As a result, they search for possible signs of their election, both in order to outwardly demonstrate their status as one of the chosen as well as to convince themselves of their own guaranteed entrance into heaven.Ĭalvinist behavior is thus conducive to capitalism: they work tirelessly and reinvest accumulated wealth into their endeavors. Calvinists, therefore, live in constant fear. Each human’s fate has already been decided as blessed or condemned and neither human effort nor divine sacrament may be employed to ensure passage to the kingdom of heaven. According to Weber, this process occurs via the Calvinist concept of predestination, in which heaven is reserved for an elect and predetermined few ( certudo salutis), and the rest of humanity is doomed to damnation. This essay will explain Weber’s central thesis before placing it in dialogue with Hegelian and Marxist modernization theories.īy selling as blessed the concepts of work and wealth as blessed, “ascetic Protestantism” – most specifically Calvinism, Pietism, Methodism, and Baptism – produces an environment amenable to the development of capitalism. Rather, he argues that Puritan ideology provided a favorable environment for the rise of capitalism. Though critics quickly attacked him for espousing a spurious causal mechanism, this was not his intention. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber illustrates a relationship between ideology and economic structure.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |