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Weber,
Max. The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans.
Talcott Parsons. NY: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1958.
17
The impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money, of the greatest possible
amount of money, has in itself nothing to do with capitalism. . . . One may say
that it has been common to all sorts and conditions of men at all times and in
all countries of the earth, wherever the objective possibility of it is or has
been given. It should be taught in
the kindergarten of cultural history that this naive idea of capitalism must be
given up once and for all. Unlimited
greed for gain is not in the least identical with capitalism, and is still less
its spirit. Capitalism may even be identical with the restraint, or at least a rational
tempering of this irrational impulse. But
capitalism is identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed
profit, by means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise. 21-22
The modern rational organization of the capitalistic enterprise would not have
been possible without two other important factors in its development: the
separation of business from the household, which completely dominates modern
economic life, and closely connected with it, rational book-keeping. 35
A glance at the occupational statistics of any country of mixed religious
composition brings to light with remarkable frequency a situation which has
several times provoked discussion in the Catholic press and literature, and in
Catholic congresses in Germany, namely, the fact that business leaders and
owners of capital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labor, and even more
the higher technically and commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises,
are overwhelmingly Protestant. . . .
The same thing is shown in the figures of religious affiliation almost
wherever capitalism, at the time of its great expansion, has had a free hand to
alter the social distribution of the population in accordance with its needs,
and to determine its occupational structure.
The more freedom it has had, the more clearly is the effect shown. 36
the Reformation meant not the elimination of the Church's control over everyday
life, but rather the substitution of a new form of control for the previous one.
It meant the repudiation of a control which was very lax, at that time
scarcely perceptible in practice, and hardly more than formal, in favor of a
regulation of the whole of conduct which, penetrating to all departments of
private and public life, was infinitely burdensome and earnestly enforced. 42
the supposed conflict between other-worldliness, asceticism, and ecclesiastical
piety on the one side, and participation in capitalistic acquisition on the
other might actually turn out to be an intimate relationship.
As a matter of fact it is surely remarkable, to begin with quite a
superficial observation, how large is the number of representatives of the most
spiritual forms of Christian piety who have sprung from commercial circles. 43
an extraordinary capitalistic business sense is combined in the same persons and
groups with the most intensive forms of a piety which penetrates and dominates
their whole lives. 52
Now, all [Benjamin] Franklin's moral attitudes are colored with utilitarianism.
Honesty is useful, because it assures credit; so are punctuality,
industry, frugality, and that is the reason they are virtues. . . .
the story in his autobiography of his conversion to those virtues 53
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 thought of so
purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or
utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and
absolutely irrational. Man is
dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his
life. Economic acquisition is no
longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material
needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural relationship, so
irrational from a naive point of view, is evidently as definitely a leading
principle of capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic
influence. At the same time it
expresses a type of feeling which
is closely connected with certain religious ideas. If we thus ask, why should "money be made out of
men," Benjamin Franklin himself, although he was a colorless 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). 55
without doubt, in the country of Benjamin Franklin's birth (Massachusetts), the
spirit of capitalism . . . was present before the capitalistic order.
There were complaints of a peculiarly calculating sort of profit-seeking
in New England, as distinguished from other parts of America, as early as 1632. 55
Absolute and conscious ruthlessness in acquisition has often stood in the
closest connection with the strictest conformity to tradition.
Moreover, with the breakdown of tradition and the more or less complete
extension of free economic enterprise, even to within the social group, the new
thing has not generally been ethically justified and encouraged, but only
tolerated as a fact. And this fact
has been treated either as ethically indifferent or as reprehensible, but
unfortunately unavoidable. 63
The ability of mental concentration, as well as the absolutely essential feeling
of obligation to one's job, are here most often combined with a strict economy
which calculates the possibility of high earnings, and a cool self-control and
frugality which enormously increase performance. 68
there was repeated what everywhere and always is the result of such a process of
rationalization: those who would not follow suit had to go out of business.
The idyllic state collapsed under the pressure of a bitter competitive
struggle, respectable fortunes were made, and not lent out at interest, but
always reinvested in the business. The
old leisurely and comfortable attitude toward life gave way to a hard frugality
in which some participated and came to the top, because they did not wish to
consume but to earn, while others who wished to keep on with the old ways were
forced to curtail their consumption. 70
The ability to free oneself from the common tradition, a sort of liberal
enlightenment, seems likely to be the most suitable basis for such a business
man's success. 71
the ideal type of the capitalistic entrepreneur] avoids ostentation and
unnecessary expenditure, as well as conscious enjoyment of his power, and is
embarrassed by the outward signs of the social recognition which he receives.
His manner of life is, in other words, often . . . distinguished by a
certain ascetic tendency, as appears clearly enough in the sermon of Franklin .
. . . He gets nothing out of his
wealth for himself, except the irrational sense of having done his job well.
But it is just that which seems to the pre-capitalistic man so
incomprehensible and mysterious, so unworthy and contemptible.
That anyone should be able to make it the sole purpose of his life-work,
to sink into the grave weighed down with a great material load of money and
goods, seems to him explicable only as the product of a perverse instinct . . .
. 83
the moral emphasis on and the religious sanction of, organized worldly labor in
a calling 87
Although the Reformation is unthinkable without Luther's own personal religious
development, and was spiritually long influenced by his personality, without
Calvinism his work could not have had permanent concrete success. 104
a feeling of unprecedented inner loneliness of the single individual 105
That great historic process in the development of religions, the elimination of
magic from the world which had begun with the old Hebrew prophets and, in
conjunction with Hellenistic scientific thought, had repudiated all magical
means to salvation as superstition and sin, came here to its logical conclusion.
The genuine Puritan even rejected all signs of religious ceremony at the
grave and buried his nearest and dearest without song or ritual in order that no
superstition, no trust in the effects of magical and sacramental forces on
salvation, should creep in. 105
the entirely negative attitude of Puritanism to all the sensuous and emotional
elements in culture and in religion. 107
the Calvinist's intercourse with his God was carried on in deep spiritual
isolation. . . . In the description
of Christian's attitude after he had realized that he was living in the City of
Destruction and he had received the call to take up his pilgrimage to the
celestial city, wife and children cling to him, but stopping his ears with his
fingers and crying, "life, eternal life," he staggers forth across the
fields. 108
It seems at first a mystery how the undoubted superiority of Calvinism in social
organization can be connected with this tendency to tear the individual away
form the closed ties with which he is bound to this world.
But, however strange it may see, it follows from the peculiar form which
the Christian brotherly love was forced to take under the pressure f the inner
isolation of the individual through the Calvinistic faith. 158
Baxter's principal work is dominated by
the continually repeated, often almost passionate preaching of hard, continuous
bodily or mental labor. 159
Unwillingness to work is symptomatic of the lack of grace. 166
the Puritan idea of the calling and the premium it placed upon ascetic conduct
was bound directly to influence the development of a capitalistic way of life.
As we have seen, this asceticism turned with all its force against one
thing: the spontaneous enjoyment of life and all it had to offer. 169
in favor of sober utility as against any artistic tendencies.
This was especially true in the case of decoration of the person, for
instance clothing. That powerful
tendency toward uniformity of life, which today so immensely aids the
capitalistic interest in the standardization of production, had its ideal
foundations in the repudiation of all idolatry of the flesh. 172
the religious valuation of restless, continuous, systematic work in a worldly
calling, as the highest means to asceticism, and at the same time the surest and
most evident proof of rebirth and genuine faith, must have been the most
powerful conceivable lever for the expansion of that attitude toward life which
we have here called the spirit of capitalism. 172
The restraints which were imposed upon the consumption of wealth naturally
served to increase it by making possible the productive investment of capital. 176
Then, as Dowden puts it, as in Robinson
Crusoe, the isolated economic man who carries on missionary activities on
the side takes the place of the lonely spiritual search for the Kingdom of
Heaven of Bunyan's pilgrim, hurrying through the marketplace of Vanity. 180
the essential elements of the attitude which was there called the spirit of
capitalism are the same as what we have just shown to be the content of the
Puritan worldly asceticism, only without the religious basis, which by
Franklin's time had died away. 181
The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so.
For when asceticism was carried out of the monastic cells into everyday
life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the
tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order.
This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of
machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who
are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic
acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps
it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.
In Baxter's view, the care for external goods should only lie on the
shoulders of the "saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at
any moment." But fate decreed
that the cloak should become an iron cage. 182
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. |