The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Chelsea Duong

Professor Francesca Polletta

Sociology 120W

16 March 2016

Assignment 8

In “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, Max Weber discusses how the development of a capitalistic spirit is related to the Protestant Reformation and Protestant views, which featured two things: the belief of one’s duty to work in a calling and predestination (Protestant xi). Weber believes that people are motivated by self-interest, but also by values, ideas, beliefs (Protestant 60). By exploring what the Protestants believed, Weber was able to figure out why the Protestant ethos was so important to the rise of capitalism, and how Puritanism was responsible for formal rationality.

Weber argues that the capitalist ethos is about working hard, making money, and being careful, disciplined, frugal, systematic, and punctual in one's work. Weber sums up the spirit of capitalism by saying that above all, it is characterized by the idea of the individual having a duty to increase his capital (Protestant 19). However, Puritans believed the afterlife was everlasting, and god had predestined who would be sent to heaven or hell (Protestant 57). Weber argues that minsters had this real, practical problem that in order to prevent their followers from collapsing into depression or leaving the church, they had to make their followers more comfortable with the notion of predestination had in order to deal with unprecedented inner loneliness (Protestant 63). He believed the key was that Calvinists urged people to work hard in their calling as a way to dispel their anxiety that they were not predestined for salvation (Protestant 67). The surprising unintended consequences of this advice that comes in turn from this terrible anxiety people have, is that it leads people to begin to treat work as an end of it in itself (Protestant 71). Weber emphasized chance and how the unintended consequence of this advice led to a new orientation that made capitalism possible (Protestant 72). Weber calls this new orientation "This-Worldly Asceticism". Weber argues that once a system is in place, then people develop stakes in that system of desires to join that system that may have nothing to do with the origins of that system (Protestant 117). Weber believes this to be ironic because the Puritan ethos became eroded once this new system was established, launching capitalism and a rational orientation to the world (Protestant 123).

Once capitalism became institutionalized, rationalization took place. Increasingly, this new rational orientation emphasized logical, systematic, rule-oriented calculations (Bureaucracy 215). This is known as formal rational orientation. Weber was conflicted in regards to the concept of formal rationality and its implications for capitalist society (Protestant 116). On one hand, formal rationality's principles of efficiency in the realms of social and economic organization allowed for the development and prosperity of modern western capitalist society (Bureaucracy 110). The problem is that this rapid progression has contributed to a society in which we live within an "iron cage" of constraints (Protestant 117). The ease with which a person can live a life devoid of these constraints, with full autonomy and freedom, has been significantly lessened with the rise of bureaucratic thought in modern times. Formal rationality imposes order on the society we live in via strict, quantifiable terms with decisions largely based on universally applied rules laws and regulations that strive for calculable efficiency. Weber argued, formal rational orientation is manifest in our laws, policies, and legal system, in education and art, in science and religion, and in the ways our organizations are structured (Protestant 123). One manifestation of formal rational orientation in the world is a form of organization that is common in our society: bureaucracy.

Formal rational orientation has led to the rise of bureaucracy which he defines as "goal-oriented organizations designed according to rational principles in order to efficiently attain the stated goals" (Bureaucracy 196). In other words, bureaucratic institutions tightly control and direct human behavior. Institutional benchmarks of modern society, such as business, military, church, government and education all seem to contain some level of this bureaucratic influence. According to Weber, these institutions carry out rational social actions with the ultimate goal of achieving the institutions bureaucratic goals (Bureaucracy 197). Another form of rationality, Substantive rationality, incorporates a wider range of considerations into decision making, with areas such as family or religious values being taken into further consideration. Weber felt that as formal rationality and bureaucratic organizations increased their dominance, the ability for substantive rationality to sustain was lessened (Bureaucracy 228).

Modern times do seem to have reflected Weber's prediction; formal rationality has led to vast economic expansion and efficiency via capitalism but it has been at the expense of tradition, emotion and moral values. What Weber feared would be lost in the bureaucratic transformation was the open-ended element of life; that the modern world, so impacted by these rational principles, would lend itself to a world largely devoid of imagination, creativity, and spontaneity. Secondary education demonstrates this concept; teachers are required to cover very specific material, to test and grade using hierarchical methods gearing towards state and federal sanctioned standardized testing.

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