SOURCE: "Max Weber's Interpretation of Karl Marx," in Social Research, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1973, pp. 701-19.

In the following essay, which was originally presented as a lecture at the University of Constance in 1973, Mayer contends that Marx's theories only became an important element of Weber's work after his illness from 1899 to 1902.

More than thirty years ago, Albert Salomon published an essay in which he asserted not merely that Max Weber's work could be understood only if seen against the background of Karl Marx but also that Weber's work itself was the product of an intense, life-long preoccupation with Marx. This assertion is not literally correct. In the first phase of Weber's scientific work—prior to his illness of 1899-1902—Marx's work meant little to him. What he did, before 1900, was to utilize the categories in Marx's system in a unique manner for his own investigations (for examples, in the fascinating...