The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

A study in historical sociology, first published as articles in 1904 and 1905 and revised in 1920, asking why modern rational capitalism arose first in the Protestant West. Weber begins with figures suggesting that Protestants were more prominent in business, and illustrates the spirit of capitalism with maxims from Benjamin Franklin: work and the methodical earning of money as a duty, not merely a means to enjoyment. He traces this attitude to Luther's idea of the calling, a vocation in worldly work, and above all to Calvinist predestination. Unsure whether they were saved, believers looked for signs of grace in disciplined labour while avoiding luxury, producing a worldly asceticism that encouraged saving and reinvestment. Weber also discusses Pietism, Methodism, the Baptist sects and the Puritan writer Richard Baxter. He ends by observing that, once established, capitalism no longer needs its religious roots, and that modern people are confined in an iron cage, in Talcott Parsons's translation. Historians have disputed his evidence and causal claims ever since.

It is the classic argument that religious ideas can shape economic life, and it gives readers the concepts of the calling, worldly asceticism and the iron cage.