stratification, and bureaucracy. He offered a methodology of the social sciences that was influential in the development of systems of inquiry into the nature of social science.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published in the form of two long articles in 1904 and 1905, is one of Weber's most important and influential works. In these articles, Weber tries to show the beginnings of capitalism and to relate this to the spirit of the Reformation, that period when Protestantism developed, breaking away from the control of the Catholic Church and asserting not only a religious independence but a different social view that would also have an influence in economic matters. Weber finds that there is a connection between being Protestant and being a business leader and an owner of capital--he says that statistics show this to be a fact in his own time and also to be a historical fact:
It can be shown that some of the early centers of capitalist development in the early part of the sixteenth century were strongly Protestant.
Weber's work begins with an anomaly. It is usually thought that those whose lives are bound up with the pursuit of money are either indifferent to religion or openly hostile to it, since their actions are directed toward the material world and not the immaterial world of spirituality. Protestantism, however, demanded a more vigorous discipline than did Catholicism and thus extended the religious factor into all spheres of life, including the economic sphere. Still, as Anthony Giddens notes,
the character of Protestant beliefs and codes of behavior is quite different from that which might be expected, prima facie, to stimulate economic activity.
Weber finds that the spirit of modern capitalism is characterized by a unique combination of attitudes. On the one hand there is a dedication to amassing wealth through legitimate economic activity, and on the other hand there is an ...