Max
\nWeber
\nThe Protestant Ethic and
\nthe Spirit of Capitalism
\nTranslated by Talcott Parsons
\nWith an introduction by Anthony Giddens
\nLondon and New YorkFirst published 1930 by Allen and Unwin
\nFirst published by Routledge 1992
\nFirst published in Routledge Classics 2001
\nby Routledge
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\n\u00a9 1930 Max Weber
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\nISBN 0-203-99580-5 Master e-book ISBNCONTENTS
\nIntroduction by Anthony Giddens vii
\nTranslator\u2019s Preface xxv
\nAuthor\u2019s Introduction xxviii
\nPART I The Problem 1
\n1 Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification 3
\n2 The Spirit of Capitalism 13
\n3 Luther\u2019s Conception of the Calling: Task of
\nthe Investigation 39
\nPART II The Practical Ethics of the Ascetic Branches of
\nProtestantism 51
\n4 The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism 53
\nA. Calvinism 56
\nB. Pietism 80
\nC. Methodism 89
\nD. The Baptist Sects 925 Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism 102
\nNotes 126
\nIndex 263
\nvi contentsINTRODUCTION
\nThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism undoubtedly ranks as
\none of the most renowned, and controversial, works of modern
\nsocial science. First published as a two-part article in 1904\u20135, in
\nthe Archiv f\u00fcr Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, of which Weber was
\none of the editors, it immediately provoked a critical debate, in
\nwhich Weber participated actively, and which, some seventy
\nyears later, has still not gone off the boil. This English translation
\nis in fact taken from the revised version of the work, that first
\nappeared in Weber\u2019s Gesammelte Aufs\u00e4tze zur Religionssoziologie (Collected
\nEssays on the Sociology of Religion), published in 1920\u20131 just after
\nWeber\u2019s death, and thus contains comments on the critical litera ture to which its initial appearance had given rise.
\nWeber wrote The Protestant Ethic at a pivotal period of his intel lectual career, shortly after his recovery from a depressive illness
\nthat had incapacitated him from serious academic work for a
\nperiod of some four years. Prior to his sickness, most of Weber\u2019s
\nworks, although definitely presaging the themes developed in
\nthe later phase of his life, were technical researches in economichistory, economics and jurisprudence. They include studies of
\nmediaeval trading law (his doctoral dissertation), the develop ment of Roman land-tenure, and the contemporary socio economic conditions of rural workers in the eastern part of
\nGermany. These writings took their inspiration in some substan tial part from the so-called \u2018historical school\u2019 of economics
\nwhich, in conscious divergence from British political economy,
\nstressed the need to examine economic life within the context of
\nthe historical development of culture as a whole. Weber always
\nremained indebted to this standpoint. But the series of works he
\nbegan on his return to health, and which preoccupied him for
\nthe remainder of his career, concern a range of problems much
\nbroader in compass than those covered in the earlier period. The
\nProtestant Ethic was a first fruit of these new endeavours.
\nAn appreciation of what Weber sought to achieve in the book
\ndemands at least an elementary grasp of two aspects of the cir cumstances in which it was produced: the intellectual climate
\nwithin which he wrote, and the connections between the work
\nitself and the massive programme of study that he set himself in
\nthe second phase of his career.
\n1. THE BACKGROUND
\nGerman philosophy, political theory and economics in the nine teenth century were very different from their counterparts in
\nBritain. The dominant position of utilitarianism and classical
\npolitical economy in the latter country was not reproduced in
\nGermany, where these were held at arm\u2019s length by the influ ence of Idealism and, in the closing decades of the nineteenth
\ncentury, by the growing impact of Marxism. In Britain, J. S.
\nMill\u2019s System of Logic (1843) unified the natural and social sciences
\nin a framework that fitted comfortably within existing traditions
\nin that country. Mill was Comte\u2019s most distinguished British
\ndisciple, if sharply critical of some of his excesses. Comte\u2019s
\nviii introductionpositivism never found a ready soil in Germany; and Dilthey\u2019s
\nsympathetic but critical reception of Mill\u2019s version of the \u2018moral
\nsciences\u2019 gave an added impulse to what came to be known as
\nthe Geisteswissenschaften (originally coined precisely as a translation
\nof \u2018moral sciences\u2019). The tradition of the Geisteswissenschaften, or
\nthe \u2018hermeneutic\u2019 tradition, stretches back well before Dilthey,
\nand from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards was
\nintertwined with, but also partly set off from, the broader stream
\nof Idealistic philosophy. Those associated with the hermeneutic
\nviewpoint insisted upon the differentiation of the sciences of
\nnature from the study of man. While we can \u2018explain\u2019 natural
\noccurrences in terms of the application of causal laws, human
\nconduct is intrinsically meaningful, and has to be \u2018interpreted\u2019
\nor \u2018understood\u2019 in a way which has no counterpart in nature.
\nSuch an emphasis linked closely with a stress upon the centrality
\nof history in the study of human conduct, in economic action as
\nin other areas, because the cultural values that lend meanings to
\nhuman life, it was held, are created by specific processes of social
\ndevelopment.
\nJust as he accepted the thesis that history is of focal import ance to the social sciences, Weber adopted the idea that the
\n\u2018understanding\u2019 (Verstehen) of meaning is essential to the explica tion of human action. But he was critical of the notions of \u2018intu ition\u2019, \u2018empathy\u2019, etc. that were regarded by many others as
\nnecessarily tied to the interpretative understanding of conduct.
\nMost important, he rejected the view that recognition of the
\n\u2018meaningful\u2019 character of human conduct entails that causal
\nexplanation cannot be undertaken in the social sciences. On the
\nlevel of abstract method, Weber was not able to work out a
\nsatisfactory reconciliation of the diverse threads that he tried to
\nknit together; but his effort at synthesis produced a distinctive
\nstyle of historical study, combining a sensitivity to diverse cul tural meanings with an insistence upon the fundamental causal
\nrole of \u2018material\u2019 factors in influencing the course of history.
\nintroduction ixIt was from such an intellectual background that Weber
\napproached Marxism, both as a set of doctrines and a political
\nforce promoting practical ends. Weber was closely associated
\nwith the Verein f\u00fcr Sozialpolitik (Association for Social Policy), a
\ngroup of liberal scholars interested in the promotion of progres sive social reform.1
\nHe was a member of the so-called \u2018younger
\ngeneration\u2019 associated with the Verein, the first group to acquire a
\nsophisticated knowledge of Marxist theory and to attempt to
\ncreatively employ elements drawn from Marxism \u2013 without ever
\naccepting it as an overall system of thought, and recoiling from
\nits revolutionary politics. While acknowledging the contribu tions of Marx, Weber held a more reserved attitude towards
\nMarxism (often being bitterly critical of the works and political
\ninvolvements of some of Marx\u2019s professed followers) than did
\nhis illustrious contemporary, Sombart. Each shared, however, a
\nconcern with the origins and likely course of evolution of indus trial capitalism, in Germany specifically and in the West as a
\nwhole.2
\nSpecifically, they saw the economic conditions that Marx
\nbelieved determined the development and future transformation
\nof capitalism as embedded within a unique cultural totality.3
\nBoth devoted much of their work to identifying the emergence
\nof this \u2018ethos\u2019 or \u2018spirit\u2019 (Geist) of modern Western capitalism.
\n2. THE THEMES OF THE PROTESTANT ETHIC
\nIn seeking to specify the distinctive characteristics of modern
\ncapitalism in The Protestant Ethic, Weber first of all separates off
\ncapitalistic enterprise from the pursuit of gain as such. The
\ndesire for wealth has existed in most times and places, and has in
\nitself nothing to do with capitalistic action, which involves a
\nregular orientation to the achievement of profit through (nom inally peaceful) economic exchange. \u2018Capitalism\u2019, thus defined,
\nin the shape of mercantile operations, for instance, has existed in
\nvarious forms of society: in Babylon and Ancient Egypt, China,
\nx introductionIndia and mediaeval Europe. But only in the West, and in rela tively recent times, has capitalistic activity become associated
\nwith the rational organisation of formally free labour.
\n4
\nBy \u2018rational organ isation\u2019 of labour here Weber means its routinised, calculated
\nadministration within continuously functioning enterprises.
\nA rationalised capitalistic enterprise implies two things: a dis ciplined labour force, and the regularised investment of capital.
\nEach contrasts profoundly with traditional types of economic
\nactivity. The significance of the former is readily illustrated by
\nthe experience of those who have set up modern productive
\norganisations in communities where they have not previously
\nbeen known. Let us suppose such employers, in order to raise
\nproductivity, introduce piece-rates, whereby workers can
\nimprove their wages, in the expectation that this will provide the
\nmembers of their labour force with an incentive to work harder.
\nThe result may be that the latter actually work less than before:
\nbecause they are interested, not in maximising their daily wage,
\nbut only in earning enough to satisfy their traditionally estab lished needs. A parallel phenomenon exists among the wealthy
\nin traditional forms of society, where those who profit from
\ncapitalist enterprise do so only in order to acquire money for the
\nuses to which it can be put, in buying material comfort, pleasure
\nor power. The regular reproduction of capital, involving its con tinual investment and reinvestment for the end of economic
\nefficiency, is foreign to traditional types of enterprise. It is
\nassociated with an outlook of a very specific kind: the continual
\naccumulation of wealth for its own sake, rather than for the
\nmaterial rewards that it can serve to bring. \u2018Man is dominated by
\nthe making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of
\nhis life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man
\nas the means for the satisfaction of his material needs\u2019 (p. 18).
\nThis, according to Weber, is the essence of the spirit of modern
\ncapitalism.
\nWhat explains this historically peculiar circumstance of a
\nintroduction xidrive to the accumulation of wealth conjoined to an absence of
\ninterest in the worldly pleasures which it can purchase? It would
\ncertainly be mistaken, Weber argues, to suppose that it derives
\nfrom the relaxation of traditional moralities: this novel outlook
\nis a distinctively moral one, demanding in fact unusual self discipline. The entrepreneurs associated with the development
\nof rational capitalism combine the impulse to accumulation with
\na positively frugal life-style. Weber finds the answer in the \u2018this worldly asceticism\u2019 of Puritanism, as focused through the con cept of the \u2018calling\u2019. The notion of the calling, according to
\nWeber, did not exist either in Antiquity or in Catholic theology;
\nit was introduced by the Reformation. It refers basically to the
\nidea that the highest form of moral obligation of the individual
\nis to fulfil his duty in worldly affairs. This projects religious
\nbehaviour into the day-to-day world, and stands in contrast to
\nthe Catholic ideal of the monastic life, whose object is to tran scend the demands of mundane existence. Moreover, the moral
\nresponsibility of the Protestant is cumulative: the cycle of sin,
\nrepentance and forgiveness, renewed throughout the life of the
\nCatholic, is absent in Protestantism.
\nAlthough the idea of the calling was already present in
\nLuther\u2019s doctrines, Weber argues, it became more rigorously
\ndeveloped in the various Puritan sects: Calvinism, Methodism,
\nPietism and Baptism. Much of Weber\u2019s discussion is in fact con centrated upon the first of these, although he is interested not
\njust in Calvin\u2019s doctrines as such but in their later evolution
\nwithin the Calvinist movement. Of the elements in Calvinism
\nthat Weber singles out for special attention, perhaps the most
\nimportant, for his thesis, is the doctrine of predestination: that
\nonly some human beings are chosen to be saved from damna tion, the choice being predetermined by God. Calvin himself
\nmay have been sure of his own salvation, as the instrument of
\nDivine prophecy; but none of his followers could be. \u2018In its
\nextreme inhumanity\u2019, Weber comments, \u2018this doctrine must
\nxii introductionabove all have had one consequence for the life of a generation
\nwhich surrendered to its magnificent consistency . . . A feeling
\nof unprecedented inner loneliness\u2019 (p. 60). From this torment,
\nWeber holds, the capitalist spirit was born. On the pastoral level,
\ntwo developments occurred: it became obligatory to regard one self as chosen, lack of certainty being indicative of insufficient
\nfaith; and the performance of \u2018good works\u2019 in worldly activity
\nbecame accepted as the medium whereby such surety could be
\ndemonstrated. Hence success in a calling eventually came to be
\nregarded as a \u2018sign\u2019 \u2013 never a means \u2013 of being one of the elect.
\nThe accumulation of wealth was morally sanctioned in so far as
\nit was combined with a sober, industrious career; wealth was
\ncondemned only if employed to support a life of idle luxury or
\nself-indulgence.
\nCalvinism, according to Weber\u2019s argument, supplies the
\nmoral energy and drive of the capitalist entrepreneur; Weber
\nspeaks of its doctrines as having an \u2018iron consistency\u2019 in the
\nbleak discipline which it demands of its adherents. The element
\nof ascetic self-control in worldly affairs is certainly there in the
\nother Puritan sects also: but they lack the dynamism of Calvin ism. Their impact, Weber suggests, is mainly upon the formation
\nof a moral outlook enhancing labour discipline within the lower
\nand middle levels of capitalist economic organisation. \u2018The
\nvirtues favoured by Pietism\u2019, for example, were those \u2018of the
\nfaithful official, clerk, labourer, or domestic worker\u2019 (p. 88).
\n3. THE PROTESTANT ETHIC IN THE CONTEXT OF
\nWEBER\u2019S OTHER WRITINGS
\nFor all its fame, The Protestant Ethic is a fragment. It is much shorter
\nand less detailed than Weber\u2019s studies of the other \u2018world reli gions\u2019: ancient Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, and Confu cianism (Weber also planned, but did not complete, a full-scale
\nstudy of Islam). Together, these form an integrated series of
\nintroduction xiiiworks.5
\nNeither The Protestant Ethic nor any of the other studies was
\nconceived of by Weber as a descriptive account of types of
\nreligion. They were intended as analyses of divergent modes
\nof the rationalisation of culture, and as attempts to trace out
\nthe significance of such divergencies for socio-economic
\ndevelopment.
\nIn his study of India, Weber placed particular emphasis upon
\nthe period when Hinduism became first established (about four
\nor five centuries before the birth of Christ). The beliefs and
\npractices grouped together as \u2018Hinduism\u2019 vary considerably.
\nWeber singles out as especially important for his purposes the
\ndoctrines of reincarnation and compensation (Karma), each tied
\nin closely to the caste system. The conduct of an individual in
\nany one incarnation, in terms of the enactment of his caste
\nobligations, determines his fate in his next life; the faithful can
\ncontemplate the possibility of moving up a hierarchy towards
\ndivinity in the course of successive incarnations. There is an
\nimportant emphasis upon asceticism in Hinduism, but it is, in
\nWeber\u2019s term, \u2018other-worldly\u2019: that is to say, it is directed
\ntowards escaping the encumbrances of the material world rather
\nthan, as in Puritanism, towards the rational mastery of that world
\nitself. During the same period at which Hinduism became sys tematised, trade and manufacture reached a peak in India. But
\nthe influence of Hinduism, and of the emergent caste system
\nwhich interlaced with it, effectively inhibited any economic
\ndevelopment comparable to modern European capitalism. \u2018A
\nritual law,\u2019 Weber remarks, \u2018in which every change of occupa tion, every change in work technique, may result in ritual
\ndegradation is certainly not capable of giving birth to economic
\nand technical revolutions from within itself . . .\u20196
\nThe phrase
\n\u2018from within itself\u2019 is a vital one: Weber\u2019s concerns were with
\nthe first origins of modern capitalism in Europe, not with its
\nsubsequent adoption elsewhere.
\nAs in India, in China at certain periods trade and manufacture
\nxiv introductionreached a fairly high level of evolution; trade and craft guilds
\nflourished; there was a monetary system; there existed a
\ndeveloped framework of law. All of these elements Weber
\nregards as preconditions for the development of rational capital ism in Europe. While the character of Confucianism, as Weber
\nportrays it, is very different from Hinduism, it no more pro vided for \u2018the incorporation of the acquisitive drive in a this worldly ethic of conduct\u20197
\nthan did Hinduism. Confucianism is,
\nin an important sense, a \u2018this-worldly\u2019 religion, but not one
\nwhich embodies ascetic values. The Calvinist ethic introduced
\nan activism into the believer\u2019s approach to worldly affairs, a
\ndrive to mastery in a quest for virtue in the eyes of God, that
\nare altogether lacking in Confucianism. Confucian values do
\nnot promote such a rational instrumentalism, nor do they sanc tify the transcendence of mundane affairs in the manner of
\nHinduism; instead they set as an ideal the harmonious adjust ment of the individual to the established order of things. The
\nreligiously cultivated man is one who makes his behaviour
\ncoherent with the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos. An ethic
\nwhich stresses rational adjustment to the world \u2018as it is\u2019 could
\nnot have generated a moral dynamism in economic activity
\ncomparable to that characteristic of the spirit of European
\ncapitalism.
\nWeber\u2019s other completed study of the \u2018world religions\u2019, that
\nof ancient Judaism, is also an important element of his overall
\nproject. For the first origins of Judaism in ancient Palestine mark
\nthe nexus of circumstances in which certain fundamental differ ences between the religions of the Near and Far East became
\nelaborated. The distinctive doctrines forged in Judaism were
\nperpetuated in Christianity, and hence incorporated into West ern Culture as a whole. Judaism introduced a tradition of \u2018ethical
\nprophecy\u2019, involving the active propagation of a Divine mission,
\nthat contrasts with the \u2018exemplary prophecy\u2019 more characteristic
\nof India and China. In the latter type, the prophet offers the
\nintroduction xvexample of his own life as a model for his followers to strive
\nafter: the active missionary zeal characteristic of ethical
\nprophecy is lacking in the teachings of the exemplary prophets.
\nJudaism and Christianity rest on the tension between sin and
\nsalvation and that gives them a basic transformative capacity
\nwhich the Far Eastern religions lack, being more contemplative
\nin orientation. The opposition between the imperfections of the
\nworld and the perfection of God, in Christian theodicy, enjoins
\nthe believer to achieve his salvation through refashioning the
\nworld in accordance with Divine purpose. Calvinism, for Weber,
\nboth maximises the moral impulsion deriving from the active
\ncommitment to the achievement of salvation and focuses it upon
\neconomic activity.
\nThe Protestant Ethic, Weber says, traces \u2018only one side of the
\ncausal chain\u2019 connecting Puritanism to modern capitalism
\n(p. xxxix). He certainly does not claim that differences in the
\nrationalisation of religious ethics he identifies are the only sig nificant influences that separate economic development in the
\nWest from that of the Eastern civilisations. On the contrary, he
\nspecifies a number of fundamental socio-economic factors
\nwhich distinguish the European experience from that of India
\nand of China, and which were of crucial importance to the
\nemergence of modern capitalism. These include the following:
\n1. The separation of the productive enterprise from the house hold which, prior to the development of industrial capitalism,
\nwas much more advanced in the West than it ever became else where. In China, for example, extended kinship units provided
\nthe major forms of economic co-operation, thus limiting the
\ninfluence both of the guilds and of individual entrepreneurial
\nactivity. 2. The development of the Western city. In post mediaeval Europe, urban communities reached a high level of
\npolitical autonomy, thus setting off \u2018bourgeois\u2019 society from
\nagrarian feudalism. In the Eastern civilisations, however, partly
\nbecause of the influence of kinship connections that cut across
\nxvi introductionthe urban-rural differentiation, cities remained more embedded
\nin the local agrarian economy. 3. The existence, in Europe, of an
\ninherited tradition of Roman law, providing a more integrated
\nand developed rationalisation of juridical practice than came
\ninto being elsewhere. 4. This in turn was one factor making
\npossible the development of the nation-state, administered by
\nfull-time bureaucratic officials, beyond anything achieved in the
\nEastern civilisations. The rational-legal system of the Western
\nstate was in some degree adapted within business organisations
\nthemselves, as well as providing an overall framework for the
\nco-ordination of the capitalist economy. 5. The development of
\ndouble-entry bookkeeping in Europe. In Weber\u2019s view, this was
\na phenomenon of major importance in opening the way for the
\nregularising of capitalistic enterprise. 6. That series of changes
\nwhich, as Marx emphasised, prepared the way for the forma tion of a \u2018free\u2019 mass of wage-labourers, whose livelihood
\ndepends upon the sale of labour-power in the market. This
\npresupposes the prior erosion of the monopolies over the dis posal of labour which existed in the form of feudal obligations
\n(and were maximised in the East in the form of the caste
\nsystem).
\nTaken together, these represent a mixture of necessary and
\nprecipitating conditions which, in conjunction with the moral
\nenergy of the Puritans, brought about the rise of modern West ern capitalism. But if Puritanism provided that vital spark ignit ing the sequence of change creating industrial capitalism, the
\nlatter order, once established, eradicates the specifically religious
\nelements in the ethic which helped to produce it:
\nWhen asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into every day life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part
\nin building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic
\norder . . . victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical
\nfoundations, needs its support no longer . . . the idea of duty in
\nintroduction xviione\u2019s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead
\nreligious beliefs.
\n(pp. 123\u20134)
\nHere The Protestant Ethic, concerned above all with the origins of
\nmodern capitalism, connects up with Weber\u2019s sombre indict ment of the latter-day progression of contemporary industrial
\nculture as a whole. Puritanism has played a part in creating the
\n\u2018iron cage\u2019 in which modern man has to exist \u2013 an increasingly
\nbureaucratic order from which the \u2018spontaneous enjoyment
\nof life\u2019 is ruthlessly expunged. \u2018The Puritan\u2019, Weber concludes,
\n\u2018wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so\u2019 (p. 123).
\n4. THE CONTROVERSY
\nThe Protestant Ethic was written with polemical intent, evident in
\nvarious references Weber makes to \u2018Idealism\u2019 and \u2018Materialism\u2019.
\nThe study, he says, is \u2018a contribution to the understanding of the
\nmanner in which ideas become effective forces in history\u2019, and
\nis directed against economic determinism. The Reformation, and
\nthe development of the Puritan sects subsequently, cannot be
\nexplained as \u2018a historically necessary result\u2019 of prior economic
\nchanges (pp. 48\u20139). It seems clear that Weber has Marxism in
\nmind here, or at least the cruder forms of Marxist historical
\nanalysis which were prominent at the time.8
\nBut he is emphatic
\nthat he does not want to substitute for such a deterministic
\nMaterialism an equally monistic Idealist account of history (cf.
\np. 125). Rather the work expresses his conviction that there are
\nno \u2018laws of history\u2019: the emergence of modern capitalism in the
\nWest was an outcome of an historically specific conjunction of
\nevents.
\nThe latent passion of Weber\u2019s account may be glimpsed in the
\ncomments on Puritanism and its residue with which The Protestant
\nEthic concludes. The \u2018iron cage\u2019 is imagery enough to carry
\nxviii introductionWeber\u2019s distaste for the celebration of the mundane and the
\nroutine he thought central to modern culture. He adds, however,
\na quotation from Goethe: \u2018Specialists without spirit, sensualists
\nwithout heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of
\ncivilisation never before achieved.\u2019 (p. 124) Such sweeping
\nevaluation contrasts oddly with the cautious way in which
\nWeber surrounds the main theses of the book with a battery of
\nqualifications. Perhaps it is this contrast, unexplicated in the
\nbook itself, although clarified when the work is regarded as one
\nelement in Weber\u2019s project as a whole, that helped to stimulate
\nthe controversy to which its publication gave rise. But what
\nexplains the intensity of the debate which it has aroused; and
\nwhy has the controversy been actively carried on for so long?
\nThe most important reason for the emotional intensity pro voked by the book is no doubt the fact that the two major terms
\nin Weber\u2019s equation, \u2018religion\u2019 and \u2018capitalism\u2019, were each
\npotentially explosive when applied to the interpretation of
\nthe origins of the modern Western economy. Weber argued for
\nthe transformative force of certain religious ideas, thus earning
\nthe opposition of most contemporary Marxists; his characterisa tion of Catholicism as lacking in mundane discipline, and as a
\nretarding rather than a stimulating influence upon modern eco nomic development, ensured the hostility of many Catholic his torians; and his analysis of Protestantism, emphasising the role
\nof the Puritan sects (whose influence is in turn linked to the
\n\u2018iron cage\u2019 of modern culture), was hardly likely to meet a uni versal welcome from Protestant thinkers. Finally, the use of the
\nterm \u2018capitalism\u2019 was controversial in itself: many were, and
\nsome still are, inclined to argue that the notion has no useful
\napplication in economic history.
\nThe very diversity of responses thus stimulated by The Protestant
\nEthic helps to explain the protracted character of the debate. But
\nthere are other significant underlying factors. The intellectual
\npower of Weber\u2019s arguments derives in no small part from his
\nintroduction xixdisregard of traditional subject-boundaries, made possible by
\nthe extraordinary compass of his own scholarship. Con sequently, his work can be approached on several levels: as a
\nspecific historical thesis, claiming a correlation between Calvin ism and entrepreneurial attitudes; as a causal analysis of the
\ninfluence of Puritanism upon capitalistic activity; as an interpret ation of the origins of key components of modern Western soci ety as a whole; and, set in the context of Weber\u2019s comparative
\nstudies, as part of an attempt to identify divergent courses in the
\nrationalisation of culture in the major civilisations of West and
\nEast. The controversy over The Protestant Ethic has moved back and
\nforward between these levels, embracing along the way not only
\nsuch substantive themes, but also most of the methodological
\nissues which Weber wrote the book to help illuminate; and it has
\ndrawn in a dazzling variety of contributors from economics,
\nhistory and economic history, comparative religion, anthropol ogy and sociology. Moreover, through the works of others who
\nhave accepted some or all of Weber\u2019s analysis and tried to extend
\nelements of it, secondary controversies have sprung into being \u2013
\nsuch as that surrounding R. K. Merton\u2019s account of the influence
\nof Protestantism on science in seventeenth-century England.9
\nIt would be difficult to deny that some of the critical responses
\nto The Protestant Ethic, particularly immediately following its ori ginal publication in Germany, and on the first appearance of this
\ntranslation in 1930, were founded upon either direct misunder standings of the claims Weber put forward, or upon an
\ninadequate grasp of what he was trying to achieve in the work.
\nSome such misinterpretations by his early critics, such as Fischer
\nand Rachfahl, were accepted by Weber as partly his responsibil ity.10 These critics, of course, did not have the possibility of
\nplacing The Protestant Ethic in the context of Weber\u2019s broad range
\nof comparative analyses. They can perhaps be forgiven for not
\nappreciating the partial character of the study, even if Weber did
\ncaution his readers as to the limitations on its scope. But it is less
\nxx introductioneasy to excuse the many subsequent critics writing in the 1920s
\nand 1930s (including von Below, R. H. Tawney, F. H. Knight, H.
\nM. Robertson and P. Gordon Walker) who almost completely
\nignored Gesammelte Aufs\u00e4tze zur Religionssoziologie and Wirtschaft und
\nGesellschaft (Economy and Society).11 Some of the literature of this
\nperiod is quite valueless, at least as relevant to the assessment of
\nWeber\u2019s own arguments: as where, for instance, authors took
\nWeber to task for suggesting that Calvinism was \u2018the\u2019 cause of
\nthe development of modern capitalism; or where they pointed
\nout that some contemporary countries, such as Japan, have
\nexperienced rapid economic development without possessing
\nanything akin to a \u2018Protestant ethic\u2019.
\nThis nonetheless leaves a considerable variety of potentially
\njustifiable forms of criticism that have been levelled against
\nWeber, incorporated in discussions which stretch from those
\nthat dismiss his claims out of hand to those which propose
\nrelatively minor modifications to his work. They can perhaps be
\nclassified as embodying one or more of the following points of
\nview:12
\n1. Weber\u2019s characterisation of Protestantism was faulty. Cri tiques here have been directed to Weber\u2019s treatment of the
\nReformation, to his interpretation of the Puritan sects in
\ngeneral, and to Calvinism in particular. It has been held that
\nWeber was mistaken in supposing that Luther introduced a
\nconcept of \u2018calling\u2019 which differed from anything previously
\navailable in scriptural exegesis; and that Calvinist ethics were
\nin fact \u2018anti-capitalistic\u2019 rather than ever sanctioning the
\naccumulation of wealth, even as an indirect end. Others have
\nargued that Weber\u2019s exposition of Benjamin Franklin\u2019s ideas,
\nwhich occupies a central place in The Protestant Ethic, as well
\nas other aspects of his analysis of American Puritanism, are
\nunacceptable.13 This is of some significance, if correct, since
\nWeber regarded the influence of Puritanism upon business
\nintroduction xxiactivity in the United States as being a particularly clear and
\nimportant exemplification of his thesis.14
\n2. Weber misinterpreted Catholic doctrine. Critics have pointed
\nout that Weber apparently did not study Catholicism in any
\ndetail, although his argument is based on the notion that
\nthere were basic differences between it and Protestantism in
\nrespect of economically relevant values. It has been held that
\npost-medi\u00e6val Catholicism involves elements positively
\nfavourable to the \u2018capitalist spirit\u2019; and that the Reformation
\nis in fact to be seen as a reaction against the latter rather
\nthan as clearing the ground for its subsequent emergence.15
\n3. Weber\u2019s statement of the connections between Puritanism
\nand modern capitalism is based upon unsatisfactory empir ical materials. This was one of the themes of Fischer and
\nRachfahl, and has been echoed many times since, in various
\nforms. It has been noted that the only numerical analysis
\nWeber refers to is a study of the economic activities of Catho lics and Protestants in Baden in 1895 \u2013 and the accuracy even
\nof these figures has been questioned.16 More generally, how ever, critics have pointed out that Weber\u2019s sources are mainly
\nAnglo-Saxon, and have claimed that research into economic
\ndevelopment in the Rhineland, the Netherlands and Switzer land, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, does not
\nreveal any close association between Calvinism and capital istic enterprise.17
\n4. Weber was not justified in drawing as sharp a contrast as he
\ntried to do between modern, or \u2018rational\u2019 capitalism, and
\npreceding types of capitalistic activity. It has been argued, on
\nthe one hand, that Weber slanted his concept of \u2018modern
\ncapitalism\u2019 in such a way as to make it conform to the elem ents of Puritanism he fastens upon; and on the other, that
\nmuch of what Weber calls the \u2018spirit\u2019 of modern capitalism
\nwas indeed present in prior periods. Tawney accepts the dif ferentiation between Lutheranism and the later Protestant
\nxxii introductionsects, but argues that it was the prior development of the
\n\u2018capitalist spirit\u2019 that moulded the evolution of Puritanism
\nrather than vice versa.18
\n5. Weber mistakes the nature of the causal relation between
\nPuritanism and modern capitalism. It is, of course, the con clusion of many of the authors taking one or other of the
\npoints of view mentioned above that there was no such
\ncausal relation. At this point, however, the debate broadens
\nout into one concerned with abstract problems of historical
\nmethod, and indeed with the very possibility of causal analy sis in history at all. Marxist critics have tended to reject
\nWeber\u2019s case for a \u2018pluralistic\u2019 view of historical causation,
\nand some have attempted to reinterpret the thesis of The
\nProtestant Ethic, treating the Puritan doctrines Weber analy ses as epiphenomena of previously established economic
\nchanges.19 Other authors, not necessarily Marxist, have
\nrejected the methodological framework within which Weber
\nworked, and have tried to show that this has consequences
\nfor his account of the origins of the capitalist spirit.20
\nHow much of Weber\u2019s account survives the tremendous critical
\nbattering it has received? There are still some who would answer,
\nvirtually all of it: either most of the criticisms are mistaken, or
\nthey derive from misunderstandings of Weber\u2019s position.21 I do
\nnot believe, however, that such a view can be substantiated. It is
\nobvious that at least certain of Weber\u2019s critics must be wrong,
\nbecause the literature is partly self-contradictory: the claims
\nmade by some authors in criticism of Weber contradict those
\nmade by others. Nonetheless, some of the critiques carry con siderable force, and taken together they represent a formidable
\nindictment of Weber\u2019s views. The elements of Weber\u2019s analysis
\nthat are most definitely called into question, I would say, are: the
\ndistinctiveness of the notion of the \u2018calling\u2019 in Lutheranism;22
\nthe supposed lack of \u2018affinity\u2019 between Catholicism and
\nintroduction xxiiiregularised entrepreneurial activity; and, the very centre-point
\nof the thesis, the degree to which Calvinist ethics actually served
\nto dignify the accumulation of wealth in the manner suggested
\nby Weber. If Weber were wrong on these matters, tracing out the
\nconsequences for the broad spectrum of his writings would still
\nremain a complicated matter. To be at all satisfactory, it would
\ninvolve considering the status of the companion studies of the
\n\u2018world religions\u2019, the general problem of the rationalisation of
\nculture \u2013 and the methodological framework within which
\nWeber worked. No author has yet attempted such a task, and
\nperhaps it would need someone with a scholarly range
\napproaching that of Weber himself to undertake it with any hope
\nof success.
\nAnthony Giddens
\nCambridge, 1976
\nxxiv introductionTRANSLATOR\u2019S PREFACE
\nMax Weber\u2019s essay, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus,
\nwhich is here translated, was first published in the Archiv f\u00fcr
\nSozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, Volumes XX and XXI, for 1904\u20135.
\nIt was reprinted in 1920 as the first study in the ambitious series
\nGesammelte Aufs\u00e4tze zur Religionssoziologie, which was left unfinished
\nby Weber\u2019s untimely death in that same year. For the new print ing he made considerable changes, and appended both new
\nmaterial and replies to criticism in footnotes. The translation has,
\nhowever, been made directly from this last edition. Though the
\nvolume of footnotes is excessively large, so as to form a serious
\ndetriment to the reader\u2019s enjoyment, it has not seemed advisable
\neither to omit any of them or to attempt to incorporate them
\ninto the text. As it stands it shows most plainly how the problem
\nhas grown in Weber\u2019s own mind, and it would be a pity to
\ndestroy that for the sake of artistic perfection. A careful perusal
\nof the notes is, however, especially recommended to the reader,
\nsince a great deal of important material is contained in them.
\nThe fact that they are printed separately from the main text
\nshould not be allowed to hinder their use. The translation is, as
\nfar as is possible, faithful to the text, rather than attempting toachieve any more than ordinary, clear English style. Nothing has
\nbeen altered, and only a few comments to clarify obscure points
\nand to refer the reader to related parts of Weber\u2019s work have
\nbeen added.
\nThe Introduction, which is placed before the main essay, was
\nwritten by Weber in 1920 for the whole series on the Sociology
\nof Religion. It has been included in this translation because it
\ngives some of the general background of ideas and problems
\ninto which Weber himself meant this particular study to fit. That
\nhas seemed particularly desirable since, in the voluminous
\ndiscussion which has grown up in Germany around Weber\u2019s
\nessay, a great deal of misplaced criticism has been due to the
\nfailure properly to appreciate the scope and limitations of
\nthe study. While it is impossible to appreciate that fully without
\na thorough study of Weber\u2019s sociological work as a whole,
\nthis brief introduction should suffice to prevent a great deal of
\nmisunderstanding.
\nThe series of which this essay forms a part was, as has been
\nsaid, left unfinished at Weber\u2019s death. The first volume only had
\nbeen prepared for the press by his own hand. Besides the parts
\ntranslated here, it contains a short, closely related study, Die protes tantischen Sekten und der Geist des Kapitalismus; a general introduction to
\nthe further studies of particular religions which as a whole he
\ncalled Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen; and a long study of Con fucianism and Taoism. The second and third volumes, which
\nwere published after his death, without the thorough revision
\nwhich he had contemplated, contain studies of Hinduism and
\nBuddhism and Ancient Judaism. In addition he had done work
\non other studies, notably of Islam, Early Christianity, and
\nTalmudic Judaism, which were not yet in a condition fit for
\npublication in any form. Nevertheless, enough of the whole ser ies has been preserved to show something of the extraordinary
\nbreadth and depth of Weber\u2019s grasp of cultural problems. What
\nis here presented to English-speaking readers is only a fragment,
\nxxvi translator\u2019s prefacebut it is a fragment which is in many ways of central significance
\nfor Weber\u2019s philosophy of history, as well as being of very great
\nand very general interest for the thesis it advances to explain
\nsome of the most important aspects of modern culture.
\nTalcott Parsons
\nCambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
\nJanuary 1930
\ntranslator\u2019s preface xxviiAUTHOR\u2019S INTRODUCTION
\nA product of modern European civilization, studying any prob lem of universal history, is bound to ask himself to what com bination of circumstances the fact should be attributed that in
\nWestern civilization, and in Western civilization only, cultural
\nphenomena have appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a
\nline of development having universal significance and value.
\nOnly in the West does science exist at a stage of development
\nwhich we recognize to-day as valid. Empirical knowledge, reflec tion on problems of the cosmos and of life, philosophical and
\ntheological wisdom of the most profound sort, are not confined
\nto it, though in the case of the last the full development of a
\nsystematic theology must be credited to Christianity under the
\ninfluence of Hellenism, since there were only fragments in Islam
\nand in a few Indian sects. In short, knowledge and observation of
\ngreat refinement have existed elsewhere, above all in India,
\nChina, Babylonia, Egypt. But in Babylonia and elsewhere astron omy lacked\u2014which makes its development all the more
\nastounding\u2014the mathematical foundation which it first
\nreceived from the Greeks. The Indian geometry had no rational
\nproof; that was another product of the Greek intellect, also thecreator of mechanics and physics. The Indian natural sciences,
\nthough well developed in observation, lacked the method of
\nexperiment, which was, apart from beginnings in antiquity,
\nessentially a product of the Renaissance, as was the modern
\nlaboratory. Hence medicine, especially in India, though highly
\ndeveloped in empirical technique, lacked a biological and par ticularly a biochemical foundation. A rational chemistry has
\nbeen absent from all areas of culture except the West.
\nThe highly developed historical scholarship of China did not
\nhave the method of Thucydides. Machiavelli, it is true, had pre decessors in India; but all Indian political thought was lacking in
\na systematic method comparable to that of Aristotle, and, indeed,
\nin the possession of rational concepts. Not all the anticipations in
\nIndia (School of Mimamsa), nor the extensive codification espe cially in the Near East, nor all the Indian and other books of law,
\nhad the strictly systematic forms of thought, so essential to a
\nrational jurisprudence, of the Roman law and of the Western law
\nunder its influence. A structure like the canon law is known only
\nto the West.
\nA similar statement is true of art. The musical ear of other
\npeoples has probably been even more sensitively developed than
\nour own, certainly not less so. Polyphonic music of various kinds
\nhas been widely distributed over the earth. The co-operation of a
\nnumber of instruments and also the singing of parts have existed
\nelsewhere. All our rational tone intervals have been known and
\ncalculated. But rational harmonious music, both counterpoint
\nand harmony, formation of the tone material on the basis of
\nthree triads with the harmonic third; our chromatics and
\nenharmonics, not interpreted in terms of space, but, since the
\nRenaissance, of harmony; our orchestra, with its string quartet as
\na nucleus, and the organization of ensembles of wind instru ments; our bass accompaniment; our system of notation, which
\nhas made possible the composition and production of modern
\nmusical works, and thus their very survival; our sonatas,
\nauthor\u2019s introduction xxixsymphonies, operas; and finally, as means to all these, our fun damental instruments, the organ, piano, violin, etc.; all these
\nthings are known only in the Occident, although programme
\nmusic, tone poetry, alteration of tones and chromatics, have
\nexisted in various musical traditions as means of expression.
\nIn architecture, pointed arches have been used elsewhere as a
\nmeans of decoration, in antiquity and in Asia; presumably the
\ncombination of pointed arch and cross-arched vault was not
\nunknown in the Orient. But the rational use of the Gothic vault
\nas a means of distributing pressure and of roofing spaces of all
\nforms, and above all as the constructive principle of great
\nmonumental buildings and the foundation of a style extending to
\nsculpture and painting, such as that created by our Middle Ages,
\ndoes not occur elsewhere. The technical basis of our architecture
\ncame from the Orient. But the Orient lacked that solution of the
\nproblem of the dome and that type of classic rationalization of
\nall art\u2014in painting by the rational utilization of lines and spatial
\nperspective\u2014which the Renaissance created for us. There was
\nprinting in China. But a printed literature, designed only for print
\nand only possible through it, and, above all, the Press and period icals, have appeared only in the Occident. Institutions of higher
\neducation of all possible types, even some superficially similar to
\nour universities, or at least academies, have existed (China,
\nIslam). But a rational, systematic, and specialized pursuit of sci ence, with trained and specialized personnel, has only existed in
\nthe West in a sense at all approaching its present dominant place
\nin our culture. Above all is this true of the trained official, the
\npillar of both the modern State and of the economic life of the
\nWest. He forms a type of which there have heretofore only been
\nsuggestions, which have never remotely approached its present
\nimportance for the social order. Of course the official, even the
\nspecialized official, is a very old constituent of the most various
\nsocieties. But no country and no age has ever experienced, in the
\nsame sense as the modern Occident, the absolute and complete
\nxxx author\u2019s introductiondependence of its whole existence, of the political, technical,
\nand economic conditions of its life, on a specially trained organiza tion of officials. The most important functions of the everyday
\nlife of society have come to be in the hands of technically,
\ncommercially, and above all legally trained government officials.
\nOrganization of political and social groups in feudal classes
\nhas been common. But even the feudal1
\nstate of rex et regnum in the
\nWestern sense has only been known to our culture. Even more
\nare parliaments of periodically elected representatives, with gov ernment by demagogues and party leaders as ministers respon sible to the parliaments, peculiar to us, although there have, of
\ncourse, been parties, in the sense of organizations for exerting
\ninfluence and gaining control of political power, all over the
\nworld. In fact, the State itself, in the sense of a political associ ation with a rational, written constitution, rationally ordained
\nlaw, and an administration bound to rational rules or laws, admin istered by trained officials, is known, in this combination of
\ncharacteristics, only in the Occident, despite all other approaches
\nto it.
\nAnd the same is true of the most fateful force in our modern
\nlife, capitalism. The impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of
\nmoney, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself
\nnothing to do with capitalism. This impulse exists and has
\nexisted among waiters, physicians, coachmen, artists, prosti tutes, dishonest officials, soldiers, nobles, crusaders, gamblers,
\nand beggars. One may say that it has been common to all sorts
\nand conditions of men at all times and in all countries of the
\nearth, wherever the objective possibility of it is or has been
\ngiven. It should be taught in the kindergarten of cultural history
\nthat this na\u00efve idea of capitalism must be given up once and for
\nall. Unlimited greed for gain is not in the least identical with
\ncapitalism, and is still less its spirit. Capitalism may even be iden tical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this
\nirrational impulse. But capitalism is identical with the pursuit of
\nauthor\u2019s introduction xxxiprofit, and forever renewed profit, by means of continuous,
\nrational, capitalistic enterprise. For it must be so: in a wholly
\ncapitalistic order of society, an individual capitalistic enterprise
\nwhich did not take advantage of its opportunities for profit making would be doomed to extinction.
\nLet us now define our terms somewhat more carefully than is
\ngenerally done. We will define a capitalistic economic action as
\none which rests on the expectation of profit by the utilization of
\nopportunities for exchange, that is on (formally) peaceful
\nchances of profit. Acquisition by force (formally and actually)
\nfollows its own particular laws, and it is not expedient, however
\nlittle one can forbid this, to place it in the same category with
\naction which is, in the last analysis, oriented to profits from
\nexchange.2
\nWhere capitalistic acquisition is rationally pursued,
\nthe corresponding action is adjusted to calculations in terms of
\ncapital. This means that the action is adapted to a systematic
\nutilization of goods or personal services as means of acquisition
\nin such a way that, at the close of a business period, the balance
\nof the enterprise in money assets (or, in the case of a continuous
\nenterprise, the periodically estimated money value of assets)
\nexceeds the capital, i.e. the estimated value of the material means
\nof production used for acquisition in exchange. It makes no
\ndifference whether it involves a quantity of goods entrusted in
\nnatura to a travelling merchant, the proceeds of which may con sist in other goods in natura acquired by trade, or whether it
\ninvolves a manufacturing enterprise, the assets of which consist
\nof buildings, machinery, cash, raw materials, partly and wholly
\nmanufactured goods, which are balanced against liabilities. The
\nimportant fact is always that a calculation of capital in terms of
\nmoney is made, whether by modern book-keeping methods or
\nin any other way, however primitive and crude. Everything is
\ndone in terms of balances: at the beginning of the enterprise an
\ninitial balance, before every individual decision a calculation to
\nascertain its probable profitableness, and at the end a final bal xxxii author\u2019s introductionance to ascertain how much profit has been made. For instance,
\nthe initial balance of a commenda3
\ntransaction would determine an
\nagreed money value of the assets put into it (so far as they were
\nnot in money form already), and a final balance would form the
\nestimate on which to base the distribution of profit and loss at
\nthe end. So far as the transactions are rational, calculation under lies every single action of the partners. That a really accurate
\ncalculation or estimate may not exist, that the procedure is pure
\nguess-work, or simply traditional and conventional, happens
\neven to-day in every form of capitalistic enterprise where the
\ncircumstances do not demand strict accuracy. But these are
\npoints affecting only the degree of rationality of capitalistic
\nacquisition.
\nFor the purpose of this conception all that matters is that an
\nactual adaptation of economic action to a comparison of money
\nincome with money expenses takes place, no matter how primi tive the form. Now in this sense capitalism and capitalistic enter prises, even with a considerable rationalization of capitalistic
\ncalculation, have existed in all civilized countries of the earth, so
\nfar as economic documents permit us to judge. In China, India,
\nBabylon, Egypt, Mediterranean antiquity, and the Middle Ages,
\nas well as in modern times. These were not merely isolated ven tures, but economic enterprises which were entirely dependent
\non the continual renewal of capitalistic undertakings, and even
\ncontinuous operations. However, trade especially was for a long
\ntime not continuous like our own, but consisted essentially in a
\nseries of individual undertakings. Only gradually did the activ ities of even the large merchants acquire an inner cohesion (with
\nbranch organizations, etc.). In any case, the capitalistic enterprise
\nand the capitalistic entrepreneur, not only as occasional but as
\nregular entrepreneurs, are very old and were very widespread.
\nNow, however, the Occident has developed capitalism both to
\na quantitative extent, and (carrying this quantitative develop ment) in types, forms, and directions which have never existed
\nauthor\u2019s introduction xxxiiielsewhere. All over the world there have been merchants, whole sale and retail, local and engaged in foreign trade. Loans of all
\nkinds have been made, and there have been banks with the most
\nvarious functions, at least comparable to ours of, say, the six teenth century. Sea loans,4 commenda, and transactions and
\nassociations similar to the Kommanditgesellschaft,
\n5
\nhave all been
\nwidespread, even as continuous businesses. Whenever money
\nfinances of public bodies have existed, money-lenders have
\nappeared, as in Babylon, Hellas, India, China, Rome. They have
\nfinanced wars and piracy, contracts and building operations of
\nall sorts. In overseas policy they have functioned as colonial
\nentrepreneurs, as planters with slaves, or directly or indirectly
\nforced labour, and have farmed domains, offices, and, above all,
\ntaxes. They have financed party leaders in elections and condottieri
\nin civil wars. And, finally, they have been speculators in chances
\nfor pecuniary gain of all kinds. This kind of entrepreneur, the
\ncapitalistic adventurer, has existed everywhere. With the excep tion of trade and credit and banking transactions, their activities
\nwere predominantly of an irrational and speculative character, or
\ndirected to acquisition by force, above all the acquisition of
\nbooty, whether directly in war or in the form of continuous
\nfiscal booty by exploitation of subjects.
\nThe capitalism of promoters, large-scale speculators, conces sion hunters, and much modern financial capitalism even in
\npeace time, but, above all, the capitalism especially concerned
\nwith exploiting wars, bears this stamp even in modern Western
\ncountries, and some, but only some, parts of large-scale inter national trade are closely related to it, to-day as always.
\nBut in modern times the Occident has developed, in addition
\nto this, a very different form of capitalism which has appeared
\nnowhere else: the rational capitalistic organization of (formally)
\nfree labour. Only suggestions of it are found elsewhere. Even the
\norganization of unfree labour reached a considerable degree of
\nrationality only on plantations and to a very limited extent in the
\nxxxiv author\u2019s introductionErgasteria of antiquity. In the manors, manorial workshops, and
\ndomestic industries on estates with serf labour it was probably
\nsomewhat less developed. Even real domestic industries with
\nfree labour have definitely been proved to have existed in only a
\nfew isolated cases outside the Occident. The frequent use of day
\nlabourers led in a very few cases\u2014especially State monopolies,
\nwhich are, however, very different from modern industrial
\norganization\u2014to manufacturing organizations, but never to a
\nrational organization of apprenticeship in the handicrafts like
\nthat of our Middle Ages.
\nRational industrial organization, attuned to a regular market,
\nand neither to political nor irrationally speculative opportunities
\nfor profit, is not, however, the only peculiarity of Western capit alism. The modern rational organization of the capitalistic
\nenterprise would not have been possible without two other
\nimportant factors in its development: the separation of business
\nfrom the household, which completely dominates modern eco nomic life, and closely connected with it, rational book-keeping.
\nA spatial separation of places of work from those of residence
\nexists elsewhere, as in the Oriental bazaar and in the ergasteria of
\nother cultures. The development of capitalistic associations with
\ntheir own accounts is also found in the Far East, the Near East,
\nand in antiquity. But compared to the modern independence of
\nbusiness enterprises, those are only small beginnings. The reason
\nfor this was particularly that the indispensable requisites for this
\nindependence, our rational business book-keeping and our legal
\nseparation of corporate from personal property, were entirely
\nlacking, or had only begun to develop.6
\nThe tendency every where else was for acquisitive enterprises to arise as parts of a
\nroyal or manorial household (of the oikos), which is, as Rodbertus
\nhas perceived, with all its superficial similarity, a fundamentally
\ndifferent, even opposite, development.
\nHowever, all these peculiarities of Western capitalism have
\nderived their significance in the last analysis only from their
\nauthor\u2019s introduction xxxvassociation with the capitalistic organization of labour. Even
\nwhat is generally called commercialization, the development of
\nnegotiable securities and the rationalization of speculation, the
\nexchanges, etc., is connected with it. For without the rational
\ncapitalistic organization of labour, all this, so far as it was pos sible at all, would have nothing like the same significance, above
\nall for the social structure and all the specific problems of the
\nmodern Occident connected with it. Exact calculation\u2014the basis
\nof everything else\u2014is only possible on a basis of free labour.7
\nAnd just as, or rather because, the world has known no
\nrational organization of labour outside the modern Occident, it
\nhas known no rational socialism. Of course, there has been civic
\neconomy, a civic food-supply policy, mercantilism and welfare
\npolicies of princes, rationing, regulation of economic life, pro tectionism, and laissez-faire theories (as in China). The world has
\nalso known socialistic and communistic experiments of various
\nsorts: family, religious, or military communism, State socialism
\n(in Egypt), monopolistic cartels, and consumers\u2019 organizations.
\nBut although there have everywhere been civic market privil eges, companies, guilds, and all sorts of legal differences
\nbetween town and country, the concept of the citizen has not
\nexisted outside the Occident, and that of the bourgeoisie outside
\nthe modern Occident. Similarly, the proletariat as a class could
\nnot exist, because there was no rational organization of free
\nlabour under regular discipline. Class struggles between creditor
\nand debtor classes; landowners and the landless, serfs, or tenants;
\ntrading interests and consumers or landlords, have existed
\neverywhere in various combinations. But even the Western
\nmedi\u00e6val struggles between putters-out and their workers exist
\nelsewhere only in beginnings. The modern conflict of the large scale industrial entrepreneur and free-wage labourers was
\nentirely lacking. And thus there could be no such problems as
\nthose of socialism.
\nHence in a universal history of culture the central problem for
\nxxxvi author\u2019s introductionus is not, in the last analysis, even from a purely economic view point, the development of capitalistic activity as such, differing in
\ndifferent cultures only in form: the adventurer type, or capitalism
\nin trade, war, politics, or administration as sources of gain. It is
\nrather the origin of this sober bourgeois capitalism with its
\nrational organization of free labour. Or in terms of cultural his tory, the problem is that of the origin of the Western bourgeois
\nclass and of its peculiarities, a problem which is certainly closely
\nconnected with that of the origin of the capitalistic organization of
\nlabour, but is not quite the same thing. For the bourgeois as a class
\nexisted prior to the development of the peculiar modern form of
\ncapitalism, though, it is true, only in the Western hemisphere.
\nNow the peculiar modern Western form of capitalism has
\nbeen, at first sight, strongly influenced by the development of
\ntechnical possibilities. Its rationality is to-day essentially depend ent on the calculability of the most important technical factors.
\nBut this means fundamentally that it is dependent on the peculi arities of modern science, especially the natural sciences based
\non mathematics and exact and rational experiment. On the other
\nhand, the development of these sciences and of the technique
\nresting upon them now receives important stimulation from
\nthese capitalistic interests in its practical economic application. It
\nis true that the origin of Western science cannot be attributed to
\nsuch interests. Calculation, even with decimals, and algebra have
\nbeen carried on in India, where the decimal system was
\ninvented. But it was only made use of by developing capitalism
\nin the West, while in India it led to no modern arithmetic or
\nbook-keeping. Neither was the origin of mathematics and mech anics determined by capitalistic interests. But the technical
\nutilization of scientific knowledge, so important for the living
\nconditions of the mass of people, was certainly encouraged by
\neconomic considerations, which were extremely favourable to it
\nin the Occident. But this encouragement was derived from the
\npeculiarities of the social structure of the Occident. We must
\nauthor\u2019s introduction xxxviihence ask, from what parts of that structure was it derived, since
\nnot all of them have been of equal importance?
\nAmong those of undoubted importance are the rational struc tures of law and of administration. For modern rational capital ism has need, not only of the technical means of production, but
\nof a calculable legal system and of administration in terms of
\nformal rules. Without it adventurous and speculative trading
\ncapitalism and all sorts of politically determined capitalisms are
\npossible, but no rational enterprise under individual initiative,
\nwith fixed capital and certainty of calculations. Such a legal sys tem and such administration have been available for economic
\nactivity in a comparative state of legal and formalistic perfection
\nonly in the Occident. We must hence inquire where that law
\ncame from. Among other circumstances, capitalistic interests
\nhave in turn undoubtedly also helped, but by no means alone
\nnor even principally, to prepare the way for the predominance in
\nlaw and administration of a class of jurists specially trained in
\nrational law. But these interests did not themselves create that
\nlaw. Quite different forces were at work in this development. And
\nwhy did not the capitalistic interests do the same in China or
\nIndia? Why did not the scientific, the artistic, the political, or the
\neconomic development there enter upon that path of rationaliza tion which is peculiar to the Occident?
\nFor in all the above cases it is a question of the specific and
\npeculiar rationalism of Western culture. Now by this term very
\ndifferent things may be understood, as the following discussion
\nwill repeatedly show. There is, for example, rationalization of
\nmystical contemplation, that is of an attitude which, viewed
\nfrom other departments of life, is specifically irrational, just as
\nmuch as there are rationalizations of economic life, of technique,
\nof scientific research, of military training, of law and administra tion. Furthermore, each one of these fields may be rationalized
\nin terms of very different ultimate values and ends, and what is
\nrational from one point of view may well be irrational from
\nxxxviii author\u2019s introductionanother. Hence rationalizations of the most varied character have
\nexisted in various departments of life and in all areas of culture.
\nTo characterize their differences from the view-point of cultural
\nhistory it is necessary to know what departments are rational ized, and in what direction. It is hence our first concern to work
\nout and to explain genetically the special peculiarity of Occi dental rationalism, and within this field that of the modern
\nOccidental form. Every such attempt at explanation must, recog nizing the fundamental importance of the economic factor,
\nabove all take account of the economic conditions. But at the
\nsame time the opposite correlation must not be left out of con sideration. For though the development of economic rationalism
\nis partly dependent on rational technique and law, it is at the
\nsame time determined by the ability and disposition of men to
\nadopt certain types of practical rational conduct. When these
\ntypes have been obstructed by spiritual obstacles, the develop ment of rational economic conduct has also met serious inner
\nresistance. The magical and religious forces, and the ethical ideas
\nof duty based upon them, have in the past always been among
\nthe most important formative influences on conduct. In the
\nstudies collected here we shall be concerned with these forces.8
\nTwo older essays have been placed at the beginning which
\nattempt, at one important point, to approach the side of the
\nproblem which is generally most difficult to grasp: the influence
\nof certain religious ideas on the development of an economic
\nspirit, or the ethos of an economic system. In this case we are
\ndealing with the connection of the spirit of modern economic
\nlife with the rational ethics of ascetic Protestantism. Thus we
\ntreat here only one side of the causal chain. The later studies on
\nthe Economic Ethics of the World Religions attempt, in the form
\nof a survey of the relations of the most important religions to
\neconomic life and to the social stratification of their environ ment, to follow out both causal relationships, so far as it is
\nnecessary in order to find points of comparison with the
\nauthor\u2019s introduction xxxixOccidental development. For only in this way is it possible to
\nattempt a causal evaluation of those elements of the economic
\nethics of the Western religions which differentiate them from
\nothers, with a hope of attaining even a tolerable degree of
\napproximation. Hence these studies do not claim to be complete
\nanalyses of cultures, however brief. On the contrary, in every
\nculture they quite deliberately emphasize the elements in which
\nit differs from Western civilization. They are, hence, definitely
\noriented to the problems which seem important for the under standing of Western culture from this view-point. With our
\nobject in view, any other procedure did not seem possible. But to
\navoid misunderstanding we must here lay special emphasis on
\nthe limitation of our purpose.
\nIn another respect the uninitiated at least must be warned
\nagainst exaggerating the importance of these investigations. The
\nSinologist, the Indologist, the Semitist, or the Egyptologist, will
\nof course find no facts unknown to him. We only hope that he
\nwill find nothing definitely wrong in points that are essential.
\nHow far it has been possible to come as near this ideal as a non specialist is able to do, the author cannot know. It is quite evident
\nthat anyone who is forced to rely on translations, and further more on the use and evaluation of monumental, documentary,
\nor literary sources, has to rely himself on a specialist literature
\nwhich is often highly controversial, and the merits of which he
\nis unable to judge accurately. Such a writer must make modest
\nclaims for the value of his work. All the more so since the num ber of available translations of real sources (that is, inscriptions
\nand documents) is, especially for China, still very small in com parison with what exists and is important. From all this follows
\nthe definitely provisional character of these studies, and espe cially of the parts dealing with Asia.9
\nOnly the specialist is
\nentitled to a final judgment. And, naturally, it is only because
\nexpert studies with this special purpose and from this particular
\nview-point have not hitherto been made, that the present ones
\nxl author\u2019s introductionhave been written at all. They are destined to be superseded in a
\nmuch more important sense than this can be said, as it can be, of
\nall scientific work. But however objectionable it may be, such
\ntrespassing on other special fields cannot be avoided in compara tive work. But one must take the consequences by resigning one self to considerable doubts regarding the degree of one\u2019s success.
\nFashion and the zeal of the literati would have us think that the
\nspecialist can to-day be spared, or degraded to a position sub ordinate to that of the seer. Almost all sciences owe something to
\ndilettantes, often very valuable view-points. But dilettantism as a
\nleading principle would be the end of science. He who yearns
\nfor seeing should go to the cinema, though it will be offered to
\nhim copiously to-day in literary form in the present field of
\ninvestigation also.10 Nothing is farther from the intent of these
\nthoroughly serious studies than such an attitude. And, I might
\nadd, whoever wants a sermon should go to a conventicle. The
\nquestion of the relative value of the cultures which are compared
\nhere will not receive a single word. It is true that the path of
\nhuman destiny cannot but appal him who surveys a section of it.
\nBut he will do well to keep his small personal commentarie to
\nhimself, as one does at the sight of the sea or of majestic moun tains, unless he knows himself to be called and gifted to give
\nthem expression in artistic or prophetic form. In most other
\ncases the voluminous talk about intuition does nothing but con ceal a lack of perspective toward the object, which merits the
\nsame judgment as a similar lack of perspective toward men.
\nSome justification is needed for the fact that ethnographical
\nmaterial has not been utilized to anything like the extent which
\nthe value of its contributions naturally demands in any really
\nthorough investigation, especially of Asiatic religions. This
\nlimitation has not only been imposed because human powers
\nof work are restricted. This omission has also seemed to be
\npermissible because we are here necessarily dealing with the
\nreligious ethics of the classes which were the culture-bearers of
\nauthor\u2019s introduction xlitheir respective countries. We are concerned with the influence
\nwhich their conduct has had. Now it is quite true that this can
\nonly be completely known in all its details when the facts from
\nethnography and folk-lore have been compared with it. Hence
\nwe must expressly admit and emphasize that this is a gap to
\nwhich the ethnographer will legitimately object. I hope to con tribute something to the closing of this gap in a systematic study
\nof the Sociology of Religion.11 But such an undertaking would
\nhave transcended the limits of this investigation with its closely
\ncircumscribed purpose. It has been necessary to be content with
\nbringing out the points of comparison with our Occidental
\nreligions as well as possible.
\nFinally, we may make a reference to the anthropological side of
\nthe problem. When we find again and again that, even in
\ndepartments of life apparently mutually independent, certain
\ntypes of rationalization have developed in the Occident, and only
\nthere, it would be natural to suspect that the most important
\nreason lay in differences of heredity. The author admits that he is
\ninclined to think the importance of biological heredity very
\ngreat. But in spite of the notable achievements of anthropo logical research, I see up to the present no way of exactly or even
\napproximately measuring either the extent or, above all, the form
\nof its influence on the development investigated here. It must be
\none of the tasks of sociological and historical investigation first
\nto analyse all the influences and causal relationships which can
\nsatisfactorily be explained in terms of reactions to environmental
\nconditions. Only then, and when comparative racial neurology
\nand psychology shall have progressed beyond their present and
\nin many ways very promising beginnings, can we hope for even
\nthe probability of a satisfactory answer to that problem.12 In the
\nmeantime that condition seems to me not to exist, and an appeal
\nto heredity would therefore involve a premature renunciation of
\nthe possibility of knowledge attainable now, and would shift the
\nproblem to factors (at present) still unknown.
\nxlii author\u2019s introductionPart I
\nThe Problem1
\nRELIGIOUS AFFILIATION AND
\nSOCIAL STRATIFICATION1
\nA glance at the occupational statistics of any country of mixed
\nreligious composition brings to light with remarkable fre quency2
\na situation which has several times provoked discussion
\nin the Catholic press and literature,3
\nand in Catholic congresses
\nin Germany, namely, the fact that business leaders and owners of
\ncapital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labour, and even
\nmore the higher technically and commercially trained personnel
\nof modern enterprises, are overwhelmingly Protestant.4
\nThis is
\ntrue not only in cases where the difference in religion coincides
\nwith one of nationality, and thus of cultural development, as in
\nEastern Germany between Germans and Poles. The same thing is
\nshown in the figures of religious affiliation almost wherever
\ncapitalism, at the time of its great expansion, has had a free hand
\nto alter the social distribution of the population in accordance
\nwith its needs, and to determine its occupational structure. The
\nmore freedom it has had, the more clearly is the effect shown. It
\nis true that the greater relative participation of Protestants in theownership of capital,5
\nin management, and the upper ranks of
\nlabour in great modern industrial and commercial enterprises,6
\nmay in part be explained in terms of historical circumstances7
\nwhich extend far back into the past, and in which religious
\naffiliation is not a cause of the economic conditions, but to a
\ncertain extent appears to be a result of them. Participation in the
\nabove economic functions usually involves some previous own ership of capital, and generally an expensive education; often
\nboth. These are to-day largely dependent on the possession of
\ninherited wealth, or at least on a certain degree of material well being. A number of those sections of the old Empire which were
\nmost highly developed economically and most favoured by nat ural resources and situation, in particular a majority of the
\nwealthy towns, went over to Protestantism in the sixteenth cen tury. The results of that circumstance favour the Protestants even
\nto-day in their struggle for economic existence. There arises thus
\nthe historical question: why were the districts of highest eco nomic development at the same time particularly favourable to a
\nrevolution in the Church? The answer is by no means so simple
\nas one might think.
\nThe emancipation from economic traditionalism appears, no
\ndoubt, to be a factor which would greatly strengthen the ten dency to doubt the sanctity of the religious tradition, as of all
\ntraditional authorities. But it is necessary to note, what has often
\nbeen forgotten, that the Reformation meant not the elimination
\nof the Church\u2019s control over everyday life, but rather the substi tution of a new form of control for the previous one. It meant
\nthe repudiation of a control which was very lax, at that time
\nscarcely perceptible in practice, and hardly more than formal, in
\nfavour of a regulation of the whole of conduct which, penetrat ing to all departments of private and public life, was infinitely
\nburdensome and earnestly enforced. The rule of the Catholic
\nChurch, \u201cpunishing the heretic, but indulgent to the sinner\u201d, as
\nit was in the past even more than to-day, is now tolerated by
\n4 the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalismpeoples of thoroughly modern economic character, and was
\nborne by the richest and economically most advanced peoples
\non earth at about the turn of the fifteenth century. The rule of
\nCalvinism, on the other hand, as it was enforced in the sixteenth
\ncentury in Geneva and in Scotland, at the turn of the sixteenth
\nand seventeenth centuries in large parts of the Netherlands, in
\nthe seventeenth in New England, and for a time in England itself,
\nwould be for us the most absolutely unbearable form of ecclesi astical control of the individual which could possibly exist. That
\nwas exactly what large numbers of the old commercial aris tocracy of those times, in Geneva as well as in Holland and
\nEngland, felt about it. And what the reformers complained of in
\nthose areas of high economic development was not too much
\nsupervision of life on the part of the Church, but too little. Now
\nhow does it happen that at that time those countries which were
\nmost advanced economically, and within them the rising bour geois middle classes, not only failed to resist this unexampled
\ntyranny of Puritanism, but even developed a heroism in its
\ndefence? For bourgeois classes as such have seldom before and
\nnever since displayed heroism. It was \u201cthe last of our heroisms\u201d,
\nas Carlyle, not without reason, has said.
\nBut further, and especially important: it may be, as has been
\nclaimed, that the greater participation of Protestants in the posi tions of ownership and management in modern economic life
\nmay to-day be understood, in part at least, simply as a result of
\nthe greater material wealth they have inherited. But there are
\ncertain other phenomena which cannot be explained in the
\nsame way. Thus, to mention only a few facts: there is a great
\ndifference discoverable in Baden, in Bavaria, in Hungary, in the
\ntype of higher education which Catholic parents, as opposed to
\nProtestant, give their children. That the percentage of Catholics
\namong the students and graduates of higher educational institu tions in general lags behind their proportion of the total popula tion,8
\nmay, to be sure, be largely explicable in terms of inherited
\nreligious affiliation and social stratification 5differences of wealth. But among the Catholic graduates them selves the percentage of those graduating from the institutions
\npreparing, in particular, for technical studies and industrial and
\ncommercial occupations, but in general from those preparing
\nfor middle-class business life, lags still farther behind the per centage of Protestants.9
\nOn the other hand, Catholics prefer the
\nsort of training which the humanistic Gymnasium affords. That
\nis a circumstance to which the above explanation does not apply,
\nbut which, on the contrary, is one reason why so few Catholics
\nare engaged in capitalistic enterprise.
\nEven more striking is a fact which partly explains the smaller
\nproportion of Catholics among the skilled labourers of modern
\nindustry. It is well known that the factory has taken its skilled
\nlabour to a large extent from young men in the handicrafts; but
\nthis is much more true of Protestant than of Catholic journey men. Among journeymen, in other words, the Catholics show a
\nstronger propensity to remain in their crafts, that is they more
\noften become master craftsmen, whereas the Protestants are
\nattracted to a larger extent into the factories in order to fill the
\nupper ranks of skilled labour and administrative positions.10 The
\nexplanation of these cases is undoubtedly that the mental and
\nspiritual peculiarities acquired from the environment, here the
\ntype of education favoured by the religious atmosphere of
\nthe home community and the parental home, have determined
\nthe choice of occupation, and through it the professional career.
\nThe smaller participation of Catholics in the modern business
\nlife of Germany is all the more striking because it runs counter to
\na tendency which has been observed at all times11 including the
\npresent. National or religious minorities which are in a position
\nof subordination to a group of rulers are likely, through their
\nvoluntary or involuntary exclusion from positions of political
\ninfluence, to be driven with peculiar force into economic activ ity. Their ablest members seek to satisfy the desire for recogni tion of their abilities in this field, since there is no opportunity in
\n6 the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalismthe service of the State. This has undoubtedly been true of the
\nPoles in Russia and Eastern Prussia, who have without question
\nbeen undergoing a more rapid economic advance than in Gali cia, where they have been in the ascendant. It has in earlier times
\nbeen true of the Huguenots in France under Louis XIV, the Non conformists and Quakers in England, and, last but not least, the
\nJew for two thousand years. But the Catholics in Germany have
\nshown no striking evidence of such a result of their position. In
\nthe past they have, unlike the Protestants, undergone no particu larly prominent economic development in the times when they
\nwere persecuted or only tolerated, either in Holland or in Eng land. On the other hand, it is a fact that the Protestants (espe cially certain branches of the movement to be fully discussed
\nlater) both as ruling classes and as ruled, both as majority and as
\nminority, have shown a special tendency to develop economic
\nrationalism which cannot be observed to the same extent among
\nCatholics either in the one situation or in the other.12 Thus the
\nprincipal explanation of this difference must be sought in the
\npermanent intrinsic character of their religious beliefs, and not
\nonly in their temporary external historico-political situations.13
\nIt will be our task to investigate these religions with a view to
\nfinding out what peculiarities they have or have had which
\nmight have resulted in the behaviour we have described. On
\nsuperficial analysis, and on the basis of certain current impres sions, one might be tempted to express the difference by saying
\nthat the greater other-worldliness of Catholicism, the ascetic
\ncharacter of its highest ideals, must have brought up its
\nadherents to a greater indifference toward the good things of
\nthis world. Such an explanation fits the popular tendency in the
\njudgment of both religions. On the Protestant side it is used as a
\nbasis of criticism of those (real or imagined) ascetic ideals of the
\nCatholic way of life, while the Catholics answer with the accus ation that materialism results from the secularization of all ideals
\nthrough Protestantism. One recent writer has attempted to
\nreligious affiliation and social stratification 7formulate the difference of their attitudes toward economic life
\nin the following manner: \u201cThe Catholic is quieter, having less of
\nthe acquisitive impulse; he prefers a life of the greatest possible
\nsecurity, even with a smaller income, to a life of risk and excite ment, even though it may bring the chance of gaining honour
\nand riches. The proverb says jokingly, \u2018either eat well or sleep
\nwell\u2019. In the present case the Protestant prefers to eat well, the
\nCatholic to sleep undisturbed.\u201d14
\nIn fact, this desire to eat well may be a correct though
\nincomplete characterization of the motives of many nominal
\nProtestants in Germany at the present time. But things were very
\ndifferent in the past: the English, Dutch, and American Puritans
\nwere characterized by the exact opposite of the joy of living, a
\nfact which is indeed, as we shall see, most important for our
\npresent study. Moreover, the French Protestants, among others,
\nlong retained, and retain to a certain extent up to the present, the
\ncharacteristics which were impressed upon the Calvinistic
\nChurches everywhere, especially under the cross in the time of
\nthe religious struggles. Nevertheless (or was it, perhaps, as we
\nshall ask later, precisely on that account?) it is well known that
\nthese characteristics were one of the most important factors in
\nthe industrial and capitalistic development of France, and on the
\nsmall scale permitted them by their persecution remained so. If
\nwe may call this seriousness and the strong predominance of
\nreligious interests in the whole conduct of life otherworldliness,
\nthen the French Calvinists were and still are at least as other worldly as, for instance, the North German Catholics, to whom
\ntheir Catholicism is undoubtedly as vital a matter as religion is to
\nany other people in the world. Both differ from the predominant
\nreligious trends in their respective countries in much the same
\nway. The Catholics of France are, in their lower ranks, greatly
\ninterested in the enjoyment of life, in the upper directly hostile
\nto religion. Similarly, the Protestants of Germany are to-day
\nabsorbed in worldly economic life, and their upper ranks are
\n8 the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalismmost indifferent to religion.15 Hardly anything shows so clearly
\nas this parallel that, with such vague ideas as that of the alleged
\notherworldliness of Catholicism, and the alleged materialistic joy
\nof living of Protestantism, and others like them, nothing can be
\naccomplished for our purpose. In such general terms the distinc tion does not even adequately fit the facts of to-day, and certainly
\nnot of the past. If, however, one wishes to make use of it at all,
\nseveral other observations present themselves at once which,
\ncombined with the above remarks, suggest that the supposed
\nconflict between other-worldliness, asceticism, and ecclesiastical
\npiety on the one side, and participation in capitalistic acquisition
\non the other, might actually turn out to be an intimate
\nrelationship.
\nAs a matter of fact it is surely remarkable, to begin with quite a
\nsuperficial observation, how large is the number of representa tives of the most spiritual forms of Christian piety who have
\nsprung from commercial circles. In particular, very many of the
\nmost zealous adherents of Pietism are of this origin. It might be
\nexplained as a sort of reaction against mammonism on the part
\nof sensitive natures not adapted to commercial life, and, as in the
\ncase of Francis of Assisi, many Pietists have themselves inter preted the process of their conversion in these terms. Similarly,
\nthe remarkable circumstance that so many of the greatest capital istic entrepreneurs\u2014down to Cecil Rhodes\u2014have come from
\nclergymen\u2019s families might be explained as a reaction against
\ntheir ascetic upbringing. But this form of explanation fails where
\nan extraordinary capitalistic business sense is combined in the
\nsame persons and groups with the most intensive forms of a
\npiety which penetrates and dominates their whole lives. Such
\ncases are not isolated, but these traits are characteristic of many
\nof the most important Churches and sects in the history of Prot estantism. Especially Calvinism, wherever it has appeared,16 has
\nshown this combination. However little, in the time of the
\nexpansion of the Reformation, it (or any other Protestant belief)
\nreligious affiliation and social stratification 9was bound up with any particular social class, it is characteristic
\nand in a certain sense typical that in French Huguenot Churches
\nmonks and business men (merchants, craftsmen) were particu larly numerous among the proselytes, especially at the time of
\nthe persecution.17 Even the Spaniards knew that heresy (i.e. the
\nCalvinism of the Dutch) promoted trade, and this coincides
\nwith the opinions which Sir William Petty expressed in his
\ndiscussion of the reasons for the capitalistic development of
\nthe Netherlands. Gothein18 rightly calls the Calvinistic diaspora
\nthe seed-bed of capitalistic economy.19 Even in this case one
\nmight consider the decisive factor to be the superiority of the
\nFrench and Dutch economic cultures from which these com munities sprang, or perhaps the immense influence of exile in
\nthe breakdown of traditional relationships.20 But in France the
\nsituation was, as we know from Colbert\u2019s struggles, the same
\neven in the seventeenth century. Even Austria, not to speak of
\nother countries, directly imported Protestant craftsmen.
\nBut not all the Protestant denominations seem to have had an
\nequally strong influence in this direction. That of Calvinism,
\neven in Germany, was among the strongest, it seems, and the
\nreformed faith21 more than the others seems to have promoted
\nthe development of the spirit of capitalism, in the Wupperthal as
\nwell as elsewhere. Much more so than Lutheranism, as com parison both in general and in particular instances, especially in
\nthe Wupperthal, seems to prove.22 For Scotland, Buckle, and
\namong English poets, Keats, have emphasized these same rela tionships.23 Even more striking, as it is only necessary to men tion, is the connection of a religious way of life with the most
\nintensive development of business acumen among those sects
\nwhose otherworldliness is as proverbial as their wealth, espe cially the Quakers and the Mennonites. The part which the for mer have played in England and North America fell to the latter
\nin Germany and the Netherlands. That in East Prussia Frederick
\nWilliam I tolerated the Mennonites as indispensable to industry,
\n10 the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalismin spite of their absolute refusal to perform military service, is
\nonly one of the numerous well-known cases which illustrates
\nthe fact, though, considering the character of that monarch, it is
\none of the most striking. Finally, that this combination of intense
\npiety with just as strong a development of business acumen, was
\nalso characteristic of the Pietists, is common knowledge.24
\nIt is only necessary to think of the Rhine country and of Calw.
\nIn this purely introductory discussion it is unnecessary to pile up
\nmore examples. For these few already all show one thing: that
\nthe spirit of hard work, of progress, or whatever else it may be
\ncalled, the awakening of which one is inclined to ascribe to
\nProtestantism, must not be understood, as there is a tendency to
\ndo, as joy of living nor in any other sense as connected with the
\nEnlightenment. The old Protestantism of Luther, Calvin, Knox,
\nVoet, had precious little to do with what to-day is called pro gress. To whole aspects of modern life which the most extreme
\nreligionist would not wish to suppress to-day, it was directly
\nhostile. If any inner relationship between certain expressions of
\nthe old Protestant spirit and modern capitalistic culture is to be
\nfound, we must attempt to find it, for better or worse not in its
\nalleged more or less materialistic or at least anti-ascetic joy of
\nliving, but in its purely religious characteristics. Montesquieu
\nsays (Esprit des Lois, Book XX, chap. 7) of the English that they
\n\u201chad progressed the farthest of all peoples of the world in three
\nimportant things: in piety, in commerce, and in freedom\u201d. Is it
\nnot possible that their commercial superiority and their adapta tion to free political institutions are connected in some way with
\nthat record of piety which Montesquieu ascribes to them?
\nA large number of possible relationships, vaguely perceived,
\noccur to us when we put the question in this way. It will now be
\nour task to formulate what occurs to us confusedly as clearly as is
\npossible, considering the inexhaustible diversity to be found in
\nall historical material. But in order to do this it is necessary to
\nleave behind the vague and general concepts with which we have
\nreligious affiliation and social stratification 11dealt up to this point, and attempt to penetrate into the peculiar
\ncharacteristics of and the differences between those great worlds
\nof religious thought which have existed historically in the vari ous branches of Christianity.
\nBefore we can proceed to that, however, a few remarks are
\nnecessary, first on the peculiarities of the phenomenon of which
\nwe are seeking an historical explanation, then concerning the
\nsense in which such an explanation is possible at all within
\nthe limits of these investigations.
\n12 the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Max Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Translated by Talcott Parsons With an introduction by Anthony Giddens London and New YorkFirst published 1930 by Allen and Unwin First published by Routledge 1992 First published in Routledge Classics 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street, New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1738,2474,2482,1563,2516,2499],"tags":[2501,2518,2477,2519,2520],"class_list":["post-9968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-help-me-with-social-psychology-assignment","category-psyc-essays","category-psyc-paper-writing-service","category-psychology-case-study-examples","category-sociology-essays","category-write-my-psychology-papers","tag-psy-papers","tag-psych-research-paper-sample","tag-psychology-assignment","tag-psychology-dissertation-writing","tag-psychology-research-paper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}