Weber, the Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic

It is important to understand that Weber believed capitalism was fuelled by ideas, such as Protestantism, specifically Calvinism. His belief was that Protestants were very different to Catholics, spending more time focusing on their community rather than purely focusing on their own individual families. They worked towards a common goal, to ensure they worked to their full potential. Weber claimed that Protestants experienced feelings of guilt and directed these negative emotions into their work which Weber called “The Protestant Work

As seen throughout the semester, the debates surrounding capitalism and its role in society are extensive and transcends generations. By virtue of the nature of debates, two broad positions on capitalism evolved in North American Protestantism – one position defends capitalism while the other protests capitalism. The defense of capitalism developed in the 19th century. Being one of the many authors to do so, Charles Sellers attributes the development of capitalism to the Market and Industrial Revolution (Sellers, 21). Consequently, the Second Great Awakening increased religious awareness and significance in the daily lives of Americans (Sellers, 202). Sellers argues it was only through religion that Americans could cope with the stresses of

Predestination: A main concept in Calvinism that stated that everyone’s life was predestined, for better or for worse

This dramatic increase resulted in great periods of growth and invention (Hatzifotis, 2017). Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism looked at the relationship between Protestantism and the emergence of modern capitalism. He discussed how Protestant’s involvement in business and profiting was

Jonathan Klemens 's in his essay “The Protestant Work Ethic: Just Another 'Urban Legend?” claims that the American work ethic, despite many saying otherwise, is still deeply rooted in American society. He states that this work ethic is personified in the persons who find their work both personally enjoying and a service to society. In other words, people who have found their passion. He goes on to explain that this dedication to hard work is exemplified by the existence of societies such as the Amish, Shakers, Mennonites, and the Hutterites.

Predestination, in the dictionary, is said to be "the doctrine that God in consequence of his foreknowledge of all events infallibly guides those who are destined for salvation." Scripture has 2 very good passages for defining what predestination is: Jeremiah 1:5 which says "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." God is talking about Jeremiah in this passage and how God chose him before time; he was predestined for his job. Romans 8:28-30 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed

In their studies of human behaviour a group of psychologists looked at how Weber’s theories outlined in the Protestant Work Ethic apply to the beliefs of conservative Americans. They discovered that many of the values were intertwined with and followed onto similar beliefs; their experiment found that “hard work yields desirable outcomes and anti-leisure predicted belief in a just world; the dimensions of centrality of work and anti-leisure attitudes predicted social dominance; and the dimensions of morality/ethics, self-reliance, anti-leisure predicted right-wing authoritarianism.” (Christopher et al. 2008) These results are interesting and undoubtedly explain how the values of Protestantism have formed political and economic values in conservative circles. Some of the ideas that arise from this line of thinking are that socio-economic status is due to one’s own merits; that if you work hard enough God will bless you with spiritual and financial success; and, leading on from this, that welfare is not only a crutch for the lazy and incompetent but it actually circumvents god’s will. This type of thinking ignores systematic disadvatages faced by minorities and the poor by saying there is an even playing field in which anyone can succeed if they try hard enough. The values of Protestant Christianity are clearly highly useful for supporting and scaffolding

‘Capitalism’ can be loosely defined as ‘An economic and political system in which countries trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.’ Being the driving

Capitalism has been the subject of ethical criticism since it was first introduced into society. I defend the morality of capitalism because it gives people incentive to work, establishes a web of trust between them, satisfies their material well-being, and generates a wide spectrum of prosperity.

Capitalism started up as a system of investing and sharing money in order to increase the value of resources in the future. Capitalism was just an economic system, but then soon turned into a complex system of ethical practices. Harari defines capitalism as, “a set of teachings about how people should behave, educate their children and even think” (Harari 314). This economic system evolved along with the people that were endorsing it. Capitalism enables the rich to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. There are many benefits to capitalism, but there are downfalls as well, and these downfalls tend to be masked because of the rapid speed capitalists grow at. Harari first presents a definition for capitalism, and soon goes into great detail on why capitalism, while fast paced and unforgiving, is able to stand unwavered while other productions fail.

Capitalism is a subject that can be considered deeply controversial. There are many who tout the benefits that capitalism provides to the economy and the progress of human society. There are others who decry that it is a system which promotes selfish motives and extols profits above honesty and genuine goodness. This essay will examine the claims of each and will reach to conclude the answer to the question “is capitalism good?”

4)Weber, Max, 1864-1920.: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism /Max Weber ; translated

In short, the methodology of Marx and Weber adopted to analysis the development of capitalist society is different. Both of them may share some similarity in the sense that they included economic condition as a factor, but the differ in the sense that Marx believe in 'historical materialism' and argue that class relation of production is the sole determinant of the society; Weber, on the opposite, reject Marx's idea of economic determinism and argued that the development of capitalist society is explain by combination of unique and contingent events, such as the religion reformation of catholic church to protestant church, also led to the change in people's economic orientation and thus the development of capitalist society. Such a division in methodology is important to our understanding of their different understanding of the theory of the stratification of 'class', an important concept in the understanding of capitalist society.

This Semester has been great for me with being in Exploring the Christian Faith. It has been a good reminder and has also helped me learn more about my wonderful Lord. We discussed the idea of Predestination, but I will be exploring it even more. Let’s first start off with a definition of predestination. As a doctrine in Christian theology, the divine foreordaining of all that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others. It has been particularly associated with the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo and of Calvin. Let’s break this definition down even a bit more. First, a doctrine is a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group, which makes since because we are talking about Christian Theology. St. Augustine helped form the idea of Neoplatonism. There are many different views of what actually predestination means and how literal is should be taken.

For Weber, the idea of rationalism rational thought based on societal efficiency and productivity, runs through his works particularly The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In this seminal work, Weber argues that the idea of Protestantism contributes to history and economics in that piety and the chance for a better life after death cause humans to strive for economic gain in certain ways, whereas that is not always using work as an expression of self - it is work, as Marx might say, for the ends justifying the means, rather than the means justifying what work is being done. Authority, then, rather than being solely economic, does have at its