“Economy and society” is considered to be the most important work and contribution of “Max weber” in the discipline of sociology, his whole theoretical work regarding sociology is summarized in his mentioned book. He started his book by, defining the word “sociology”. According to “max weber” sociology is the study of “social action”. “Duncan Mitchel” says that, the action is considered to be social, when it is influenced by the action of one or more than one individual. For example, if a person is reading a book the action is not considered as social because it do not influence the action of other individual or individuals. However, two people walking on pavement who trying not to bump in each other can be considered as social action, for the reason that, at least they are taking each other into account.
Max weber theory of social action is based on, the cause and effect relationship. He says that, the action is not considered to be social unless it is influence by the action of others, suppose if a person don’t like to play football, but when he sees his friends enjoying playing football on picnic and he starts playing with them too. This action should be considered as social, for the reason that, his action was influenced by his friends.
Furthermore, subjective meaning and motive should be connected to any social action, it can be normative or necessity for the actor to perform such action according to the situation. For example, if a person shoot an intruder, the motive behind his shooting may be self-defense or protection of his family and property. In the example the action was considered to be social because the actor had motive behind action and the situation necessitate his action.
Six Characteristics of Social Action
Talcott defined six characteristics of social action which are as follow.
• Actors who perform social action are individual or individuals.
• There is purpose or motive behind every social action.
• The motive can be achieved by actors from different type of actions.
• Actor achieve his goal by different means depends on the situation.
• The objective and means of achieving that are selected on the basis of norm, values and laws.
• Involving action actor use his personal perspective to take decisions regarding, the means to achieve his goal.
