A Review of Max Weber Thesis on the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Nahom Eyasu

Volume 16 Issue 6

Global Journal of Human-Social Science

This paper describes about the review of The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, which was written by Max Weber, translated by Talcott Parsons, and introduced by Anthony Giddens in 2005 in the publishing link of Routledge: London and New work. Weber produced most of his major works in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Glatzer, 1998). Weber was identified more as a historian who was concerned with sociological issues, but in the early 1900s his focus grew more and more sociological (Glatzer, 1998). More specifically, Weber devoted much of his attention to ideas and their effect on the economy (Allen, 2004). Rather than seeing ideas as simple reflections of economic factors, Weber saw them as fairly autonomous forces capable of profoundly affecting the economic world (Allen, 2004). He certainly devoted a lot of attention to ideas, particularly systems of religious ideas, and he was especially concerned with the impact of religious ideas on the economy (Ritzer, 2011). In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1904–1905/1958), he was concerned with Protestantism, mainly as a system of ideas, and its impacts on the rise of another system of ideas, the “spirit of capitalism,” and ultimately on a capitalist economic system (Allen, 2004). Weber had a similar interest in other world religions, looking at how their nature might have obstructed the development of capitalism in their respective societies (Allen, 2004).