Iron cage

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Iron cage is a concept introduced by Max Weber. It refers to the increasing rationalization of human life, which traps individuals in an "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control. He also called such over-bureaucracized social order "polar night of icy darkness".

In German language, Weber wrote in early 1900s about stahlhartes Gehäuse; this was translated into the 'iron cage', a term familiar to the English language speakers, by Talcott Parsons[1] in his 1958 translation of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[2] [3] Recently some sociologists had questioned this translation, arguing that the proper term should be 'shell as hard as steel' and that the difference is significant.[4], [5] The literal translation from German would be "a steel encasement."

[edit] Quote

• "In Baxter's view, the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment'. But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage." [6]