The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 1 illegible passage, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~150,000 words · 707 passages
Cite this work
- APAMax Weber. (n.d.). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/max-weber/the-protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism
- MLAMax Weber. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/max-weber/the-protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism.
- ChicagoMax Weber. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/max-weber/the-protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Weber's essay tracing the origin of modern economic discipline to a religious attitude: the this-worldly asceticism of Protestantism, and of Calvinism above all.
Context and history
It appeared as two articles, in 1904 and 1905. The core is the doctrine of predestination: if you cannot know whether you are saved, methodical success in your calling comes to serve as a sign, work becomes a vocation and thrift a duty. Weber says plainly that he is not proposing a single cause, nor replacing a materialist explanation with a spiritual one: he is offering one strand. It ends with the image of the iron cage — the economic order that outlives the faith which gave rise to it. The classic English translation is Talcott Parsons's, of 1930.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Now, however, the Occident has developed capitalism both to a quantitative extent, and (carrying this quantitative development) in types, forms, and directions which have never existed elsewhere. All over the world there have been merchants, wholesale and retail, local and engaged in foreign trade. Loans of all kinds have been made, and there have been banks with the most various functions, at least comparable to ours of, say, the sixteenth century. Sea loans,* commenda^ and transactions and associations similar to the Kommanditgesellschaft y^ have all been widespread, even as continuous businesses. Whenever money finances of public bodies have existed, money- lenders have appeared, as in Babylon, Hellas, India, China, Rome. They have financed wars and piracy, contracts and building operations of all sorts. In overseas policy they have functioned as colonial entrepreneurs, as planters with slaves, or directly or indirectly forced labour, and have farmed domains, offices, and, above all, taxes. They have financed party leaders in elections and condottieri in civil wars. And, finally, they have been speculators in chances for pecuniary gain of all kinds. This kind of entrepreneur, the capitalistic adventurer, has existed everywhere. Withjthejexception of trade and credit and banking transactions, their activities' were predominantly of an irrational and speculative character, or directed to acquisition by force, above all the acquisition of booty, whether directly in war or in the form of continuous fiscal booty by exploitation of subjects.