It was only with the emergence of modern capitalism, he suggests, that a certain ethic grew linking moral righteousness with making money. Forms of capitalism had, after all, existed in China, India, Babylon and the classical world, and they had had no special ethos driving them aside from trade and exchange. Weber’s question was: why did the richer classes in Germany, the Netherlands, Geneva and Scotland, and also the groups that became the American Puritans, want to move in this direction? Surely freedom and prosperity come about when there is less, not more, religious control? The capitalist spiritĪt the outset of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber admits that discussing the ‘spirit’ of capitalism seems pretentious.

These burghers welcomed the tyranny of Protestant control that would tightly regulate their attitudes and behaviour.

In fact, Weber notes, it was the very laxness of the Catholic Church in terms of moral and societal rules that turned the bourgeois middle classes against it.

The conventional explanation was that in the 16th and 17th centuries, particular towns and regions in Germany had thrown off the rule of the Catholic church and, in the sudden freedom from a repressive regime controlling every aspect of their lives, they were able to pursue their economic interests and become prosperous. Protestants also had higher levels of educational achievement. Weber noticed that in the Germany of his time, the business leaders and owners of capital, not to mention the majority of higher-skilled workers and managers, were Protestant as opposed to Catholic. Have you ever thought much about the economic system into which you were born? Would you say there was a ‘spirit’ that moves it? Sociologist Max Weber was fascinated by the influence of thoughts and beliefs in history, and particularly why religion seemed to be a significant factor in determining levels of wealth. The spirit of capitalism is not greed and consumption but the creation of order and the best use of resources.

Max weber the protestant ethic