Max Weber• Weber was born in Germany in 1864, to parents who were

Protestant.

• In 1905 he published his most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He returned to teaching in 1918 and died in 1920. He is considered the father of modern sociology.

What is the Spirit of Capitalism?• Preliminary observation of Weber: Protestant Countries in Europe are wealthier than

Catholic Countries

• In Capitalism greed is turned into an ethical imperative. (Greed as distinct from mere excessive consumption)

• Marx, the chief critic of capitalism doesn’t explain why capitalists start accumulating capital. Marx cannot explain the “motivation” behind original capitalist accumulation (except to call it “theft”).

• Weber is not a historical materialist (i.e., Marxist). He proposes an alternative explanation for how capitalism got started.

Capitalist Spirit– Continued • Capitalism is marked by a kind of attitude of working incessantly and

reinvesting the profit.

• The question is: why don’t they enjoy themselves? Why not relax, have fun? Pre-capitalist man would not have understood this need. Earn enough to eat, and then enjoy would have been their ethic.

• This attitude is unique for capitalism, and is a uniquely modern phenomenon.

Spirit of Capitalism– Continued • Second Capitalism is represented by rationality and calculation.

• Rational economic calculation is according to Weber a historically new emergence (Adam Smith thought it always existed). We do double entry bookkeeping. We measure our profits against our efforts.

• Capitalism got rid of magical thinking. That it didn’t matter whether you pray for rain. Rain happens naturally. There is nothing you can do about it. (Predestination?)

• You have a calling to work at a particular job

Pre-Protestant Christian Teachings: “Economic Traditionalism”• Catholicism stressed different religious

values:“It is easier for a rich man to get into heaven

than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle” (Matthew 19: 23-24). • Give your wealth to the poor.• Work until immediate needs are met, then

enjoy life with family and friends.• Striving to accumulate profit is seen as a sin

of desire and greed.

The Protestant Ethic How it differs from Catholicism• An ideal type, which is the heart of the spirit of capitalist

culture• What is your calling?• Luther used the work “Beruf” (calling). An action

orientation – idea of a “calling”- individual must view work/accumulation of profit as a spiritual calling. Hard work is a sign of God’s favor

• Doctrine of predestination – our paths to heaven or hell are predetermined by God- allowed justification of class system. Puritans in North America.

• Denial of “worldly” asceticism – Work hard, but don’t play hard. Save and invest to accumulate more.

John Calvin, 1509-1564

• What Weber argued, in simple terms:• According to the new Protestant religions, an individual was religiously

compelled to follow a secular vocation (German: Beruf) with as much zeal as possible. A person living according to this world view was more likely to accumulate money.• The new religions (in particular, Calvinism and other more austere

Protestant sects) effectively forbade wastefully using hard earned money and identified the purchase of luxuries as a sin. Donations to an individual's church or congregation were limited due to the rejection by certain Protestant sects of icons. • Finally, donation of money to the poor or to charity was generally frowned

on as it was seen as furthering beggary. This social condition was perceived as laziness, burdening their fellow man, and an affront to God; by not working, one failed to glorify God.

• Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides.[...]Remember, that money is the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.

The Secularization of the Protestant Ethic (Elective Affinity)

Weber continues argues against the idea that the “spirit of capitalism” is just a reflection of economic reality.

Far from automatically reflecting an economic base, he says, it was quite extraordinary that this ethos emerged, given that striving for financial gain is considered to be low-status, undignified behavior in most societies...

Protestant Ethic Spirit of Capitalism based on “Economic Rationalism” Modern Capitalism

Where does this spirit of capitalism, this “social ethic of capitalist culture” come from?

Weber dismisses the idea that “such ideas originate as a reflection or superstructure of economic situations” – this is an explicit argument versus Marxism.He uses an example from the United States:

Southern states founded by large capitalists for exploitation

Undeveloped spirit of capitalism

Northern states founded by preachers, small merchants & craftsmenHighly developed spirit of capitalism

Weber: What is the difference between the Protestant Ethic and age-old hunger for gold (“Auri sacra fames,” p. 235)?

Yes we find greed everywhere, in fact lack of trust often prevents more complex economic development

… greed is usually expressed by the most unscrupulous, or only in relations with outsiders. Greed is not morally regulated within the community.

Weber emphasizes that he is not saying that people are not greedy within “traditionalist” societies…

But

i.e. only the Protestants and their capitalist descendants think that making money can actually be the sign that somebody is a good person. Because they connect personal honor with economic enterprise, they set up a system of rules for pursuing vigorous trade while being scrupulously honest.

Weber argues that capitalism needed the Protestant ethic to evolve! (236-237)(Switchman argument)•Raising wages does not necessarily make people work harder •“a man does not by nature wish to own more and more money, but simply to live as he is accustomed to live…” (p. 236-237)

•Lowering wages is perhaps more effective, but can backfire… (p. 237).

•What capitalism needs is workers with a sense of “calling”… but such an attitude is by no means a product of nature. It is the product of a long process of socialization and education (p. 237)

Recap: the creation of the Protestant ethic

AcquisitionProtestantism

Legalizes and gives God’s approval to

“worldly Protestant asceticism” freed moneymaking from the “inhibitions of traditionalistic ethics.”Now only the enjoyment of wealth is considered immoral.

“asceticism looked upon the pursuit of wealth as an end in itself as highly reprehensible; but the attainment of it as a fruit of labour in a calling was a sign of God’s blessing” (241)

Capitalism is an unintended consequence

Protestant emphasis on mundane tasks and duties, rather than enjoyment and luxury, was summed up in the notion of the “calling”.

Protestants produce more and spend less (High productivity and capitalist growth.) Capitalist success

becomes theologically justified as a sign of hard work.

Implications of this Argument1. What lasts from the theological innovation of the

Protestants is “an amazingly good… conscience in the acquisition of money, so long as it took place legally.” Weber calls this the “bourgeois economic ethic.”

2. The bourgeois believe that inequality is decided by God. They develop a double standard, where they can be rich and stay righteous, but they help their workforce stay close to God by forcing discipline and frugality (as well as religion) onto them. (doctrine of predestination)

3. The spirit of capitalism becomes channeled into rational economic conduct. We don’t need true religious asceticism anymore, as capitalism now has its own “mechanical foundations,” functioning as an inescapable system.

THE “IRON CAGE”… (p. 245)“The puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to

do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals which are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.”

The Protestant Ethic broke the hold of tradition by calling people to apply themselves rationally to their work. Behavior had come to be dominated by instrumental rationality, the efficient application of means to ends, replacing other types of social action.