The importance of analysing socialism in individualistic terms

Max Weber:

“Even a socialist economy needs to be understood for the purposes of interpretative sociology in ‘individualistic’ terms, that is, in terms of the actions of the individuals and the types of ‘functionaries’ who are involved in it, in just the same way as in the case of a market economy understood in terms of the theory of marginal utility… For the question which must always be asked first before the real empirical work of sociology can begin is: which motives led and continue to lead individual functionaries and members of this ‘community’ to behave in such a way that it came into being and continues to exist?’

From ‘Economy and Society’

Source: Max Weber, Selections in translation [ISBN 0 521 21757 1 hard covers, ISBN 0 521 29268 9 paperback] Hereafter referred to as MWSIT.