Weber: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The calling. Luther's conception that a person's worldly occupation is a calling assigned by God, so that fulfilling one's duty in worldly affairs is the highest form of moral activity, replacing the monastic withdrawal which the Reformation rejected. Religious value is transferred from withdrawal from the world to work within it.

Predestination. The Calvinist doctrine that God has determined the salvation or damnation of each person, and that nothing a person does can alter it, nor can any priest or sacrament assist.

The psychological consequence, which is the mechanism of the whole argument and must be given carefully. Predestination produced an unbearable anxiety: the believer could do nothing to earn salvation and could not know whether they were among the elect. Two counsels were given by pastors: that one must consider oneself chosen, since doubt is a temptation; and that methodical work in a calling is the best means of attaining the self-confidence that one is. Success in a calling came in practice to be read as a sign of election, not as its cause.

Worldly asceticism. The believer must labour methodically and must not enjoy the fruits, since idleness and luxury are sinful. Consumption is restrained while earning is a duty.

The unintended result. Earn as much as possible and spend as little as possible, and the difference accumulates. Capital formation is the by-product of a religious anxiety, and this is the thesis in one sentence.

Weber's own emphasis on unintendedness is essential to a good answer. No Calvinist set out to build capitalism, and the effect was the reverse of what the doctrine intended, which is precisely the kind of causal claim his method permits: an idea produced conduct whose consequences nobody sought.

The iron cage

Weber's conclusion, and the part that shows he was not celebrating.

Once the capitalist order was established, it no longer needed the religious support that had produced it. The attitude persisted, detached from its origin, and became a compulsion: the modern economic order, he said, now determines the lives of all who are born into it with irresistible force, and the care for external goods has become an iron cage.

The image belongs with the rationalisation and disenchantment of [Weber: Social Action and Its Types], and it is why he is the least optimistic of the founders.

Weber's India study

Usually omitted and directly relevant to this syllabus, so it belongs in an answer for this University.

What he did. Having argued that ascetic Protestantism favoured the development of rational capitalism, Weber examined other civilisations to test whether their religious ethics had the same effect. His study of Hinduism and Buddhism is part of that comparative programme.

What he argued. That features of Indian religion and of the caste order it sanctioned worked against the development of the ethic he had described: hereditary occupation restricted mobility between callings; ritual considerations governed conduct that a purely economic calculation would have decided differently; and the religious ideal of release was directed away from methodical worldly activity rather than into it.

The criticisms, which are substantial and must be given. He relied on textual sources rather than on observed practice; he underrated the Indian mercantile communities whose conduct was systematically acquisitive by any measure, and whose caste networks supplied credit, information and enforcement as [Social Determinants of Economic Development] notes; and later economic history has questioned the picture of a static traditional economy on which the argument rests.

The balanced conclusion: Weber's comparative method is sound and his particular account of India is the weakest part of his work. Saying both is what a good answer does.

The criticisms of the main thesis

1. Capitalism preceded Calvinism. Commercial capitalism flourished in the Italian city states and in Catholic Flanders before the Reformation, which is the most serious historical objection.
2. Reverse causation. Capitalist development may have produced the Protestant ethic rather than the other way round, since a doctrine congenial to commercial classes may have been adopted by them.
3. The doctrine does not entail the conduct. Predestination might as easily have produced fatalism as anxiety, and Weber's mechanism relies on the pastoral advice given rather than on the doctrine itself.
4. The correlation is disputed. Later work has questioned the statistical association Weber began from, arguing that it reflects literacy, urbanisation, or the position of religious minorities.
5. Other minorities behaved similarly. Jewish, Parsi, Jain and other trading communities display the same disciplined acquisitive conduct without the Calvinist doctrines, which suggests that the position of a minority in a society may explain more than its theology.
6. Marxist objection: the argument mistakes an effect for a cause, since the religious ideas that spread were those which suited the rising bourgeoisie.

What survives

That ideas are an independent causal factor in social and economic development, which is the thesis's real point and which no serious account now denies.

The comparative method, which is a model of how a hypothesis about one civilisation is tested against others.

The concept of the spirit of capitalism, and the distinction between the universal desire for gain and the specific disciplined ethic modern capitalism requires.

The link to law, which is the reason to remember this chapter on this syllabus. In the same body of work Weber identified the institutional preconditions of modern rational capitalism: formally free labour, rational accounting, a rational administration, and a calculable legal system. The legal order is on Weber's own list of what capitalism required, and that proposition, developed in [Social Determinants of Economic Development], is the most useful thing a law student can take from him.

A worked example

Take any of India's long-established mercantile communities.

What is observed: systematic and continuous pursuit of profit; accounting practice of some sophistication; restraint in personal consumption relative to earnings; reinvestment; and the treatment of business obligation as a matter of honour, enforced within the community.

What is absent: Calvinist doctrines of predestination and the calling, entirely.

What the case shows. The spirit of capitalism in Weber's sense can arise without the Protestant ethic he identified as its source. That does not refute the thesis about Europe, which was a historical claim about how it arose there; it does show that the ethic has other possible sources, and it suggests that the position of a cohesive minority group, needing internal trust and enforcement and excluded from other avenues, may generate the same disposition.

This is the strongest way to answer a question on Weber for an Indian examiner: state the thesis correctly, state Weber's own extension of it to India, and then test both against Indian material rather than reciting them.

Quick revision

1. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1904 to 1905.
2. The spirit of capitalism is not greed, which is universal: it is the systematic, disciplined pursuit of profit as a duty and an end in itself, combined with asceticism about enjoying it. Franklin's maxims are the illustration.
3. The calling (Luther): worldly occupation is a divine calling, so religious value moves from withdrawal into work.
4. Predestination (Calvin): salvation is determined and nothing can alter it. Its psychological consequence was anxiety, met by the counsel to work methodically in a calling and to read success as a sign of election.
5. Worldly asceticism: earn as much as possible, spend as little as possible, so the difference accumulates. Capital formation was an unintended by-product of a religious anxiety.
6. The iron cage: the order, once built, no longer needs its religious support and compels those born into it.
7. The India study: hereditary occupation, ritual regulation of conduct and an ideal directed away from worldly activity. Criticised for using texts not practice and for underrating Indian mercantile communities.
8. Criticisms: capitalism preceded Calvinism; reverse causation; the doctrine could equally produce fatalism; the correlation is disputed; other minorities behaved identically without the doctrines.
9. Survives: ideas are an independent causal factor; the comparative method; and Weber's list of institutional preconditions, which includes a calculable legal system.

Test yourself

1. What is the spirit of capitalism, and why is it not simply greed? The systematic, disciplined and continuous pursuit of profit, treated as a duty and as an end in itself, combined with asceticism about enjoying what is earned, so that profit is reinvested rather than consumed. It is not greed because the desire for gain is universal and found in every society and period; what is distinctive is the attitude, in which work becomes a duty, time a resource not to be wasted, and accumulation an obligation rather than a means to enjoyment, which from the point of view of personal happiness is irrational and therefore requires explanation.

2. Explain the mechanism linking predestination to capital accumulation. Calvinist predestination held that salvation is determined and that nothing a person does can alter it or be assisted by priest or sacrament, which produced acute anxiety since the believer could not know whether they were among the elect. Pastoral counsel advised that one must consider oneself chosen and that methodical labour in a calling is the best means of attaining that self-confidence, so success in a calling came to be read as a sign of election. Combined with worldly asceticism, which forbade enjoyment of the fruits, this produced the injunction to earn as much and spend as little as possible, and the difference accumulated as capital.

3. Why is it wrong to say that Weber held Protestantism caused capitalism? Because he denied the crude version expressly. His claim was the narrower one that ideas are an independent causal factor in social and economic development and that a purely economic explanation is incomplete, not that religion is the cause of capitalism. He also emphasised that the effect was unintended: no Calvinist set out to build a capitalist economy, and the accumulation of capital was a by-product of a religious anxiety, which is a different kind of causal claim from the one usually attributed to him.

4. What did Weber argue about India, and what is wrong with it? That features of Indian religion and of the caste order it sanctioned worked against the development of the ethic he had described, since hereditary occupation restricted movement between callings, ritual considerations governed conduct that economic calculation would have decided otherwise, and the religious ideal of release directed effort away from methodical worldly activity. The criticisms are that he relied on textual sources rather than observed practice, that he underrated Indian mercantile communities whose conduct was systematically acquisitive and whose caste networks supplied credit and enforcement, and that the picture of a static traditional economy has been questioned by later economic history.

5. Give three criticisms of the main thesis. That capitalism preceded Calvinism, since commercial capitalism flourished in the Italian city states and in Catholic Flanders before the Reformation. That the causation may run the other way, a doctrine congenial to commercial classes having been adopted by them rather than having produced them. And that other trading minorities, Jewish, Parsi and Jain among them, displayed the same disciplined acquisitive conduct without Calvinist doctrines, which suggests that the position of a cohesive minority requiring internal trust and excluded from other avenues may explain more than theology does.