The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Dover Value Editions)

Book Description

This brilliant study opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through the conflict of opposites. Instead, Weber relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately encouraged capitalism.

Customer Reviews:

Great theory, but not always an easy read.......2007-07-30

Max Weber's thesis that the Protestant work-ethic helped give rise to the spirit of modern capitalism is well known, but how true is it? Weber goes into an impressive review of historical details on how Luther's concept of the calling became the Calvinist concept of labor to glorify God, and finally the Puritan concept that is applied to business as well as anything else. In short, the Protestant hard-work ethic, intended to be a sign of election and to glorify god, inadvertently (at least in part) gave birth to the spirit of capitalism, of sustained, planned, methodical profit-making. Though capitalism is no longer dependent upon religion for maintaining its ethos (we are all caught in the rat race), it is fascinating how Weber makes a compelling case that a once anti-materialist Protestant Christianity came to affirm the capitalist spirit by way of a hard-working ethic. Many of Weber's themes are persuasive, if also controversial. Weber has by no means isolated the final or full cause of the take-off of capitalism in modern times, but he has made a good case for one contributing factor. Would that his style of writing had been a bit more direct - Weber's insights are at least worth careful reading.

Value edition for the budget minded.......2007-06-06

The "reviews" about Weber's thesis could fill libraries. Ooops! They actually have!

So let's ignore that.

The focus here is on value, and this Dover value edition is perfectly fine for the thrifty college student on a limited budget who needs to read this work for an assignment but doesn't want to be at the mercy of the University Library.

This is a seminal work that reaches far into other fields of inquiry, so it is likely you will need it no matter what your field.

The binding is an el-cheap-o slab of glue, so it won't lie flat on your desk when you are transcribing a quote for a citation.....but since you've downloaded the text file you'll just cut and paste anyway.

Academic citations to this edition are perfectly acceptable in scholarly papers and under MLA, ASA, APA, ACS, APSA, "Turabian" and MHRA style guidelines (and perhaps others).

A Very Standard Economic Postulate.......2007-04-15

Assuming Max Weber's thesis to be true proves useful. By assuming it as a postulate, one gains a potential way of understanding the beliefs of the western-world's upper pareto boundary and the typical ressentiments / bad faith (bad-tempered, difficult mental traps everyone who tries to create something can't help but fall into from time to time, mea culpa!) of the lower.

Max Scheler (who advised Karol Wojtyla as a Ph.D. student) seems to have done something similar to what Max Weber describes the upper pareto boundary (somewhere over the rainbow as the song goes) as having done. Max Scheler "attempted to reconcile Nietzsche's ideas of master-slave morality and ressentiment with the Christian ideals of love and humility."

Anyway, just projecting a few of my other readings onto this one a bit. L8R.

Don't buy the Dover edition of this book........2006-10-26

The Dover edition of the book has been bound so tightly that it's difficult to turn the pages--and to read the words, which are nearly swallowed up by the binding. It feels like if you force it at all, the whole binding will come unglued.

It may be cheap, but it *feels* so extremely cheap that it's just not worth the money saved. Buy yourself another edition--or for that matter, just get the text free online. Anything's better than trying to read this edition.

great idea, little proof.......2006-09-26

As part of my enquiry into the forces that the Reformation unleased, I decided to at last read this classic.

Alas, it was disappointing in that Weber makes the assertion - that reformation-spawned ideologies were the foundation of the capitalist revolution - and then offers little historical explanation as proof of his thesis. Instead, what he does is to painstakingly describe the ideologies in question, to show that they are compatible conceptually with his definition of capitalism (the rise of an urban bourgeoisie that created wealth by investing in industry as a major new economic actor, eventaully leading to the eclipse of the old land-based aristocracy). As Hannah Ardnt said, so long as you are far enough from reality, you can make almost any ideas appear compatible. As such, I was unconvinced that a) the feeling of being among the elect made people work harder to prove it by material success and b) that a heightened sense of individuality that arose with separation from the papist ideologies augmented this pursuit of self-development via the massing of personal capital. While the protestant ideologies may conform vaguely to these notions, that does not in the slightest prove a direct causal connection. Indeed, one might argue that it was the repression by the Inquisition - against the bourgoise's challenge to traditional aristocrats - that may have delayed the development of capitalism in Catholic countries for a few centuries. (That capitalism did develop in many Catholic countries also undermines the book's prinicpal thesis.)

This essay is interesting as a pioneering attempt at sociological determinism from a rather existentialist perspective, but reading the whole thing was a bit much for me. Weber was a great and innovative thinker, however out of date his modes of reasoning have become - they are strictly qualitative. Not recommended except asof historical interest.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Third Edition

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Modern capitalism and its origins
Interesting but not really scholarship

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Third Edition
Max Weber
Manufacturer: Roxbury Publishing Company
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ASIN: 1891487434

Book Description

A new translation of Max Weber's classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism--one of the most enduring and influential books in sociology--is now available from Roxbury.

Translator Stephen Kalberg is an internationally acclaimed Weberian scholar. In this Third Roxbury Edition, Kalberg offers a precise and nuanced rendering of The Protestant Ethic that captures Weber's style as well as the unusual subtlety of his descriptions and causal arguments. Kalberg's standardization of Weber's terminology facilitates understanding of the various twists and turns in his complex lines of reasoning. Weber's original italicization, highlighting major themes, has been restored. A glossary of major terms and numerous clarifying endnotes have been added; foreign terms have been translated; bracketed insertions in the text identify obscure names. In short, the Protestant Ethic thesis is presented in a clear and highly readable manner.

There are three compelling reasons for students to read this classic:

It explores the continuing debate regarding the origins and legacy of modern capitalism in the West.
It helps the reader better understand economic development today around the world, especially in Russia, Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America.
It plumbs the deep cultural forces that affect contemporary work life and the workplace in the United States and Europe.

In his introduction, Kalberg offers a sketch of Weber's life and his major concerns, examines the intellectual context at the time The Protestant Ethic was written, and summarizes major aspects of Weber's complex analysis. Kalberg also discusses this classical study in the context of Weber's other writings. Finally, Kalberg investigates the contribution of The Protestant Ethic for understanding the role played by cultural forces in modern economic development.

The new translation includes Weber's 1906 essay "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism." Written after his extensive travels in the United States in 1904, Weber comments here on the diverse ways in which the legacies of early American Protestantism remain influential. Also contained in this edition are Weber's masterful prefatory remarks to his Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion, in which he defines the uniqueness of Western societies and asks what "ideas and interests" combined to call forth modern Western rationalism.

For students, The Protestant Ethic is a starting point toward understanding the multiple dimensions of social change. The continuing debates about the main elements of modern life, economic cultures and business ethics, our "common sense" economic determinism and "rational choices," the future of modern capitalism, the relationship between cultural forces and social structures, and the tension between science and religion are very much part of the Weberian project. Small wonder, then, that The Protestant Ethic continues to be one of the most frequently assigned readings in sociology.

Translator Stephen Kalberg is the author of Max Weber's Comparative-Historical Sociology (1994), Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations, and numerous articles on Weber. He is the editor of Max Weber: The Confrontation with Modernity (2003l). He teaches at Boston University, where he is Associate Professor of Sociology. He is also co-chair of the German Study Group at Harvard University's Center for European Studies.

Customer Reviews:

Modern capitalism and its origins.......2005-02-01

What Weber's ideas most clearly demonstrate is not capitalism as it is seen by the the devout protestant or any derivation thereof, he clearly proposes that capitalism itself is founded and practiced solely on the moral and ethical teachings of the protestant refromation. Furthurmore, the continued presence of God or any other religious influence is secondary to the overall implications of their socio-political indoctronation.
Weber essentially argues, that it is protestantism's continued comitment to a vocational calling as compared to traditional catholic virtue of church commitment, that is the essential method of spiritual distinguishemnt.
It is aided by the virtualy simultanious growth of both capitalism and Protestantism that enabled capitalism to extend beyond simply a seclar practise and over-all "necissary evil," into a fully encompassing and consuming reflection of an individual's spiritual right of passage.
Evidence of Weber's theory is distributed widely through contemporary polotics, fully 20 of the top 30 industrailized nations are predominantly protestant. Even countries such as Japan that seemingly have had no protestant influence and have had success with a capitalist economy, inevitably, must submit themselves to Weber's theory because, Weber is not concerned pervasiveness protestant traditions, only with the occurence of protestant ideals.
This book, though highly debated and controversial, is a must read for anyone with the slightest interest in global context or concerned with capitalism metioric rise to power. With a growing Globalized capitalist system, Webers ideas undoubtedly will become increasingly more apperent as capitalism invades every nook and cranny of an increasingly shrinking world; will cultures with otherwise foreign or dissimilar beliefs and practices every really be able to accept the merits of capitalism if they must equally reconcile themselves with the ethical premises of protestantism?

Interesting but not really scholarship.......2002-09-11

There are so many problems with Weber's idea that it is hard to know where to begin. First of all, there are no examples anywhere in the text of statements of purpose from capitalists reflecting on the Protestant Ethic. The closest Weber comes is Benjamin Franklin, but Franklin was an American who lived several generations after the origin of capitalism in Europe. Franklin better reflects the "can do" spirit of a new continent, the "American Adam," than he is a "secularization" of Calvin. Couldn't Weber find a European Ben Franklin?

Moreover, Weber's thesis fails the Ockham rule. As Adam Smith argues, the reason people chose to play rather than work is because work offered such paltry returns. Why invent this complicated "secularization thesis" when "greed" is a sufficient explanation?

Third, as one astute reviewer noted below, Weber inherits a Kantian ethics that he was never able to lose. Why must the capitalist pursue money or success "for its own sake"? Are there not perfectly rational reasons for working hard, including greed?
Why must the capitalist adhere to a Kantian ethics of "wealth for its own sake" without any ulterior motives? No one before the Objectivist wackos ever argued that unlimited accumulation of wealth is an "end in itself," or argued that the pursuit of unlimited wealth is a right independent of the good it may do for society.

It should also be understood that Marx is not the only target of Weber's polemical thrusts. He considered his primary target to be Werner Sombart, but Sombart has never been taken seriously in the US because he was a conservative and briefly a Nazi. Sombart's books are in fact much more plausible than Weber's. Luxury and Capitalism is in fact a very "Smithian" account of the origin of capitalism in the seigneurial lord's fascination with luxury goods, and his gradual displacement by the urban manufacturer.

Book Description

In The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and relates the rise of the capitalist economy to the Calvinist belief in the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one's worldly duties. Based on the original 1905 edition, this volume includes, along with Weber's treatise, an illuminating introduction, a wealth of explanatory notes, and exemplary responses and remarks-both from Weber and his critics-sparked by publication of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

This is the first English translation of the 1905 German text and the first volume to include Weber's unexpurgated responses to his critics, which reveal important developments in and clarifications of Weber's argument.

Customer Reviews:

the fear of being not preferred later on ..........2005-10-09

Max Weber (1864-1920) had noticed that Protestants appeared excessively under the numbers of people who economically were successful. The Catholicism seemed to make it easier (due to an integrated sin pardon mechanics) to enjoy life in between times. The Mediterranean countries have saved this as a differentiable lifestyle till nowadays, but particular the Nordic, by the majority Protestant countries put the human beings into a hermetic box of duty fulfillment and responsibility. The suicide installment is also higher in these areas: Unfortunately, Luther's theological revolution was not namely a liberation, no reduction of control but its millionfold multiplication: In the end everyone became the merciless inspector of himself. The reformation has increased the pressure extremely. Now mixed religious aims and working actions were bound each other with the visibility of financial success. Other religions, the Buddhism, the Islam etc., seem strikingly less in conformity with the capitalism in this regard. On the contrary: Being obstinate or disinterested seem to be transported rather. The Calvinistic capitalism on the other hand produces (besides all superficial correctness) a subtle social coldness, a fight of everybody against everybody, which promotes the assumption, that there is not enough space in the paradisiacal sky for everyone at all. Therefore the fear of being not preferred later on by the dear God starts a hitting and fighting between the human beings vehemently. Being religious in this manner has not contributed to humanness, but, instead, made some steps backward globally, regarding the great individual sovereignty, which the renaissance man already had achieved. Face of the fact, that (at the moment) a second theocracy seems to spread himself apparently in the USA -- at least in the opinion of the ones who sit at the decisive Washington coordinating points -- in the face of such developments among the conservative Christians of the USA, which surpass many a nastiness of the frowned Machiavellism or the elite oriented Darwinism, yes even the racism -- in view of such developments it seems recommended to examine the rational analyses of Max Weber again ...

Max Weber, Getting to Know Him.......2005-07-19

This classic is more referred to than read by economists in Anglo-Saxon countries where Weber is considered mainly a sociologist. When I went to Graduate School (Wisconsin) it was not even mentioned. A pity, because it is a milestone in the search for explanations of historical events, in this case the extraordinary spread of capitalism in Protestant countries. One
may not buy Weber's thesis in part or in toto, but it is so carefully argued that dissent has to be very nuanced and scholarly to be persuasive. (An example of such creative dissent is Tawney's "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism").

This Edition contains a fairly good translation; its main weakness is the arrangement of notes (Editor's and Weber's) at the end of each chapter. Hard to find because tops of pages don't contain chapter titles. And the notes are an important part of the whole.

The book also contains several of Weber's rebuttals to some citicisms that he received. Since these critiques are not reprinted here, the rebuttals are not fully self-explanatory. Moreover, this section is not inspiring for another reason: the tone of academic petulance diminishes the image of a great scholar.

The Protestant Calling of Capitalistic Virtues.......2005-06-02

It's interesting to read this book and see where it fits in today's Right Wing Christian Conservative mind-set, especially since they have been taking over the legislative, judicial and executive levels of government. And here is a damn good analysis on the formation of Protestant ethics born from and yet opposing it's mother, Catholicism. From her isolated monastic aim to the pursuit of a virtuous life pertaining to worldly advancement in capitalistic enterprise. The book is relatively reader friendly, but with a hundred pages of footnotes.

I can see this is where Erich Fromm obtained much of his information in his Escape From Freedom, yet this is much more detailed. How the Reformation meant not the elimination of the Church's control over everyday life, but rather the substitution of a new form of control for the previous one. How the Catholics, quieter less inquisitive impulse, had a stronger propensity to remain in their crafts while the Protestants attracted to action, to the factories in order to fill the upper ranks of skilled labor and administrative positions. The restful lesiureness of society was lost to the spirit of capitalism of "time is money" and efficiency, the utilization of personal powers and material possessions or capital, the moral attributes as quoted by Benjamin Franklin of "honesty the best policy" , the acquisition of money in diligence" Seest thou a man diligent in his business. He shall stand before kings - Proverbs XXii,29. Like the conservatives: unregulate all business in free trade, but instill morals in them.

It was here that Weber brings out that Luther reinterpreted the "calling" of Christ from the life of a monk and solitude to the aim of daily life both in family, domestic and in business; all activity was now considered as sacred. And now the amount of virtuous actions in business and money making was considered as part of this calling. What developed was the rejection of monastic asceticism to a new worldly asceticism. In this, Calvin's doctrine of predestination played a large role. True one is either elected or damned at birth, but the visible signs were worldly asceticism in virtues of daily life and the outward manifestations of capital, money, successful entrepreneurship. Calvin rejected all Catholic mystical and magical realms of imaginative and religious experiential awareness and rejection to all emotional appeal of religious experience to that of the utilitarian practicality of everyday efficient living in virtuous, the Puritan distrust of men, and ethical capitalistic society.

There's an excellent comparison of Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Pietism, Methodism and the Baptists sects, and their differences relating to capitalistic society. How the Puritans obsession with salvation from their anxious fear of death differs greatly from the Machiavelli proud love of this life. How conduct and poverty were signs to them of damnation and not of the elect. Man was systematized into a mechanical code of conduct as even the name Methodists implies "methods," to prove one's faith in worldly activity, as in book keeping, paying debts, scoring credit with God as in business transactions. The whole moral code of ethics can be described in monetary transactions as the price for sin, the paying of debts, the ransom payment and so forth, a systematic rational ordering of he moral life as a whole. Pietism allowed more emotion which was foreign to Calvinism, but not without methodical treatment and formulations, assuming grace is offered to all men, perhaps only at a certain moment in life, so here was the restorations of sacraments and confessionals from sin, grace being applied.

The Methodists saw all work not for salvation but for the glory of God, thus the clear sign of living a virtuous life, performing good works and pies actions with the Wesley anti-Calvinistic doctrine of grace. Here the doctrine of predestination was given up for the doctrine of ascetic conduct and grace.

And so as the unequal distribution of goods were seen as Divine Providence, then so was their productivity at low wages, as God's grace and damnation has secret ends unknown to men. Begging which was not only allowed but by Monks considered honorable, was now contemptible and the poor were so by God and thus the legalized exploitation and elected grace of the employer to his calling by God. There were differences though, as for and against big businesses and so forth.

While the Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. "In the field of its highest development, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually give it the character of sport." ... "The next task would be to show the significance of ascetic rationalism." p. 182

still a classic.......2005-03-13

Weber's "Protestant Ethic" has here been published along with the author's responses to various reviews; and this is a good idea as it may be helpful in dispelling the misconceptions that arose from the "Weber thesis" and are still rampant. Weber primarily had to deal with interpretations of his work that took him to say that modern capitalism had its cause in the attitudes and working habits of certain minority groups, to wit the "Protestants" or "Puritans" of the early modern era. So it was Weber's primary aim in his "counter-reviews" to point out that he had made no such claim at all; in fact, he assumed that modern capitalism had its origin in various social, political und scientific developments of the West completely independent of Protestantism. In particular, he tried to refute two common prejudices: that modern capitalism arose from greed and avarice, or alternatively, from industriousness. The Chinese, as far as we can tell, throughout history had been as industrious and hard-working as any people in the West, but failed to develop modern capitalism.
What Weber's thesis was all about was a change of outlook of certain groups of people at the beginning of the modern era. He noted, that-largely as a result of religious beliefs and attitudes-some people rejected the age-old and still prevalent ideal of the "universal man" of sound erudition and refined taste, the "gentleman" ideal of the Renaissance, in favor of a completely different life goal, that of the "professional man". This reduction of all human interests to success in one's vocation, has-far from being the "cause" of modern capitalism-simply proved to be the optimal adaptation to the ecological niche created by it.
While the upside of this development, in Weber's reckoning of things, was the emergence of the modern "rationalistic" outlook in all areas of life and thought, the downside was a thorough "disenchantment" of the world. Despite it enormous success in transforming the world and making it truly "humane", the human side of the ledger was not so upbeat. The more successful modern capitalism was, the more it produced a breed of individuals different from anything the world has seen before: "experts without wisdom, hedonists without a heart", as Weber contemptuously remarked, was the final outcome of the "Protestant ethic". (It is now upon us to prove him wrong on that charge.)

One of sociology's definitive texts........2004-01-08

Max Weber (1864-1920) is usually considered (with Emile Durkheim) one of the founding fathers of modern sociology. Weber's interests in economics, law, bureaucracy, and religion led to some of the most scintillating writing ever produced in the social sciences, and his strenuous originality of thought, dense but lucid prose, and formidable analytical gifts invested his writings with lasting significance. For a good place to start in exploring the works of this great scholar, "The Protestant Ethic and the 'Spirit' of Capitalism" would do nicely.

This is one of the definitive texts in the history of sociology, and its power and resonance can be seen in the fact that it remains in print nearly a hundred years after it first appeared. In it, Weber traces the history and philosophical components of what he calls the "spirit of capitalism," which is the worldview, arising originally out of the Calvinist concept of "predestination," of the fulfillment of a worldly occupation (or "calling") as the appropriate task of pious men who were understandably worried about their fate in the afterlife.

Because Calvinism and later forms of protestant religious practice placed an emphasis on overcoming the anxiety induced by predestination, the methodical distraction of immersion in a worldly occupation evolved into a view of lawful financial toil and accumulation of capital as an ethical end in itself. With the eventual stripping away of the spiritual components of this idealism, we were left with the tradition of the following of a calling and the moral "goodness" of this worldly profession, the moral goodness, in other words, of economic participation and productivity.

Weber's brilliant and tightly argued thesis I find persuasive, though it has never ceased to be controversial. We can see reflections of his ideas, however, in the modern tendency of "conservative" Christians to be radically anti-government and anti-regulation when it comes to business. The idea of poverty as a gift from God to motivate the lazy, which many of the Christians described by Weber used to justify their own obsessive accumulation of wealth and refusal to redistribute it, is also evident in the social Darwinist tendencies of contemporary American Christians. The fact that this approach to worldly life is diametrically opposed to Jesus' example and his teachings in, for example, the Sermon on the Mount, does not at all trouble these people, many of whom are about as likely to actually read the Bible as they are to vote Democrat. Like the Calvinists and Puritans in Weber's analysis, their self-satisfaction exceeds any pangs they might receive from their inconvenient consciences.

"The Protestant Ethic and the 'Spirit' of Capitalism" is often held up as a stinging refutation of the Marxist concept of historical materialism. In short, Weber proposes culture and society as the fundamental influence on historical and economic change, whereas Marx held that economics alone was the base which dictated to the superstructure. To me, both ideas are compelling, and a full understanding of the implications they contain can only come from reading both and deciding for yourself.

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The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Max Weber
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Book Description

For the first time in 70 years, a new translation of Max Weber's classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism--one of the most enduring and influential books in sociology--is available. Translator Stephen Kalberg is an internationally acclaimed Weberian scholar. In this Third Edition, Kalberg offers a precise and nuanced rendering of The Protestant Ethic that captures Weber's style as well as the unusual subtlety of his descriptions and causal arguments. Kalberg's standardization of Weber's terminology facilitates understanding of the various twists and turns in his complex lines of reasoning. Weber's original italicization, highlighting major themes, has been restored. A glossary of major terms has been added. In short, The Protestant Ethic thesis is presented in a clear and highly readable manner. There are three compelling reasons to read this classic: * It explores the continuing debate regarding the origins and legacy of modern capitalism in the West. * It helps the reader better understand economic development today around the world, especially in Russia, Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America. * It plumbs the deep cultural forces that affect contemporary work life and the workplace in the United States and Europe. In his introduction, Kalberg examines the controversy that has surrounded this book for nearly a century and summarizes major aspects of Weber's complex analysis. Kalberg also discusses The Protestant Ethic in the context of Weber's other writings. Finally, Kalberg investigates the contribution of this classical study for understanding the role played by cultural forces in modern economic development and discusses the wide-ranging impact today of ascetic Protestantism on the American work ethic. The Third Roxbury Edition includes Weber's 1906 essay "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism." Written after his extensive travels in the United States in 1904, Weber comments here on the diverse ways in which the legacies of early American Protestantism remain influential. Also included in this edition are Weber's masterful prefatory remarks to his Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion, in which he defines the uniqueness of Western Societies and asks what "ideas and interests" combined to call forth modern Western rationalism. For students, The Protestant Ethic is a starting point toward understanding the multiple dimensions of social change. The continuing debates about the main elements of modern life--capitalism, our "common sense" economic determinism and "rational choices," relationships between cultural forces and social structures, the tension between religion and science, the cultural foundations of democracy, economic cultures and business ethics, and the future of modern capitalism--are very much part of the Weberian project. Small wonder, then, that The Protestant Ethic continues to be one of the most frequently assigned readings in sociology.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (The Scribner Library) (The Scribner library)

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The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (The Scribner Library) (The Scribner library)
Max Weber
Manufacturer: Scribner's
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The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism

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The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism
Max Weber
Manufacturer: Scribner
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Centennial Rumination on Max Weber's the Protestant Ethic And the Spirit of Capitalism: The Protestant Ethic And the Spirit of Capitalism

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Centennial Rumination on Max Weber's the Protestant Ethic And the Spirit of Capitalism: The Protestant Ethic And the Spirit of Capitalism
Mark D. Isaacs
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ASIN: 1581123108

Book Description

In 1904-1905 Max Weber published the sociological classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In this book Weber argues that religion, specifically "ascetic Protestantism" provided the essential social and cultural infrastructure that led to modern capitalism. Weber's suggests that Protestantism has "an affinity for capitalism." Indeed, something within Protestantism—by accident or design—creates the necessary preconditions that lead to the flowering of a just, free, and prosperous society. At the same time, Weber wonders if the economic backwardness of certain societies and regions of the world are somehow related to their religious affiliation. Weber's century old thesis challenges the erroneous core assumptions of many secular humanists, postmoderns, Roman Catholic traditionalists, and Islamists. In view of the threat of the War on Terror, and in the face of the inadequate response of secularist and post-modern intellectuals, it is vital that we understand and appreciate the profound paradigm shift that occurred during the sixteenth and seventeenth century that led to the unfolding of modern capitalism. Despite a plethora of critics Max Weber's one-hundred year old thesis still stands.

In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism: An Essay on Max Weber's Protestant Ethic Thesis

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Good overview of Max Weber's thesis
thte spirt of capitalism

In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism: An Essay on Max Weber's Protestant Ethic Thesis
Gordon Marshall
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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Customer Reviews:

Good overview of Max Weber's thesis .......2004-08-04

I remember to have read the book several years ago. It summarizes very fairly the literature on this issue up to the beginning of the 80s, and concludes that Weber sketched but did not prove his thesis on the influence of protestant ethic upon the spirit of capitalism.

As far as I know, some classic books on this are "Religion and the Rise of Capital-ism", by R. H. Tawney; "Capitalism, Protestantism, and Catholicism", by Amintore Fanfani; or "The Crisis of the 17th Century: Religion, the Reformation, and Social Change" by Hugh Trevor-Roper. More recently, I would recommend to read "The Reformation: A History", by Diarmaid MacCulloch, or "The Spirit of Capitalism : Nationalism and Economic Growth" by Liah Greenfeld.

Weber's opinion is linked one of the most controversial issues nowadays on long-term and comparative history: why Western countries have dominated the world during the last few centuries (there is no agreement on the very way the question is posed!). On this I would recommend to read "The world economy. A millennial perspective" by Angus Maddison; "The Great Divergence", by Kennetz Pomeranz; "Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland : Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800-1830" by Victor Lieberman; and "The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization" by John Hobson.

thte spirt of capitalism.......2002-04-25

what is the thesisi of the book

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In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism: An Essay on Max Weber's Protestant Ethic Thesis
Gordon Marshall
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ASIN: B000OPSYLS

La etica protestante y el espiritu del capitalismo/ The protestant ethics and the spirit of Capitalism

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La etica protestante y el espiritu del capitalismo/ The protestant ethics and the spirit of Capitalism
Max Weber
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