Max Weber

Book Review # 104111

English > Analysis
Political Science > Political Theory

Max Weber

This paper reviews Max Weber's classic "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism".

1,125 words () | 3 sources | MLA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism", just 150 pages, has been his most influential words. The author points out that, in this breakthrough study, Weber analyzed the relationship between the spirit of abstinence and self-denial that was at the core of ascetic Protestantism and emergent spirit of industrial capitalism. The paper relates that Weber argued that the modern capitalistic spirit was drawn in large part from the intellectual and cultural background of religious creeds, particularly Calvinism. The author underscores that Weber thought that Calvinism produced a mindset suited for involvement and success in business ventures.

From the Paper:

"Weber observed that capitalism imposed the "calling" on the modern worker, while Protestantism induced it form the medieval worshiper. Asceticism helped to create the "tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order." Today, this mechanistic capitalist order dictates the lives that people live. Their attachment to material goods has become "an iron cage." Goods control the individual. At the same time, the spirit of religious asceticism has been lost. It "has escaped from the cage." Whether this was a final escape or not Weber cold not say."

Sample of Sources Used:

Bendix, Reinhard. "Weber, Max." International Encyclopiedia of the Social Sciences, David Sills, ed. (New York, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1968), Vol 16, 493=502.
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Talcott Parsons, trans. (Los Angeles, Calfiornia: Roxbury Publishing Company, 1996).
Weigand, Mark. "Protestant Ethic and Capitalism." Survey of Social Science. Frank MaGill, ed. (Pasadena, California: Salem Press, 1994), 1533-39.