Religion and the Spirit of Capitalism
13.10 Explain Weber’s analysis of how religion broke tradition and brought capitalism. Max Weber disagreed with the conflict perspective. Religion, he said, does not merely reflect and legitimate the social order and impede social change. Rather, religion’s focus on the afterlife is a source of profound social change. Like Marx, Weber observed the early industrialization of Europe. As he did so, he began to wonder why some societies embraced capitalism while others held onto their traditional ways. Tradition was strong in all these countries, yet capitalism transformed some while others remained untouched. As Weber explored this puzzle, he concluded that religion held the key to modernization—the transformation of traditional societies to industrial societies. 441 To explain his conclusions, Weber wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905, 2011). He said that: Capitalism represents a fundamentally different way of thinking about work and money. Traditionally, people worked just enough to meet their basic needs, not so that they could have a surplus to invest. To accumulate money (capital) as an end in itself, not just to spend it, was a radical departure from traditional thinking. People even came to consider it a duty to invest money so they could make profits. They reinvested these profits to make even more profits. Weber called this new approach to work and money the spirit of capitalism. Why did the spirit of capitalism develop in Europe and not, for example, in China or India, where people had similar material resources and education? According to Weber, religion was the key. The religions of China and India, and indeed Roman Catholicism in Europe, encouraged a traditional approach to life, not thrift and investment. Capitalism appeared when Protestantism came on the scene. What was different about Protestantism, especially Calvinism? John Calvin taught that God had predestined some people to go to heaven and others to hell. Neither church membership nor feelings about your relationship with God could assure you that you were saved. You wouldn’t know your fate until after you died. “Am I predestined to hell or to heaven?” Calvin’s followers wondered. As they wrestled with this question, they concluded that church members have a duty to live as though they are predestined to heaven—for good works are a demonstration of salvation. This conclusion motivated Calvinists to lead moral lives and to work hard, to use their time productively, and to be frugal—because idleness and needless spending were signs of worldliness. Weber called this self-denying approach to life the Protestant ethic. As people worked hard and spent money only on necessities (a pair of earrings or a second pair of dress shoes would have been defined as sinful luxuries), they had money left over. Because the money couldn’t be spent on personal items, this capital was invested, which led to a surge in production. Weber’s analysis can be summed up this way: The change in religion (from Catholicism to Protestantism, especially Calvinism) led to a fundamental change in thought and behavior (the Protestant ethic). The result was the spirit of capitalism. For this reason, capitalism originated in Europe and not in places where religion did not encourage capitalism’s essential elements: the accumulation of capital and its investment and reinvestment. Although Weber’s analysis has been influential, it has not lacked critics. Hundreds of scholars have attacked it, some for overlooking the lack of capitalism in Scotland (a Calvinist country), others for failing to explain why the Industrial Revolution was born in England (not a Calvinist country). Hundreds of other scholars have defended Weber’s argument, and sociologists continue to test Weber’s theory (Tittenbrun 2017). Currently, sociologists are not in agreement on this matter. At this point in history, the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism are not confined to any specific religion or even to any one part of the world. Rather, they have become cultural traits that have spread to societies around the globe (Greeley 1964; Yinger 1970). U.S. Catholics have about the same approach to life as do U.S. Protestants. In addition, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan—not exactly Protestant countries—have embraced capitalism. Russia and Vietnam are in the midst of doing so.
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