Questions re: "The Spirit of Capitalism," by Max Weber

1. How does Kürnberger's statement, "They make tallow out of cattle and money out of men" summarize for Weber a philosophy of avarice (p. 69)?

2. Weber ascribes to Pieter de la Court the belief that "people only work because and so long as they are poor (p. 75)." Agree or disagree?

3. Weber writes (p.76), "Today, capitalism, once in the saddle, can recruit its laboring force in all industrial countries with comparative ease. In the past this was in every case an extremely difficult problem. And even today it could probably not get along without the support of a powerful ally along the way, which, as we shall see below, was at hand at the time of its development." Who is that "powerful ally"?

4. "To speak here of a reflection of material conditions in the ideal superstructure would be patent nonsense," he writes on page 80. What is the "ideal superstructure"?

5. In the section entitled "Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism," Weber writes (p. 85), "True to the Puritan tendency to pragmatic interpretations, the providential purpose of the division of labour is to be known by its fruits." What is the "providential purpose" of the division of labour, and what are its fruits?

6. Page 85, "A man without a calling thus lacks the systematic, methodical character which is, as we have seen, demanded by worldly asceticism." Does this statement hang together?

7. Weber summarizes John Wesley's belief that wealth accumulation inevitable undermines religious belief. Does what Weber calls the "secularizing influence of wealth" really occur? (p.94)

7A. If so, why does Wesley nevertheless say, "we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can; that is, in effect, to grow rich."? (p. 95)

8. Why does Weber consider the seventeenth century to have bequethed "an amazingly good, we may even say, a pharisaically [emphasis added] good conscience in the acquisition of money" to its "utilitarian successor."? (pp. 95-6)

9. Weber on p. 100 quotes Baxter to the effect that material acquistion should rest on a man's shoulder like a "light coat." In the modern age, however, "Fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage." How do you interpret this portentous line?

10. In the last paragraph of the selection Weber dismisses both the one-sided "materialistic" interpretation and the one-sided "spiritual causal" interpretation of the roots of capitalism. He calls either a "preparation" and not a "conclusion" of an investigation. If he's correct, then what's the next step in the "investigation."?

Weber's "Iron Cage"

Our reading this month was first published not as a book but as a two-part scholarly article. Max Weber (1864-1920), one of the founders of modern sociology, published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1904-05 in the journal Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (The Archive of Social Science and Social Politics).

Weber's interests lie in the parallel developments of Calvinist religious sects and the capitalist economic system in 16th-century Europe.

One of the surprise joys of exploring the classics comes when we chance upon a famous buzz line of the western tradition. Such a moment occurred for me upon revisiting The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber contends that whereas the English Puritans wanted to work in a "calling," we moderns work because we simply have no other choice. He quotes the Protestant theologian Richard Baxter, who wrote that the desire for material goods should only rest on the shoulders "like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment." Then comes Weber's zinger on the modern condition: "But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage [emphasis added]." (See p. 100, Great Books Reading and Discussion Program, Series 4, Vol. 1).

According to Wikipedia's article on Weber's "iron cage," the original German might also translate as "steel-hard housing." Either way, it doesn't sound pleasant, and the meaning seems pretty clear. Modern, materialistic, ultra-rational society makes us all cogs in a wheel.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism dazzled me upon my first encounter with it as a college freshman, but I still find it difficult to classify this text. Is it sociology? History? Philosophy? A political tract? An academic essay punctuated with occasional romantic/lyrical flights?

In the end it doesn't matter what you call it. A great scholar and writer produced The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a work that offers up a great chicken-and-egg riddle:

What comes first, how we do or how we think?