Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

[Darcy88]

I am presently reading this book. It looks fascinating. It appears non-ideological, a real "rational" study of how religion and economics, Protestantism and Capitalism, interact. I am only a chapter in but already my mind has been pricked by a thousand thorns, a large number of questions.

If anyone wants to read this book with me, or read my interpretations of it as I progress through the text, this thread is here for that reason.

I have never read Weber before. His is a name I've encountered many times and I've often wondered what he and his philosophy were all about. Now I am going to figure that all out.

[Delta40]

Verstehen!

[Freudian Monkey]

I'd love to hear what you find out, don't know much about Weber myself.

[Darcy88]

The book's main objective seems to be to peg down the explanation behind the 19th century Protestant political and economic dominance. At the time the book was written, the world was largely at the mercy of the great empires of Britain and Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Of course Russia and France and the Ottoman Empire were all forces to be reckoned with, it is obvious if one looks at a global map from this era that Britain and the Germanic states held the most power. Weber died about a year after world war 1 ended.

The book focuses on capitalism, on the link between Protestantism and Catholicism. He is trying to discover why the industrial revolution happened, and he believes that Christian faith played a major role in its inception and domination. It really is one of the great phenomena of all human history, the industrial revolution, and considering how religious the world was at the time, it makes sense that religion did play a major role. At that time it seems like politics and war and religion were all mashed up, all complexly inter-related. This has been the case throughout human history I figure, but at this time, the linkages were all the more apparent.

I love history. I love politics, religion, military history. I am really enjoying this book. The prose is clear and concise. Weber knew how to write in my opinion. He is no Hegel or Kant using obsfucation to appear all the more insightful.

[OrphanPip]

Max Weber is hugely influential, but his lack of empiricism leads to some big gaping holes in his ideas. Like the fact that many Protestant countries, like those of Scandinavia, industrialized later than Catholic ones like France and Italy. Also, many have since pointed out that Capitalism has its routes in Italy and that Adam Smith was influenced by Italian and French economists.

Even so Weber is important for influencing an approach to sociology, history, and economics that is less reductive than his predecessors.

Edit: The Austro-Hungarian empire was majority Catholic just as an aside.

[Darcy88]

Edit: The Austro-Hungarian empire was majority Catholic just as an aside.

I did not know that. That is indeed a large hole in his hypothesis. Interesting.

[mal4mac]

Didn't Netherlands, England, Scotland and Germany lead the industrial revolution? Perhaps Austro-Hungry and France had to start working hard just to keep up? (This is a question not a suggestion! I know nothing about industrialisation in catholic countries...) A quick Google search indicates the Brits had a lot to do with industrialising France!

http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/048.html

Weber's "protestant work ethic" thesis still holds strong:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/08/weekinreview/the-world-why-america-outpaces-europe-clue-the-god-factor.html

I've cast off my Calvinist roots and like to work as little as possible. Unless dredging the web for pages on Weber is work? ;)

[OrphanPip]

People will often point out that the Belgians industrialized quicker than the Dutch, despite being largely Catholics. Weber's theory requires that you attribute everything to culture rather than circumstances, the alternative extreme is Marx who attributes everything to larger historical forces. I think it very unlikely that either Marx or Weber were right about the origins of capitalism. And what does it mean to say the USA is productive because it is Protestant (it's 51% protestant), it requires you ignore the cultural contributions of broad swathes of America. There is also the issue of the American South not industrializing (i.e. their clinging to the slave trade and an agro based economy) well past the period of the North's industrialisation. Religiously they were pretty much the same as the North, but circumstances caused them to develop differently, not religion.

[Darcy88]

He also presents a stark dichotomy between the spirits of Catholics and Protestants. He says a Catholic is predisposed to a quiet life of luxury while a Protestant rather favors a life of action, of business and mercantilism and travel. He says that Catholics prefer a humanistic education to a more practical one. I don't know if these claims are true. I think climate has as much to do with these differences as religion. And its kind of hard to call the French lazy and given to luxury when it was her great armies under Napoleon which conquered much of Europe.

Britain is an island,and therefore like Athens she was forced, by accident as much as by any natural inclination, to build a grand navy. In building her great navy Britain built the mechanism it needed to conquer so much of the then known world both politically and economically.

So geography, as much as if not more than religion, is a historical force which shapes national destinies.

Claiming that the British were successful because of Protestantism is like saying that Athens was so successful because of the intervention of her patron gods, or because of some power she derived from her mysteries.

[Freudian Monkey]

I agree that material variables seem to have a larger role in shaping the history of mankind than cultural factors like religion. I'm not sure how Weber sees this, but in my understanding cultural structures are always shaped to fit the sociocultural context and in many cases they're directly affected by economic and environmental factors. Thus it would seem that protestantism has been cultivated by Western imperialists to suit their political and financial interests, not the other way around.

[Darcy88]

I agree totally Freudian Monkey.

[mal4mac]

Britain is an island,and therefore like Athens she was forced, by accident as much as by any natural inclination, to build a grand navy. In building her great navy Britain built the mechanism it needed to conquer so much of the then known world both politically and economically.

So geography, as much as if not more than religion, is a historical force which shapes national destinies.

Japan is a collection of islands similar in size to the UK. Why didn't they build a navy? I think you might make a good case for religion being the difference - Buddhist meditation isn't really a good basis for a work ethic (although the work that does get done - haiku, painting.... is surely very impressive...)

P.S. Not criticising Buddhism here at all - less idiots running around doing stuff would surely be a very good thing - more Buddhism please!

[OrphanPip]

Japan didn't really exist as a unified nation state until the early 19th century. It's an archipelago after all, which made it difficult for any one political power to control the entire country. The country was at near perpetual civil war from the 12th century.

It also had to deal with the military threat of China.

[Darcy88]

Japan is a collection of islands similar in size to the UK. Why didn't they build a navy? I think you might make a good case for religion being the difference - Buddhist meditation isn't really a good basis for a work ethic (although the work that does get done - haiku, painting.... is surely very impressive...)

P.S. Not criticising Buddhism here at all - less idiots running around doing stuff would surely be a very good thing - more Buddhism please!

I'm not buddhist, but this here is what Buddhists are capable of. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRSzBzgVEUA And then there are the Thai fighters who crack skulls and snap limb bones for a living. During world war 2 Buddhist meditation techniques were taught to the Japanese fighters by the masters, the same masters many Western Buddhists read and cherish today, and taught to kill with dharma, with peace.

Eastern religion is just as brutal as western. We know Judaism and Christianity and Islam better, and the fertile crescent is an area where there are are scant resources and therefore more incentive to make war.

But the Buddhists are just as violent as the rest.

[Carroll]

I registered with this forum after seeing your post on Weber. I found the book in PDF and look forward to reading it.
Several centuries ago I was in graduate school studying Modern European Intellectual History. I have been rolling in the dough from that ever since. No, actually, the war in SE Asia brought a stop to my studies--it just seems like centuries ago. And the dough from History never baked.
I see the discussion seems to re-emerge every couple weeks. Comments so far are about Weber's broad thesis. I am curious to see if Weber considered my hunch, namely that an economic system will evolve much as life forms adapt to new conditions. So the science and other advancements of the Renaissance made possible competing modes of production to go head to head with feudalism. (Or alternately, nature always seeks the laziest path such as electrons finding the most stable coupling. In this case, capitalism, once bookkeeping and modern sea-going ships appeared) proved the easier road to wealth… wealth, that peculiar animal of human civilization.) Did he read Darwin?
But of course I haven't started reading yet and you are probably well into it. If you would post what chapter you are reading I would jump to that and try to find a common handle on Weber despite my ignorance of the earlier chapters.

[Shevek]

Keep in mind Weber also talks about the state as conducive to the development of capitalism. Protestant culture laid the foundations for competitive industry, but it hasn't remained this way. The West became ruled by secular bureaucratic rule, and this was the logical result of bestowing authority onto the Protestant principles of efficiency and thrift. I don't agree with this at all, because clearly capitalism has developed and is still developing in places where Protestantism is not the main religion. His point about the state growing with and shaping capitalism, however, is useful and can be supported better by history. Unlike Marx's account where the state is merely a tool of capitalists, Weber seems to suggest that the bureaucratic modern state is inseparable from capitalist principles.

[Freudian Monkey]

Keep in mind Weber also talks about the state as conducive to the development of capitalism. Protestant culture laid the foundations for competitive industry, but it hasn't remained this way. The West became ruled by secular bureaucratic rule, and this was the logical result of bestowing authority onto the Protestant principles of efficiency and thrift. I don't agree with this at all, because clearly capitalism has developed and is still developing in places where Protestantism is not the main religion. His point about the state growing with and shaping capitalism, however, is useful and can be supported better by history. Unlike Marx's account where the state is merely a tool of capitalists, Weber seems to suggest that the bureaucratic modern state is inseparable from capitalist principles.

Could there be a difference between the development of capitalism and merely adopting the capitalistic model from other (presumably more developed) nations? Maybe the Third World countries aren't necessarily developing their own capitalism, instead they merely adopt it directly from the West.

[Shevek]

Could there be a difference between the development of capitalism and merely adopting the capitalistic model from other (presumably more developed) nations? Maybe the Third World countries aren't necessarily developing their own capitalism, instead they merely adopt it directly from the West.

I would say capitalism in China is a lot different from capitalism in Canada and the USA, and Western European capitalism different from both. The beliefs of liberalism did not motivate China to industrialize, yet they played a large part in the industrialization of the West. We can debate whether China's alleged lack of liberalism will lead to its economic decline, but my point is that Weber's focus on culture as the ultimate origin of capitalism is misguided. I do not think capitalist economies in Third World countries popped out of a vacuum -- surely they were heavily influenced by Western practices and intervention -- but there are significant differences between them that are obscured when capitalism is conflated with Protestant culture.