The Protestant Ethic & The Spirit of Capitalism

Weber, as we read in Anthony Giddens' Introduction, wrote this book "at a pivotal period of his intellectual career, shortly after his recovery from a depressive illness that had incapacitated him from serious academic work for a period of some four years" (Weber 1). Before that time, Weber's works had been primarily "technical researches in economic history, economics and jurisprudence" (Weber 1). In other words, Weber's "depressive illness" in one way or another apparently had a profound impact on his work in general and on his writing of this book specifically. He emerged from that depression intent on producing works which went more deeply into essential human and social concerns, specifically concerns related to universal truths about man and his culture:

A product of modern European civilization, studying any problem of universal history, is bound to ask himself to what combination of circumstances the fact should be attributed that in Western civilization . . . cultural phenomena have appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a line of development having universal significance and value (Weber 13).

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ts, but in "its purely religious characteristics" (45). In Chapter 2, Weber argues that the force which drives the society to engage in capitalism and gain profit is an ethical force. In other words, engaging in the activity of capitalism and winning profits are signs of ethical qualities in the character of the capitalist. Capitalism is not merely economic, but also ethical, religious, in Weber's estimation: "The earning of money within the modern economic order is, so long as it is done legally, the result and the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling" (53-54). In Chapter 3, Weber delves into the idea of that "calling" as conceived by Luther, the founder of Protestantism. Catholicism has no such idea for laypeople, Weber says. Simply put, "the only way of living acceptably to God was . . . solely through the fulfillment of the obligations imposed upon the individual by his position in the world. That was his calling" (80). The bulk of this chapter seems to be to dismiss Luther and Lutheranism as central cogs in the machinery which produced the connection between capitalism and Protestantism. He turns instead to Calvin and Calvinism. What Weber concludes in Chapter 4 is that the ascetic trend of Calvinism sought t
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Approximate Word count = 1519
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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