Weber's Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism book traces its authorship from a German sociologist known as Max Weber. A part from being a professional sociologist, Max also qualifies based on professionalism to be a politician and economist in vast scopes of involvement. The book begins as a series of defined essays originally composed in German between the years 1904 and 1905. The first translation of the text to English was carried out in 1930 by Talcott Parsons. The book is thus considered as the founding text of general and economic sociology.
The protestant Ethic discussion by Weber captures on the basic religious and economic ideas. From the text, it is observed that the development of capitalism was massively affected by the emergence of Puritan ethics and ideas. The book starts in a question structure directed at addressing the basic concepts of western civilization and its significance. The ideas covering science are vastly associated to the western countries and observed to lack systematic, rational and systematic modalities of expression. The same idea is closely compared to capitalism factored on pursuit and gain on money and profit analysis. Weber concedes that capitalism has vastly been realized entirely throughout except that in west, the rate surpasses all other degrees.
Based on the Protestants point of view, people were religiously forced to follow certain secular patterns of life. These patterns were then classified as secular bringing about a great controversy in religion. Any person who opted to live according to the secular mode of life had an opportunity to make more money than could be imagined by the society. Other new religions that totally forbade wasteful use of earned money came up and considered luxurious spending as sin. These new religions include Protestantism and Calvinism. It was however seen from this new religion that money donation to the poor was considered to be a channel of promoting poverty and beggary. The only way through which such issues could be resolved was through money investment. This initiative was thus seen to boost the level of capitalism. Capitalism evolved to greater heights when the protestant group came up to incorporate influence on a larger number of people to work. Through this, individuals could come up with their own enterprises and engage in meaningful investments. The Protestants ethics forms the main force instigating capitalism development.
In this text, the author states that Northern Europe Capitalism faced rapid evolution when the Calvinist Protestants brought about ethnic influence on the secularized group of people. These people got involved in own enterprise development, trading activities as well as wealth accumulation and investments. The ethnic work force behind the Protestants brought about an abrupt mass action upon which none could trace its origin. The end result of such an undertaking brought about the whole idea of capitalism observed all through the text. Based on the capitalism concepts, the continued quest for wealth and efficacy has led to the increased reliance of economic rationalization. This concept is equally characterized by continued expanse in the governmental processes. Both governmental and corporate bureaucracies have become streamlined characterized by continuous increase in specialized labor growth. As time goes by, people have continuously opted to rely more on the scientific knowledge above religious traditions.
Although not well detailed analysis of Protestantism, Weber provides an introduction capitalized on the later studies based on both the religious and economic ideas. The core religions covered in this context include the China religion comprising of the Taoism and Confucianism, the Indian religion comprising of the Hinduism and Buddhism sociology as well as the ancient Judaism. As can be observed in this book, the advent of capitalism and protestant ethics brings about the influence of capitalism development. Religion plays a very key role and central to the thematic analysis provided in the book. Firstly, Weber places a key argument on religious devotion in association with the massive rejection of the secularism amongst the wealthy pursuit and possession in the forefront.
Weber has equally incorporated the Verstehende psychology in his book based on the social analysis are. This invites for the skeptics of raising more issues concerning the applicability of real social analysis. Weber’s social analysis works comprehensively to embody methodological conceptualizations. This is lengthily handled in the particular social analysis so as to amplify and create an extension to his methodological ideas. Similar psychological based analysis evident in Weber’s book particularly features in the sociology of religion as a chapter of society and the economy. The other part of the essay where this social concept is portrayed captures on the social psychology and religions observed in the world. Indeed, verstehende psychology greatly appears in the implementation point of view extolling the theoretical and methodological works. From the text, some basic categories of the interpretive section of the sociology advance to discover social analysis of the irrational components.
Given the scarcity observed in the recent works brings about an idealized and typical comparison in the creation of ideal types. Weber offers the best examples directed towards realization of the ideal type comparisons in action. His basic interest in the religion impacts the most common centers in economic analysis. Weber further focuses on the ideal types capturing on the social action shown in the text. Alongside the rational concepts, these ideologies work to show the difference realized between the religious values and shaped economic activities. By consistent analysis of the various religious sects evident in China and India, Weber clarifies the basis behind sociology and the ideal type of the economic action. Social action has equally been launched by the author as a strong methodological tool towards ensuring notable change in the social wing.
Workers are extremely committed to their chores making it a particular advantage to the technical occupants. Weber comes out to make note that some spirits are not just limited to the western culture when classified under attitude. In this case, only the heroic entrepreneurs failed to establish capitalism. Based on the thematic analysis observed in the text, it is clear that capitalism could face a stiff separation from the religious matters (Weber, 1958).
Weber seeks to know the main reasons why the west developed by greater figures leaving behind the other regions. Based on the findings, other societies were well prepared to perform even better but did not focus on industrialization. From this context, Weber observes that development will always remain to be a factor of some particular driving forces. In order to achieve industrialization, people in any given society must abandon all that keeps them behind and forge a head. In this context, the traditional ways appear to be the greatest stamping block to industrialization. People are usually observed to be at a state of only seeking to attain basic requirements. After achieving enough wealth to sustain their lives, they tend to stagnate. As observed in the text, Weber provides that people only strive to sustain their current living. As quoted from the text, “Any given individual will not be in the business of wish for more earning, but basically live as accustomed to and simply earn for that purpose” (Weber 1930 [1904], 60)
Calvinism was an enough encouragement for people to seek wealth. In this view, people had nothing to acquire salvation for themselves. The only option was to relax and wait to be either chosen for salvation or not. It was however evident that those who were elected showed particular traits and could be perfectly differentiated from the other classes of people. These select were naturally industrious, hard working and still attained wealth. Calvinism thus encouraged people to maximize on the wealth acquisition. Weber says that these groups of people could not just come up to make wealth and declare it enough.
The religious exaltation of systematic work continuity and restless appears as the highest state of asceticism and the most obvious proof for rebirth. Other observations from the analysis provided shows that the spirit of capitalism acts as the main core of genuine faith (Weber 1958, 172). In a condition that capitalism is realized, all the basics of ethical issues pertaining to the Protestants would not have a root. Capitalism appears to be the current immense cosmos upon which people are born. This immense cosmos then naturally presents itself to the people by individual selection (1930 [1904], p. 54).
The most observed result of rationalization has led to the depersonalization accompanied with secularization. Weber’s secularization ideas form the basis of belief systems on rationality of concepts. As shown, societies perform science focused at explaining the entire environmental occurrence on supernatural explanations. From the text, Weber concedes that as faith in the supernatural comes to a point of derailment, the religious strength of organizations should equally fall.
Reference
Weber, M. (1958) “The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism”: Translated by Talcott Parson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. New York: Galaxy.
