When I was growing up, I noticed that the educated adults in my St. Louis suburb had strong faith in three big ideas—Darwinian evolution, Freudian psychology, and the Protestant ethic.
Since then, Darwinian evolution has held its own, but Freud has given way to other psychologies, and the Protestant ethic—the subject of this column—is rarely to be seen.
The German sociologist Max Weber developed the idea of the Protestant ethic, first in essays written in 1904 and 1905 and then in his 1920 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[1]
In a sense, “ascetic Puritans,” primarily Calvinists, transferred the mystical spiritual asceticism of Catholic saints to a less stringent but more productive real-world discipline, making possible a dynamic capitalistic world, according to Weber.
Puritans were supposed to work, even make money—but not for the sake of enjoying it. “[T]he pursuit of wealth as an end in itself [was] highly reprehensible; but the attainment of it as a fruit of labour in a calling was a sign of God’s blessing.” [2] Among other things, wealth would indicate that one was among the “elect,” that is, predestined to go to heaven.Continue reading “Is Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic Worth Another Look?”
