What Did Max Weber Say About Capitalism?

Max Weber, alongside Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim, is recognized as one of the three founding fathers of sociology. Renowned for his contributions to the study of the modern state, bureaucracy, rationalization, and comparative religion, Weber is perhaps best known for his thesis on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Drawing on late 19th-century observations that capitalism appeared to thrive most in protestant countries, Weber sought to uncover the reasons behind this pattern.

His answer was that the development of capitalism was tied to the protestant reformation and the introduction of a distinct ethic of frugality, hard work, and thrift, that linked the pursuit of a godly life with the pursuit of secular vocations conducive to economic growth. 

Maximilian Carl Emil Weber was born in 1864 in the Prussian city of Erfurt into a wealthy bourgeois family of noble heritage. His father, Max was a lawyer and a politician and his mother, Helene, was a devout Christian liberal reformer. Helene’s ethical religious outlook made a big impression and he initially followed his father to become a jurist. 

Educated in Heidelberg and Berlin, Weber initially studied Law before branching out into agrarian history and economics. In 1894, he taught at the University of Freiberg and was appointed professor of political economy at Heidelberg in 1896. However, despite his promising start, his academic career crashed in 1897 when he suffered a nervous breakdown following the death of his father. He didn’t return to formal academic life until 1919. 

Weber functioned as a public intellectual throughout his career and became politically active after the First World War, running (unsuccessfully) for the German Liberal Democratic Party. He died abruptly of pneumonia (likely due to Spanish Flu) aged 56 in 1920. 

What Was the Protestant Ethic?

In 1905, after recovering somewhat from his nervous breakdown, Max Weber published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. During his period of sickness, Weber traveled extensively, including a notable visit to the United States. His travels facilitated close observations of comparative patterns of urbanization, bureaucracy, and capitalist development across different countries and regions. 

In the Protestant Ethic, Weber set out to explain a phenomenon widely recognized but insufficiently understood: the leading role of protestant countries in the development of capitalism, rather than simply noting the connection Weber set out to uncover the cause. 

He concluded that the “spirit” of capitalism was epitomized by Benjamin Franklin’s famous assertion that “time is money.” Franklin’s philosophy of frugality, and framing of the accumulation of capital as a moral obligation and end in itself was not, Weber (1930) argued, a “Yankee confession of faith.” Instead, it exemplified a border pattern rooted in religious ideology. 

According to Weber, the development of capitalism was not a “reversal of natural conditions” but rather the result of the protestant reformation, stemming from the decisive influence of a particular form of religious ideology, the “protestant ethic.” 

The core of Weber’s thesis in the Protestant Ethic lies in the assertion that capitalism, more than an economic system, was a distinct mindset and economic way of viewing the world. 

Previously dominant religious ethics (the 10 commandments, for example), have become increasingly irrelevant in the modern world, as individuals are compelled to align their behavior with the market. Success depends on adopting a rational approach to economic life, managing costs, calculating profit, and identifying market opportunities. 

The capitalist way of thinking was deeply rooted in protestant religious ideology. The psychological drive underpinning the whole system, he believed, stemmed from the concept of religious vocation. Though originating in the thought of Martin Luther, the ethics of capitalism were distinctly Puritan and above all, Calvinist. 

Blending anxieties about predestination with the belief that salvation could only be assured by fulfilling God’s work in life, the result was a cultural transformation where worldly success became a reflection of God’s will, fostering an ethos of discipline, frugality, and hard work that underpinned the rise of capitalism (Hawthorn, 2009). 

Capitalism as Vocation?

Protestant Christianity emphasized that to serve God was to adhere to the worldly vocation assigned by him. This doctrine provided a religious framework that valorized discipline, hard work, and investment over hedonism and frivolity. Calvin’s idea of predestination amplified the protestant ethic, as individuals sought to demonstrate through their worldly achievements that they were among those destined for salvation. 

Weber captured this connection between the development of capitalism and protestant religiosity through the German term Beruf (translated as ‘calling’ or secular vocation.) He described how this sense of divine calling connected with the practice of systematic self-control, goal-orientated behavior, and the values of frugality, diligence, and thrift – all hallmark characteristics of capitalist success (Barbalet, 2009).

In contrast to Karl Marx’s view that capitalism was driven by the means of production, Weber thus argues that capitalism is best understood as being driven by a particular mindset. The protestant ethic is an inversion of Marx’s theory of historical materialism. Rather than economic foundations giving rise to cultural and religious institutions, Weber contended that culture and religious ideology actively fostered the development of capitalist economics.