The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Themes

Max Weber, famed German sociologist, spent much of his professional life arguing that organized religion plays a dominant role in shaping society. In his 1905 work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, he traces the connection between Protestant theology—especially that of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Richard Baxter—and the development of the “capitalist spirit,” the individualistic compulsion to work and profit and grow, even when one’s…

In the 1500s, German Catholic monk Martin Luther began challenging the Catholic Church on its teachings about salvation and serving God, which initiated the Protestant Reformation and marked the beginning of Protestantism’s spread across Europe. Among other things, Luther fiercely criticized the Catholic monastic tradition—which, as a monk, he participated in—that separated those who wanted to serve God from the secular, non-religious world. As a result, Luther developed his concept of the Christian’s “calling…

Sociologist Max Weber posits that the third major contributor to Protestantism’s “capitalist spirit” is the development of a new form of asceticism, or self-discipline and avoidance of any form of indulgence. Since Martin Luther rejected Catholicism’s monastic asceticism—where monks remove themselves from worldly pleasures by living in secluded monasteries—a new concept of asceticism needed to take its place, one that did not frown upon Protestant work or wealth. Weber suggests…