The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one’s life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through ‘the struggle of opposites.’ Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber’s classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms.
Table of Content
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION
FOREWARD
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
THE PROBLEM
CHAPTER
I. RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
II. THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
III. ‘LUTHER’S CONCEPTION OF THE CALLING, TASK OF THE INVESTIGATION’
PART II
THE PRACTICAL ETHICS OF THE ASCETIC BRANCHES OF PROTESTANTISM
IV. THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF WORDLY ASCETICISM
A. Calvinism
B. Pietism
C. Methodism
D. The Baptist Sects
V. ASCETICISM AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
NOTES
INDEX
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