How and Why Does Weber Seek to Establish a Relationship Between Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism?

How and why does Weber seek to establish a connection between the Protestant ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism?

Marx Weber was born on April 21, in 1864 in Germany, in a small city named Erfurt and died on June 1920. Actually Weber was not only an economist and a political scientist but also he was one of the three great founders of sociology, with Marx and Durkheim. Those three are known as the fathers of modern sociology. His family played a vital role in his whole life and had great influence on him as his father was a distinguished and well known lawyer and politician and his mother was a religious person who gave him support throughout his work and life. The time when Weber lived was one of the most important in the history of Germany. In 1871 all German states joined up in order to form Germany as a country, or the First Reich as it was known, with Prussia being the leader. It is also worthwhile to be said that after 1870 Germany saw a rapid industrialization taking place. This made it the greatest industrial power in Europe by 1900. All these socio-economical changes affected Weber’s writings. Weber became a Law Lecturer at the University of Berlin in 1891 and in his early writings he did a work on Roman Agrarian History. It is observed through his work that he was a man who was affected by his spiritual and mental health at the time of writing his work. This can be clearly seen in 1897, which was a fatal point in his life, as he suffered by a nervous breakdown, following his father’s death. It took him about 5 years to recover from it. When he recovered he started writing with much eagerness and on 1904-1905 he issued his most popular piece of work that was named “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (PSCE). They were two articles that caused great controversy and they demonstrate the relationship between Protestantism and economic ethics of the modern capitalist environment during the 17th century. Weber’s interest on capitalism was greatly due on the situation that Germany was at the time. Industrialization in Germany came late and it happened quite differently that other European countries or the USA. It took place by the aristocrats and this caused Germany to be ruled by an authoritarian military state. Weber argued that Germany had problems because of the absence of revolution and as he wrote in his letters to Keyserling “a nation that has never the nerve to behead the traditional powers that will never… gain proud self-assurance”. It is said that Weber had two main aims when he was writing this book. Firstly, the establishment of a connection between patterns of belief and social actions. Actually, he wanted to see if our beliefs affect our actions. And secondly, he wanted to show that there was a connection between religion and commercial activity. He stated that “Instead of capitalism causing religion, religions actually caused capitalism” (Collins, R. 1986: 47).
One of his main beliefs was that capitalism was largely shaped by religious forces and more specifically by Protestantism. Protestantism came as an alternative to Catholicism. In all over Europe many struggles and wars came about so that Protestants and Catholics could solve their differences. “The Protestants churches split into various factions” (Collins, R. 1986: 49) due to the political situation across Europe. In Switzerland radical forms of Protestantism emerged. In Geneva the Calvinist Protestantism was formed by John Calvin and Weber argued that Calvin was the person who had the greatest influence on the emergence of capitalism. At the time Weber was writing, capitalism was developed in Western Europe. The fact that Protestants were more economically successful than Catholics combined with the development of capitalism were showed by a well documented observation at the time. Weber was very curious to find a connection between them and the final result was his large thesis on “The Protestantic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”.
In order to start his work he made two observations. The first one was that a great deal of economic activity was starting to be developing through Europe while at the same time Protestantism was beginning to be established in Western Europe. The second one was that people seek for making profit. However, Protestants did not want to use and did not use that profit for personal pleasure and enjoyment. The profit gaining was reinvested back into business. Weber was trying to explain his ideas via “The Spirit of Capitalism”. He stated that the spirit of capitalism can be identified by three overriding imperatives or demands. The first subject was about the devotion to amazing wealth and profit beyond the personal needs of the individual. Secondly, the commitment to unrelieved toil and work coupled with self denial were discussed and finally the avoidance of the use of wealth for purposes of personal enjoyment is stated. In accordance to Weber, this is the spirit which forms the special nature of Western Capitalism. He also maintains that the central spirit of capitalism manage to put forward the expectation of the performance of work as a moral duty, and in doing so made the non- performance of work an infraction of such duty. Lastly, the capitalistic spirit can be identified as the introduction of a religious ethic into everyday activity, one that had not been in previous systems of money making.
The implication of Protestantism and the economic life are discussed in Weber’s work. It is important to know that Protestant religion is divided into the following four sections, Calvinism, Pietism, Methodism and Baptism. Weber gives more emphasis on Calvinism although he discusses all of them in his work. According to this belief, it is stated that all humans have been pre-destined and that God knew everything that people did. Moreover it is stated for God that, “he has already decided which souls will be saved and there is no way of knowing whose these are” (Hughes, J. 1995:101). Only a small loophole is left by God via which only a few people could be saved, the so-called elect. Somebody could be saved only if he was a good person that performed acts for the good of society and not for his own good. In order to achieve salvation you had to live a perfect life, in the sense that you had to be honest, helpful, kind and polite. This belief was very important for Weber because concerns the development of the economic theory and consequently to the spirit of capitalism.
Additionally, Weber stated the fact of calling of the individual. Actually the concept of calling is a link between religious Protestant ethic and the secular spirit of capitalism. That was meant to fulfil people duty to God and that people have been called by God to the position that they occupy this world. The rise of industrialization was caused indirectly by the Calvinist beliefs according to Weber. He stated that “the Protestant Ethic demonstrates that there is an elective affinity between Calvinism or more correctly, certain sorts of Calvinist beliefs and the economic ethics of modern capitalist activity”. The distinctive feature of his work is that he seeks to demonstrate that the rationalization of economic life characteristics of modern capitalism is connected with irrational value commitments. This is a prefatory task to the assessment of casual relations, but it is not in itself sufficient for the isolation of causes. The analysis of the origins and spread of rationalism in order and the investigation of in what ways Protestant asceticism was itself influenced by social and economic forces are the two broad tasks that have to be undertaken in order to be achieved the above. A deal of discussion and debate was caused by this idea on PESC. Larry Ray wrote in the protestant ethic debate “a sociologist was writing about capitalism (an economic matter) and Protestantism (a religious matter) in the 17th century (which concerned historians) with reference to anxieties and innovations (the province of psychologist”. Weber was the cause of these debates as he wrote about so many things that were happening in the world at that time in his thesis on the book, that attracted many differentiated people who all tried to explain it upon their believes.
Another important point which has to be taken into consideration is that Weber’s motivation into writing the PESC was to form a theoretical alternative to Marxism. Marx and his ideas were disapproved by Weber and although they had great differences, they had and some common points. Actually, they had some differences on their news of history. Moreover, for Weber economic power was only one form of class conflict and not the only one. Though, that market determines life chances and that is an arena of alliances, that industrialization complicates social division. Furthermore, Weber considered the status group to be very important. These status groups differ in the way they interpreted production and consumption. In the light of the above, the time that Weber lived and the socio-economical changes that were in effect in his country and more generally in the world, was one of the most important reasons that made Weber to seek for a connection between the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Also, he supported that religion brought capitalism, but he never rejected the fact that capitalism was influenced and by other factors such as the growth of free market, the legal system and new forms of energy. The protestant ethic was considered to be important only for the establishment of capitalism. His writings could stand against Marxism as they were a good theory and although highly controversial had a great impact on the world and on the study of sociology.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

* Hughes, Sharrock, Martin, (1995) Understanding Classical Sociology, Cromwell Press * Morrison, K. (2006) Marx, Durkheim, Weber, London: Sage Publications * Anderson, R.J. (1987) Classical Disputes in Sociology * Collins, R. (1986) Max Weber – A skeleton key * Lecture notes and handouts

Bibliography: * Hughes, Sharrock, Martin, (1995) Understanding Classical Sociology, Cromwell Press * Morrison, K. (2006) Marx, Durkheim, Weber, London: Sage Publications * Anderson, R.J. (1987) Classical Disputes in Sociology * Collins, R. (1986) Max Weber – A skeleton key * Lecture notes and handouts