40 pages • 1 hour read
Max WeberThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1905A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Spirit of Capitalism”
In this chapter, Weber outlines what he argues constitutes “the spirit of capitalism”—a certain set of traits and attitudes toward labor and money that Weber believes are largely unique to a capitalist society (13). While Weber acknowledges that what he calls the spirit of capitalism “without a doubt existed before ‘capitalist development’” (19), he argues that it became especially widespread and societally acceptable only following capitalism’s growth and normalization.
To describe the spirit of capitalism, Weber quotes from a publication by Benjamin Franklin that he believes exhibits “the spirit of concern to us in near classical purity” (14). In a lengthy passage, Franklin focuses on advising individuals on how to properly care for their money and the best way they can go about increasing their wealth. He advises “that time is money” and that one should never be idle (14), instead using as much of one’s free time as possible to earn more money. He also advises that individuals should always use whatever money they have to make more money, for instance by investing it. Finally, Franklin instructs individuals to remain industrious and avoid spending their money on frivolous activities such as billiards or drinking at a tavern, in case they damage their reputation and thus other people’s willingness to loan credit to them.
For Weber, it is not simply Franklin’s advice that individuals seek to make more money that represents the “spirit” of capitalism. Weber emphasizes instead how Franklin attaches a sense of morality to his advice, suggesting that it is a “duty” for an individual to “increase his wealth, which is assumed to be a self-defined interest in itself” (16). Franklin argues that individuals should aspire to an “ethically-oriented maxim for the organization of life” in which one’s every action is geared toward earning more money (16). Weber notes, however, that this ethical duty to earn more and more money is combined with “the strictest avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of it” (17). Further, Weber argues that such a duty turns “competence and proficiency in [one’s] vocational calling” into a virtue to aspire to (18).
For Weber, this spirit of capitalism, in which endless work becomes an ethical virtue unto itself, differs from the sorts of greed found in earlier societies. Weber argues that it only recently became societally accepted to seek to make as much money as possible and that the growth of capitalism required this new “spirit of capitalism” to overtake older values and ideas around labor: “The capitalist spirit […] became prominent only after a difficult struggle against a world of hostile powers” (19-20). To illustrate this point, Weber discusses several moments when employers have sought to push their workers to produce more. He specifically discusses the industry of agriculture, where workers are paid a fixed rate according to how many crops they yield. Employers hoped to increase their workers’ rate of productivity by offering a higher rate per crop, assuming that the workers would seek to work more and faster and earn more money. However, Weber the opposite occurred, as “the opportunity of earning more appealed to [the worker] less than the idea of working less” (22). As a result, workers decreased the amount they worked per day, as the higher rate meant that less work was necessary to earn sufficient money to sustain their lifestyles.
Weber refers to this older approach to work as “economic traditionalism,” in which individuals only sought to make as much money as they needed to sustain their livelihood. Such economic traditionalism limited capitalism’s growth, as workers were often unwilling to earn or uninterested in earning more money by increasing their productivity. Weber thus argues that capitalism required a change of people’s “frame of mind” through “a long and continuous process of education and socialization” in which they became accustomed to striving for wealth for its own sake (24). Weber argues that capitalism found the means for achieving this changing frame of mind in the teachings of the various Protestant branches of Christianity. In the following chapters, Weber will explore to what extent Protestantism can be seen as being aligned with capitalist values.
Chapter 2 Analysis
In this chapter, Weber focuses on outlining what he calls the spirit of capitalism—a set of attitudes and beliefs that he sees as being central to a capitalist society. At the chapter’s outset, Weber addresses his historical methodology and how he hopes to go about identifying such a concept as a spirit of capitalism. Weber notes that the spirit of capitalism is not something that concretely and obviously exists, but rather something that the historian can only identify by looking at a variety of historical sources. As such, the spirit of capitalism is not “a singular entity” but rather “a complex of relationships in historical reality” (13). To that end, Weber notes that reality is often more complex than can ever be contained in a single statement such as the spirit of capitalism, and he notes that his own use of the term is not exhaustive in terms of its potential meanings. However, Weber feels it is the task of the historian “to order reality into tangible, causal connections that are stable and, unavoidably, of a unique character” (14). Thus, in spite of the difficulties of making claims as to a “spirit” of capitalism, Weber feels it is crucial that he attempt to outline its key characteristics.
Weber goes about his task by beginning with a number of primary sources that he feels illustrate the spirit of capitalism. These include a lengthy excerpt from Benjamin Franklin, as well as some other quotes from businessmen. Within these quotes, Weber identifies an attitude that the earning of wealth is a moral and ethical duty: “[Franklin’s writings evince] the idea of the duty of the individual to increase his wealth, which is assumed to be a self-defined interest in itself” (16). While there have always been individuals who sought to increase their riches, Weber argues that Franklin’s attitude toward money represents a transformation of the idea of wealth on a societal level. In the past, those individuals who devoted themselves to earning money “would have been viewed as an expression of filthy greed and completely undignified character” (20). In capitalism, the methodical devotion of one’s life to work and money is seen as a sign of honor and trustworthiness.
As such, Weber argues that the rise of capitalism has coincided with a shift in people’s attitude toward work and career. For Weber, this shift could not have come about naturally; rather, it is the result of a steady process in which people were made to abandon their prior attitudes toward money. Weber deems the desire to only earn enough money as needed for daily livelihood as “economic traditionalism”; such economic traditionalism is a hindrance to the growth of capitalism, which requires an increase in the amount of goods produced and wealth earned. Weber thus sees the spread of the “spirit of capitalism” as crucial to capitalism’s development, as it teaches individuals to let go of prior attitudes toward money and devote themselves to work as an end in itself. In the following chapters, Weber will argue that the Protestant Reformation was one of the key societal shifts in the 16th and 17th centuries that allowed for the growth of industrial capitalism through its transformation of social attitudes.
