” (Weber 1905 cited in Tawney 2012, 20). He implies that rationality influences the capacity to impose cognitive order and render the world more calculable and controllable with this economic system, now ‘Capitalism’. Despite popular opinion, ‘Capitalism' was not of evil descent with immoral intentions but was something that would represent the importance of individual merits, “an economic system resting on the organisation of legally free wage-earners for the purpose of pecuniary profit … a modern phenomenon” (Weber 1905 cited in Tawney 2012, 18). Both ‘Rationalisation’ and ‘Capitalism’ emerge in the early 20th Century and explain how society desired to be profitable and this was often connoted negatively, however are perceived differently if seen through the lens of human merits and a drive for success with moral incentives. A social change with undoubtable social impacts. 

 

Today, this paper will explain how society is being rationalised by social driven ideology and religion, not directly by technology. It will begin firstly with the explanation of the story of rationalisation and how it has changed society. I will then move on to discuss how society is not being rationalised by technology although it is helping with the process. Technology has allowed room for capitalism to grow and is providing opportunity for this social change to continue, however societal rationalism is continuing on a path that was not instigated by technology and was made to be a social change not a technical process. Society is not being rationalised by technology - technology is aiding rationalisation of society, not achieving it. Finally, it will be examined how society is being rationalised by people, by human ideology and religion as the driving factors.

 

 

This ‘rationalisation’ of society was believed by Weber to have emerged from religion and a desire for social change. The Protestant reformation sparked the uprising of new religious movements that opposed catholic dogma and through this, Weber saw the origin of modern rationality. Lutherism rose out of this and for the first time, the way tasks were performed was questioned, “labour is not merely an economic means: it is a spiritual end… it is a duty to choose the more profitable occupation” (Tawney 2012, 21). This new economic grounding valued the way that people carried out their personal economic activity and as a result of new religious ethic, money and the method of earning was important beyond simply making a living. This new mindset about capitalism being something worthy fell in line with Calvinist belief of predestination because good fortune in money would prove you were ‘saved’. It was “the connection of the spirit of modern economic life with the rational ethics of ascetic Protestantism” (Weber 1905 cited in Tawney 2012, 43), which helped move society into a new phase. Society started being rationalised by human ideology, it was this human factor that was the spark for change and the birth of rationalisation not technology.  

 

To go back to the above definition of rationalisation, “cognitive order” and “more calculable and controllable”, society has emerged with a face of rationalisation because we have a greater sense of societal order. Consider this heightened order through world religions, how higher power and moral life exists under one explanatory framework in the shift from polytheism to monotheism. Or how science has become a unified system or how the state lives in position of formalised law with permanent structures and defined roles. These social examples demonstrate the process to rationalisation the same way as modern capitalism does. With the introduction to formal rationality, “we no longer have to discover for ourselves the optimum means to some given end because that optimum means has already been discovered: it is incorporated into the rules, regulations, and structures of our social institutions” (Ritzer 2013, 3), it has created methods for us to do things. We now have a ‘guide sheet’, which has established a large sense of order and control onto the way we live our lives. Society is being rationalised and this was something Weber discovered but also feared. Weber understood that rationality “was created in and came to dominate the modern Western industrialised world… [he] saw bureaucracy as the epitome of formally rational domination” (Ritzer 2013, 4). Weber’s worry was that systems of rationalisation would be built and would eventually leave behind the ideas that built them. At the end of Weber’s ‘Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ he describes how “today the spirit of religious asceticism… has escaped from the cage… the enlightenment seems also to be irretrievably fading and the idea of duty in one’s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs” (Weber 1905 cited in Tawney 2012, 179), the cage being bureaucratic capitalism with rationalised rules. Society has and is still being rationalised, which begs the next question, ‘what was the biggest driving force’?.

 

Technology is aiding ‘rationalisation’ by allowing it to continue even in this digital age, however is not the driving force behind it. Technology helps rationalisation by making structures of capitalism or law more efficient in terms of speed and order, however it is people who man the technology and provide its functionality. Rationalisation is a conceptualised idea of our social change from Protestant revolution to modern day capitalism and cannot live technologically. Society cannot be rationalised by technology because of the nature of it as an ideology being something so social and so grounded in the ways in which people control and manage their own society. Technology has helped in making life easier and more manageable for these individuals but rationalisation must not be confused with simplification. Technology is simplifying society by easing processes, which must be recognised as different to rationalising. 

 

An example of this is the ‘McDonalisation’ of a society, which is when certain societies adopt the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant. “It is the fast-food restaurant that today best represents and leads the process of formal rationalisation and its basic components efficiency, predictability, quantification, control through the substitution of nonhuman for human technology and the ultimate irrationality of formal rationality” (Ritzer 2013, 6), which provides a metaphor for us to view society. ‘Efficiency’, ‘predictability’ and ‘quantification’ still have a very human push behind them. Humans have created technology to help make these aspects smoother, but again we see the drive behind this change as a result of human impulse. These three aspects are seen to improve with technology as it eradicates human error, Ritzer provides the example of the scanners in supermarkets, but this also results in the deskilling of the workers. This deskilling is not only seen in supermarkets. Shouldn’t society be one of people not one of technological domination? If we are deskilling people by making them more dependable on technology how is that rationalisation? Rationalisation is about making the world more controlled and ordered with intentions of pecuniary profits and although error may be removed so is creativity, which is what Weber also feared. ‘Nonhuman technology’ is not what it used to be when rationalism emerged, there was not the same degree of technology, yet society was still going through the process of rationalisation. Technology is helping keep it alive but only because we live in a technological era. It is almost impossible to avoid technology because of its ubiquitous nature, so we have to adapt our concepts around it. However, "whenever technology presents a story with a range of options, its beliefs and values - the core elements of ideology - always come into play” (Nolan 2006, 58), which is significant because ideology drives change, not the tools we use to help us with that change. Human ideology is what society is being rationalised by, technology is merely a helping device that supports the human driven side of this process. Society created rationalisation and are manning the technology that helps keep societal rationality in tact. This is why society is not being rationalised by technology because technology is instigated by people; people have made technology something that will help them which has helped with the ‘control’ and ‘order’ aspects of rationality, but it is not enough to say that society is being rationalised by technology.

 

Weber noted that “it would also further be necessary to investigate how Protestant Asceticism was in turn influenced in its development and its character by the totality of social conditions, especially economic” (Weber 1905 cited in Tawney 2012, 180), however this becomes more and more difficult to analyse in the modern age. Technology is almost entirely unavoidable and becomes something that is assumed to impact every aspect of lives as social beings. And while it does impact rationalisation, society is being rationalised by humans and their 'social conditions’. It was in these social conditions that society was rationalised because there was an urge and desire for change promised by religious, Protestant Asceticism. If society was formally rationalised in this regard, it will continue to be rationalised in the same way.

 

 

Society is being rationalised most profoundly by people, the human ideology and religious aspect, not directly by technology. Coser discusses the role of social conflict in the process of social change which explains the human ideology aspect of societal rationalisation. “The total social system undergoes transformation through conflict” (Marx cited in Coser 1957, 200), and this is evident in the process of rationalisation from Protestant ethic to capitalism. This is key because conflict only makes evident what needs altering in society and this conflict helps drive the social desire for either a change within or of its current system. Changing a society or realising that change is already happening is very much a human affair. Change as an outcome of conflict is another way of explaining the breakdown of feudalism into capitalism because it was the establishment of a new social system governed by new patterns of social relations. Similarly, rationalisation emerged from a traditional way of existing as explained through the introduction of the new economic system, ‘capitalism’ from a religious dominated society. 

 

Nolan discusses a similar concept of social change but through the angle of human society as evolutionary. When societies begin to undergo large changes “they have usually been accompanied by important changes in social organisation - substantial increases in organisational complexity, marked increases in the division labor, and significant increases in social inequality” (Nolan 2006, 56). The absolute crux of societal evolution is that it is “social” and this is referred to heavily in both ideologies. Social change as demonstrated by looking at it with specific regard to rationalisation, is very much a social phenomenon instigated by mindsets of people. It is something human and something that supersedes technology. So when we ask whether society is being rationalised by technology, this social fuel must be recognised as absolutely fundamental and that even without technology in the equation, rationalisation was made possible. Society is being rationalised by its people not by its technology.

 

 

Society is being rationalised not by technology but by human driven ideology and religion. Technology is a tool that humans have used alongside their process of rationalisation. Rationalisation was born in an era that lacks the intensive technology we have today only furthering how it does not need technology to be upheld. Human instigation is the biggest factor in societal rationalisation because the urge for for ‘systematic adjustment’ was not in the hands of technology but in those of the people.  

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Works Cited 

 

Coser, Lewis (1957) ‘Social Conflict and the Theory of Social Change’, British Journal of Sociology 8(3): 197-207.

 

Nolan, Patrick and Gerhard Lenski (2006) ‘The Evolution of Human Societies’ (ch3) and ‘Types of Human Societies’ (ch 4), IN Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology, 10th edn, Paradigm Publishers.

 

Ritzer, George (2005) ‘The Weberian Theory of Rationalization and the McDonaldization of Contemporary Society’ (ch 2) In P. Kivisto (ed.) Illuminating Social Life: Classical and Contemporary Theory Revisited, 3rd edn., London: Pine Forge Press.

 

Swedberg, Richard (1998) Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

 

Weber, Max (1905/2012) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York and London: Routledge.