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The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism
Max Weber
From Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic ami the Spirit of Callita/ism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1958 [1904-5)), pp. 47-56, 87-92, 180-3. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York. Abridged, references and most notes removed.
A large question addressed by the anthropology of religion has concerned the emer- gence of secular modernity. What is to be meant by modernity, and how does it differ from other social forms? What has been the role of religion in its formation? Here the most suggestive thinkEU" has been German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), whose concepts of rationalization and the disenchantment of the world, no less thaD the elective affinity between certain forms of religious thought and certain kinds of eco- nomic structures and activities, notably between Protestantism and capitalism, have led to rich analyses and enormous debate (e.g., Lehmann and Roth, eds. 1993). Although they were first published in 1904-5 I have placed these excerpts from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism after those of Durkheim for two reasons. The first is that Weber's contribution is in a fundamental sense more contemporary than Durkheim's. With Weber there is no recourse to universalistic evolutionary, func- tional, or determinist schemes; he is historical through and through. Furthermore, he no longer takes religion as an essence to be uncovered and defined from the bottom up, as it were, but is rather concerned with the relationships between religious factors (ideas, practices, institutions, and forms of authority) and economic and political processes. Second, Weber came to be appreciated by most anthropologists after Durkheim. If during the first half of the twentieth century Durkheim was the central figure, the second half was Weber's. This is precisely because his central concern lies with social change and specifically with the transitions to capitalism and modernity. I pluralize transitions because Weber's approach is always rigorously comparative. As Weber himself put it, he "always underscored those features in the total picture of a religion which have been decisive for the fashioning of the practical way of life, as well as those which distinguish one religion from another" (1946b [19151: 294).
THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM 51
Weber is interested in historical contingency and, specifically, the way certain reli- gious formulations and class or status positions within particular sociopolitical orders have an affinity with one another such that their conjunction forms the basis for transformative social action. This is a nondeterminist approach to historical general- ization. Where the Durkheimians look to the relationship between thought and ritual, Weber asks what a given religious formulation establishes as ethical and practical outlooks for its adherents, and conversely, which class is likely to accept and advocate such a view of the world. Ritual is only of interest insofar as a priestly group practices excessive ritualism by contrast to another status group that emphasizes intellectual rationalization, ecstatic experience, contemplation, or whatever. Weber was particu- larly interested in the rise of what he called worldly asceticism or a calling, as in the Protestant work ethic, and its relationship to processes of economic and political rationalization, as well as what he memorably referred to as the "disenchantment of the world." All of this would be enough to justify Weber's importance, but our selection indi- cates another reason for Weber's inspirational quality, namely his careful and lucid depiction of meaningful and ethical action specific to a highly particular ethos. He is a master of the art of interpretation and the elucidation of cultural difference; his use of Benjamin Franklin as an exemplary "cultural text" anticipates both interpretive anthropology and cultural studies, and does so both in its method and its unblinking ability to see the cultural basis of his own time. Weber's depictions of various types of religious institutions and in particular his discussion of charisma and its routinization have also been extremely influential. Weber's interest in theodicy is developed in the selection by Geertz (chapter 4). Finally, it should be mentioned that the applications of Weber to economically naive and politically conservative versions of modernization theory run counter to both his relativism and skepticism with respect to modernity and his own careful balancing of political and economic with cultural factors. Weber should be understood as complementary rather than opposed to Marx. Readers eager for more Weber should turn first to the three magnificent essays on religion published in From Max Weber (Gerth and Mills, eds. 1946). An essay that develops an evolutionary model of several stages from Weber's scheme is Bellah (1964), which was subsequently developed into an insightful textbook on the anthropology of religion by Peacock and Kirsch (1980).
In the title of this study is used the somewhat pretenrious phrase, the spirit of
capitalism. What is to he understood by it? The attempt to give anything like a definition of it brings out certain difficulties which arc in the vcr)' nature of this type of investigation.
If any object can be found to which this term can be applied with any under-
standable meaning, it can only be an historical individual, i.e. a complex of elements associated in historical reality which we unite into a conceptual whole from the standpoint of their cultural significance. Such an historical concept, however, since it refers in its content to a phenomenon significant for its unique individuality, cannot be defined according to the formula
gemls /JrOXi111Um, differentia specifica, but it must be gradually put together out of
the individual parts which arc taken from hiscorical reality to make it up. Thus the final and definitive concept cannot stand at the beginning of the investigation, but must come at the end. Vie must, in other words, work out in the course of the
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THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
Beware of thinking all your own that you possess, and of living accordingly. It is a mistakc that many people who have crcdit fall into. To prcvcnt this, keep an exact account for some time both of your expcnscs and your incomc. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect: you will discover how wonderfully small, trifling expenses mount up to large sums, and will discern what might havc been, and may for the future be saved, without occasioning any great inconvcnience.
For six pounds a year you may have the use of one hundrcd pounds, provided YOll are a man of known prudence and honesty. He that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above six pounds a year, which is the pricc for the use of one hundred pounds. He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilcgc of using one hundred pounds each day. He that idly loses five shillings' worth of time, loses fi\fc shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sca. He that loses five shillings, not only loses that sum, but aU the advantage that might bc made by turning it in dealing, which by thc time that a young man becomes old, will amount to a considerable sum of money.
It is Benjamin Franklin who preaches to us in these sentences, the same which Ferdinand KUrnberger satirizes in his clever and malicious Picture of American Cu/tllre as the supposed confession of faith of the Yankee. That it is the spirit of capitalism which here speaks in characteristic fashion, no one will doubt, however little we may wish to claim that everything which could be understood as pertaining to that spirit is contained in it. Let us pause a moment to consider this passage, the philosophy of which KUrnberger sums up in the words, "They make tallow out of cattle and money out of men". The peculiarity of this philosophy of avarice appears to be the ideal of the honest man of recognized credit, and above all the idea .Qf a ("A .,/_., !.
duty ohheinalvlduallo~ard thetncreaseotlfisc~lpital, which is assumed;s-;~ efl"d ""
in ~ruly-\vh-;if1Stfcrc'lyteachcals--notSTrifP1Y-:-lmeans of making one;S" ~-;y in
the world, but a peculiar ethic. The infraction of its rules is treated not as foolishness but as forgetfulness of duty. That is the essence of the matter. It is not mere business astuteness, that sort of thing is common enough, it is an ethos. This is the quality which interests us. - When Jacob Fugger, in speaking to a business associate who had retired and who wanted to persuade him to do the same, since he had made enough money and should let others have a chance, rejected that as pusillanimity and answered that "he (Fugger) thought otherwise, he wanted to make money as long as he could", the spirit of his statement is evidently quite different from that of Franklin. What in the former case was an expression of commercial daring and a personal inclination morally neutral, in the latter takes on the character of an ethiqlIy c.oloured maxim for the conduct of 0{
life. The concept spirit of 9p.italismislie(Zti~~d III rhisspccificscnse, it is th~ spi~it of " ,.'
m~ern-'cap'itaIlsm~-'for 'that we are here dealing olll}-;,vithWestern European and ..,-':' .. ,-.... I,~.• ....- American capitalism is obvious from the way in which the problem was stated. '-. i ) ,,' Capitalism existed in China, India, Babylon, in the classic world, and in the Middle v"'- r.~· Ages. But in all these cases, as we shall sec, this particular ethos was lacking. "L~' Now, all Franklin's moral attitudes are coloured with utilitarianism. Honesty is useful, because it assures credit; so arc punctuality, industry, frugality, and that is the
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54 MAX^ WEBER
,/ reason they are virtues. A logical deducation trom this would be that where, for instance, the appearance of honesty serves the same purpose, that would suffice, and an unnecessary surplus of this virtue would evidently appear to Franklin's eyes as unproductive waste. And as a matter of fact, the story in his autobiography of his conversion to those virtues, or the discussion of the value of a strict maintenance of the appearance of modesty, the assiduous belittlement of one's own deserts in order to gain general recognition later, confirms this impression. According to Franklin, those virtues, like all others, arc only in so far virtues as they are actually useful to the individual, and the surrogate of mere appearance is always sufficient when it accomplishes the end in view. It is a conclusion which is inevitable for strict utilitarianism. The impression of many Germans that the virtues professed by Americanism arc pure hypocrisy seems to have been confirmed by this striking case. Bur in fact the matter is not by any means so simple. Benjamin Franklin's own character, as it appears in the really unusual candidness of his autobiography, belies that suspicion. The circumstance that he ascribes his recognition of the utility of virtue to a divine revelation which was intended to lead him in the path of righteousness, shows that something more than mere garnishing for purely ego- centric motives is involved. o" In fact, the summum bonum of this ethic, the earning of more and more money, combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life, is above all completely devoid of any eudaemonistic, not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is
thcrugnto{-sopurelya!;-5ne'ild in itself, that from' thep()illfofvic\v~ppiness
of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and abso- lutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is ItO longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the n<!tm;l\ f!!lationship, ~o irrational from a na"iv!.;-,.P.P!nt of ~i;-w, is evide<iltly as definitely a leading principle of capitalism as it is foreign ;;;ill"peoples not under capitalistic in~Attlic saine time it expresses a type of feeling which
is closely connected with certain religious ideas. If we thus ask, ivh)' should "money
be made out of men", Benjamin franklin himself, although he was a colourless deist, answers in his autobiography with a quotation from the Bible, which his strict Calvinistic father drummed into him again and again in his youth: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings" (Prov. xxii. 29)_ The earning of money within the modern economic order is, so long as it is done legally, the result and the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling; and this virtue and proficiency are, as it is now not difficult to sec, the real Alpha and Omega of Franklin's ethic, as expressed in the passages we have quoted, as well as in all his ""works without exception.
. And in truth this peculiar idea, so familiar to us to·day, but in reality so little a matter of course, of one's duty in a Calli\lg, is what is most characteristic of the social ethic of capitalistic culture, and is in a senserhe fund;-;-ll~ntal basis of it. It is an .,~ oDliga-iiOilWlllcllme individual is supposed to feel and docs feel towards the content ,.,..I! (>' of his professional activity, no matter in what it consists, in particular no matter ..,' 'lfY ~ whether it appears on the surface as a utilization of his personal powers, or only of '~ rr I~:." his material possessions (as capital). ~ ,.. _~r Of course, this conception has not appeared only under capitalistic conditions. On c.(y~';) ';i'>- t/ the contrary, we shall later trace its origins back to a time previous to the advent of ~ ~" }, .r (: .r- "yO) ,:: ~. ..:;~ y' ./t' ..;-~...- .< 'f C' '" ~.J _t.'''j-oV _ r? r" 'i'
56 MAX WEBER
certainly of Asiatic representatives of similar trades, as well as of the craftsmen of southern European or Asiatic countries, is, as anyone can find Out for himself, very much more intense, and especially more unscrupulous than that of, say, an English- man in similar circumstances. [ ••• J
Luther's Conception of the Calling
... Although the Reformation is unthinkable without Luther's own personal reli- gious development, and was spiritually long influenced by his personality, without Calvinism his work could not have had permanent concrete Sllccess. Nevertheless, the reason for this common repugnance of Catholics and Lutherans lies, at least partly, in the ethical peculiarities of Calvinism. A purely superficial glance shows that there is here quite a different relationship between t1~gi.9}.LsJjje and~hly activity than in either Catholicism or Lutheranism. Even in literature motivated pureiy^ by religiolls factors that is evident. Take for instance the end of the Oil/inc Comedy, where the poet in Paradise stands speechless in his passive contemplation of the secrets of God, and compare it with the poem which has come to be called the Divine Comedy of Purita1tism. Milton closes the last song of Paradise Lost after describing the expulsion from paradise as fol1ows:-
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms. Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon: The world was all before them, there to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
And only a little before Michael had said to Adam:-
... Only add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith; Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love, By name to come called Charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loth To leave this Paradise, but shall possess I A Paradise within thee, happier far.
One feels at once that this powerful expression of the Puritan's serious attention to this world, his acceptance of his life in the world as a task, could not possibly have come from the pen of a mediaeval writer. But it is just as uncongenial to Lutheran-
ism, as expressed for instance in Luther's and Paul Gerhard's chorales. It is now our
task to replace this vague feeling by a somewhat more precise logical formulation, and to investigate the fundamental basis of these differences. The appeal to national character is generally a mere confession of ignorance, and in this case it is entirely untenable. To ascribe a unified national character to the Englishmen of (he seven- teenth century would be simply to falsify history. Cavaliers and Roundheads did not
THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM 57
appeal to each other simply as two parties, but as radically distinct species of men, and whoever looks into the matter carefully must agree with them. On the other hand, a difference of character between the English merchant adventurers and the old Hanseatic merchants is not to be found; nor can any other fundamental differ- ence between the English and German characters at the end of the Middle Ages, which cannot easily be explained by the differences of their political history. It was the power of religious influence, not alone, but more than anything else, which created the differences of which we arc conscious to-day. We thus take as our starting-point in the investigation of the relationship between the old Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism the works of Calvin, of Calvin- ism, and the other Puritan sects. But it is not to be understood that we expect to find any of the founders or representatives of these religious movements considering the promotion of what we have called the spirit of capitalism as in any sense the end of t. ' his life-work. We cannot well maintain that the pursuit of worldly goods, conceived ,;_,'" t as an end in itself, was to any of them of positive ethical value. O.!!cc<}nd for all it ~t~ ....<••:-." ,,' must be remembered that programmes of ethical reform never were at the centre of .!. ;. intercstIor any of the religious reformers (among whom, for our purposes, we must .". inClude men like Menno, George Fox, and Wesley). They were not the founders of societies for ethical culture nor the proponents of humanitarian projects for social
reform or cultural ideals. The salvation of the soul and that alone was the centre o~; ..~, ,'~ _,
their life and work. Their ethical ideals and the practical results of their doctrines ,~ ,-
were all based on that alone, and were the consequences of purely religious motives. ~ We shall thus havc to admit that the culrural consequences of the Reformation were to a great extent, perhaps in the particular aspects with which we arc dealing predominantly, unforeseen and even unwished-for results of the labours of the (^) ( reformers. They were oftcn far removed from or even in contradiction to all that :,,_, > ',' i" ' they themselves thought to attain./,', 'I') The following study may thus perhaps in a modest way form a conrribution,1(frhe c· 2Q': $ .' / I, understanding of the manner in which ideas become effective forces in his(ory. In 'J" order, however, to ~avoidan5' misunderstanding of the sense in which any such '.:' effectiveness of purely ideal motives is claimed at all, I may perhaps be permitted a few remarks in conclusion to this introductory discussion. In such a study, it may at once be definitely stated, no attempt is made to evaluate the ideas of the Reformation in any sense, whether it concern their social or their religious worth. We have continually to deal with aspects of the Reformation which must appear to the trulr religious consciousness as incidental and even superficial. For we are merely attempting to clarify the part which religious forces have played iell ~(t.) ':.--
forming the developing web of our specifically worldly modern culture, in the J "v.Y~:') "
complex interaction of innumerable different hisroflcaIl'icrors. We arc thus inquir- ing only to what extent certain characteristic features of this culture can be imputed to the influence of the Reformation. At the same time we must free ourselves from
the idea that it is possible to deduce the Reformation, as a historically necessary Ceo .,,"rl.. .'.' ~T"
result, from certain economic changes. Countless historical circumstances, which cannot be reduced to any economic law, and are not susceptible of economic explanation of any sort, especially purcly political processes, had to concur in order that the newly created Churches should survive at all. On the other hand, however, we have no intention whatever of maintaining such a foolish and doctrinaire thesis 1 as that the spirit of capitalism (in the provisional sense
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THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM 59
Since asceticism undertook to remodel the world and to work out its ideals in the world, material goods have gained an increasing and finally an inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history. To-day the spirit of religious asceticism - whether finally, who knows? - has escaped from the cage. But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its support no longer. The rosy brush of its laughing heir, the Enlightenmenr, seems also to be irretrievably fading, and the idea of duty in one's calling prowls about in Ollr lives like the ghost "., '.. :.. of dead religious beliefs. Where the fulfilment of the calling cannot directi}, -bcrelated ,'.". I .. ', < to the hignest spiritual and cultural values, or when, on the other hand, it need not be felt simply as economic compulsion, the individual generally abandons the attempt to justify it at all. In the field of its highest development, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually give it the character of sport. ,;' .'.~', No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great ", , " rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished ,;,) ,I "
with a sort of convulsive self-importance. For of the last stage of this cultural t \J ~"1"V ~ ,t.
development, it might well be truly said: "Specialists without spirit, sensualists ~IL' • "~' without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never. -< C~. . ,. before achieved." ~~ ...' ~-~'.:-' But this brings us to the world of judgments of value and of faith, with which this -' • purely historical discussion need not be burdened. The next task would be rather to ( (",.J, ,~,. show the significance of ascetic rationalism, which has only been touched in the \I .... , ' ','. ,-' foregoing sketch, for the content of practical social ethics, thus for the types of organization and the functions of social groups from the conventicle to the State. Then its relations to humanistic rationalism, its ideals of life and cultural influence; further to the development of philosophical and scientific empiricism, to technical development-and to spiritual ideals would have to be analysed. Then its historical development from the mediaeval beginnings of worldly asceticism to its dissolution into pure utilitarianism would have to be traced out through all the areas of ascetic
religion. Only then could the quantitative cultural significance of ascetic Protestant- c? 1.- '. 'r L ... \
ism in its relation to the other plastic elements of modern culture be estimated.:' --.. ," , .-, I-Iere we have only attempted to trace the fact and the direction of its influence to (7.,(.;'" L c,',., their motives in one, though a very important point. But it would also further be necessary to investigate how Protestant Asceticism was in turn influenced in its development and its character by the totality of social conditions, especially eco- nomic. The modern man is in general, even with the best will, unable to give religious ideas a significance for culture and national character which they deserve. But it is, of course, not my aim to substitute for a one-sided materialistic an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of history. Each is equally possible, 2 but each, if it does not serve as the preparation, but as the conclusion of an investigation, accomplishes equally little in the interest of historical truth.
NOTES
III spite of this and the following remarks, which in my opinion are clear enough, and have never been changed, I have again and again been accused of this.
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60 MAX^ WEBER
2 For the above sketch has deliberately taken up only the relations in which an influence of religious ideas on the material culture is really beyond doubt. It would have been casy to proceed beyond that to a regular construction which logically deduced everything char- acteristic of modern culture from Protestant rationalism. But that sort of thing Illay be left to the type of dilettante who believes in the unity of the group mind and its rcduceabilit), to a single formula ....
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