What Is The Relationship Between The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism
In his writing The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber argues that the religious ideas of groups played a role in creating the capitalistic spirit. He examines the correlation between being Protestant and being involved in business, after which he attempts to explore religion as a potential catalyst of the modern economic condition. Weber believes that the modern spirit of capitalism profit is virtuous. He wants to understand the source of this spirit, for this he looks at Protestantism for a potential explanation. Protestantism gives us the concept of the worldly "calling," and gives worldly activity a religious character. This is important, however Weber says that it does not give us the explanation we are searching for. For this explanation we turn to a branch of Protestantism called Calvinism. Calvinists believe in predestination--that God has already determined who is saved and damned. Weber says that as Calvinism developed, a deep psychological need for clues about whether
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He says that the main purposed of capitalism is to make more money even though it is not fulfilling other human needs. “In fact, the summum bonum of this ethic, the earning of more and more money combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life, is above all completely devoid of any eudaemonistic, not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational.” (pg 233) It is also in this passage that we see that Weber’s definition of capitalism is different than those that we have studied in the past. For example, Marx defined capitalism as a mode of production where capital is acquired through exploiting the working class. Yet Weber says that capitalism requires a more rational moneymaking
He says that the main purposed of capitalism is to make more money even though it is not fulfilling other human needs. “In fact, the summum bonum of this ethic, the earning of more and more money combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life, is above all completely devoid of any eudaemonistic, not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational.” (pg 233) It is also in this passage that we see that Weber’s definition of capitalism is different than those that we have studied in the past. For example, Marx defined capitalism as a mode of production where capital is acquired through exploiting the working class. Yet Weber says that capitalism requires a more rational moneymaking