Max Weber Sociology 100

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Max WeberSociology 100

• Time is money

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The Spirit of Capitalism

• What we understand by the spirit of capitalism
  in terms of what we deem essential from our
  point of view, is by no means the only possible
  way of understanding it. This is in the nature
  of historical concept-formation, which for its
  methodological purposes does not seek to embody
  historical reality in abstract generic concepts
  but endeavors to integrate them into concrete
  configurations which are always and inevitably
  individual in character.
• Not a conceptual definition but only a
  provisional illustration of what is here meant by
  the spirit of capitalism. (9)
• Ideal types ideal typical analysis
• Not a philosophical definition, but an emphasis
  of certain characteristics common to most
  incidences of a thing or event
• ideal referring to ideas, ? perfect

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The Spirit of Capitalism

• Ben Franklin
• Remember, that time is money. He that can earn
  ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes
  abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day,
  though his spends but sixpence during his
  diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that
  the only expense he has really spent, or rather
  thrown away, five shillings besides. (9)
• The essence of this philosophy of avarice is
  the idea of the duty of the individual to work
  toward the increase of his wealth.
• This has for Franklin the character of an
  ethically slanted maxim for the conduct of life.
  This has the specific sense in which we propose
  to use the concept of the spirit of
  capitalism. (11)

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The Spirit of Capitalism

• An unusual strength of character is required of
  the capitalist entrepreneur if he is not to lose
  his sober self-control and face moral or economic
  shipwreck. As well as energy and clarity of
  vision, he will need certain outstanding
  ethical qualities to win the absolutely
  indispensable confidence of his clients and of
  the workers when introducing these innovations
  and to maintain the vigor necessary to overcome
  the innumerable obstacles he will meet. (22)

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The Spirit of Capitalism

• All Franklins moral precepts, however, have a
  utilitarian slant. Honesty is useful because it
  brings credit. So are punctuality, hard work,
  moderation, etc., and they are only virtues for
  this reasonfrom which it would follow that the
  appearance of honesty serves the same purpose,
  then this would suffice, and any unnecessary
  surplus of this virtue would inevitably seem, in
  Franklins eyes, like unproductive and
  reprehensible profligacy.(11)

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The Spirit of Capitalism

• The summum bonum of thus ethic is the making
  of money and yet more money, coupled with a
  strict avoidance of all uninhibited enjoyment.
  Indeed, it is so completely devoid of all
  eudaimonstic, let alone hedonist, motives, so
  much purely thought of as an end in itself that
  it appears as something wholly transcendent and
  irrational, beyond the happiness or the
  benefit of mankind. (12)
• The ethic of capitalism does not require
  religious belief, and they may in modern times
  even be negatively correlated (23)
• If not a hostility to religious belief, an
  indifference toward it

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The Spirit of Capitalism

• If one were to ask capitalists what is the
  purpose of their restless chase and why they are
  never satisfied with what they have acquired
  (something which must seem inexplicable to those
  who are entirely oriented to this world), they
  would answer, if they had an answer at all, to
  provide for children and grandchildren. More
  frequently, however, ... they would answer,
  with greater justification, that business, with
  its ceaseless work, had quite simply become
  indispensable to their life. That is in fact
  their only true motivation, and it expresses at
  the same time the irrational element of this way
  of conducting ones life, whereby a man exists
  for his business, not vice versa. (23)

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The Spirit of Capitalism

• This spirit was needed only to initiate
  capitalism, not to maintain it
• Modern capitalism does not require an ethic
  Todays capitalist economic order is a monstrous
  cosmos, into which the individual is born and
  which in practice is, for him, at least as an
  individual, simply a given, an immutable shell in
  which he is obliged to live. (13)
• If he doesnt, he is selected out by economic
  forces (22)
• But it is not the product of economic forces In
  order that this conduct of life and attitude
  toward ones profession, adapted as it is to
  the peculiar requirements of capitalism, could be
  selected and emerge victorious over others, it
  obviously had to first come into being, and not
  just in individuals, but as an attitude held in
  common by groups of people. The origin of this
  attitude is therefore what needs to be
  explained. (13)
• Ideas cause social change (vs. Marx)

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Origins of the Spirit of Capitalism

• We are merely asking which of certain
  characteristic elements of modern capitalist
  culture might be attributable to the influence of
  the Reformation as historical cause.
• It is not possible that it was a historically
  necessary development as innumerable historical
  constellations, especially purely political
  processes, which do not fit into any kind of
  economic law, but fit into no economic scheme
  of any kind, had to come together in order for
  the newly created churches to continue to exist
  at all. (36)
• Nor could capitalism only have sprung from
  Protestant belief. The question is only to
  establish whether and to what extent religious
  influences have in fact been partially
  responsible for the qualitative shaping and
  quantitative expansion of the spirit of
  capitalism. (36)
• Contingency complexity of history

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Traditionalism

• Backward attitude toward work (14-17)
• Not an absence of greed
• Work not thought of as having ethical value
• When pay is raised, traditionalist laborers work
  less
• Example if 10/day of labor is raised to 20/day
  of labor, traditionalist workers go home after
  half a day
• Traditionalist Commodity ? Money ? Commodity
• Capitalist Money ? Commodity ? Money
• In the spirit of capitalism, by contrast, work is
  conceived of as though it were an absolute end
  in itselfa calling.
• Bankers in 15th C. Florence view their work
  wealth amoral or even immoral, but Puritans of
  18th C. Pennsylvania, in a fragile, poor economy,
  work is regarded as a moral good (26)
• Cannot be caused by purely material conditions

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Calling

• Now it is unmistakable that the German word
  Beruf, and even more clearly the English word
  calling, carry at least some religious
  connotationsnamely, those of a task set by
  Godand the more strongly we emphasize the word
  in a particular case, the more strongly felt
  these connotations become. (28)
• Latin, Catholic Europe, as well as Greece and
  Rome, have no equivalent word referring to ones
  work
• By contrast, all Protestant peoples have such an
  expression.
• Vocation

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Calling

• What was definitely new was the estimation of
  fulfillment of duty within secular callings as
  being of the absolutely highest level possible
  for moral activity. It was this that led,
  inevitably, to the idea of the religious
  significance of secular everyday labor and gave
  rise to the concept of the calling. (29)
• According to Webers reading of Luther, the
  fulfillment of innerworldly duties is absolutely
  the only way to please God, that this and only
  this is Gods will, and that therefore every
  legitimate occupation Beruf is quite simply of
  equal value. (29)
• The stonemason is esteemed as much as the priest,
  and more than the monk, who is selfish lazy

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Calling

• Luther had no intention of promoting the
  capitalist spirit
• Attack on usury taking interest
• Biblical authority in faith
• Bible tends to support traditionalist labor, not
  capitalist, with labor either accepted or
  irrelevant (30-31)
• The objective historical order into which the
  individual had been placed by God became for him
  more and more the direct outflow of the divine
  will, the individual should thus accept his or
  her station in life.
• The calling was for Luther bound to tradition.
  The calling was something which man had to accept
  as a divine decree it was something to which he
  had to submit (31-32)

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Calling

• The idea of a calling is not from Lutheranism,
  but from Calvinism
• A different ethical system from either
  Catholicism or Lutheranism, valuing life as a
  task to be accomplished. (34)
• Life work as a mission from God

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Calling

• But Reformers are not founders of societies of
  ethical culture or representatives of social
  reform or of cultural ideals. The salvation of
  souls and this alone is at the heart of their
  life and work. Their ethical goals and the
  practical effects of their teaching are all
  anchored firmly here and are the consequences of
  purely religious motives. (35)
• These consequences may be unforeseen and indeed
  unwished for
• The history and evolution of ideas, engaged with
  material forces but not determined by them
• Ideas have their own force