Max Weber and American Puritanism

Abstract

M1AX WEBER'S essay on the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism represents a highly fruitful, if also controversial, encounter between history and sociology. Any adequate appraisal of the validity of Weber's thesis must necessarily look at both the empirical data and the theoretical propositions in two ways. These considerations have determined the structure of this paper. First, I shall indicate very briefly my understanding of Weber's thesis. Second, as the main burden of this paper, I shall look at seventeenth century American Puritanism. Finally, I shall try to indicate the place of these findings in the larger framework of Weber's preoccupation with the rise of modern capitalism. Weber's argument does not concern itself with the rise of capitalism as such and even less with accounting for the existence of human acquisitiveness. Both of these had existed long before Calvinism or Puritanism. The historical phenomenon to be explained is modern Western capitalism with its economic rationalism, formally free market, and formally free labor. What Weber sees in this capitalism is that it includes, among other dominant traits, a particular quality of mind, a set of attitudes towards economic activity. In Calvinism and more especially in Puritanism we find the formation of a character structure which is explicitly religious in intent but which nevertheless could contribute to the formation of an economic ethos. The religious ethic did not indeed approve of the quest for profits and ever-renewed profits; the goal of man's activity was to glorify God. But under conditions in which particular kinds of economic activity could flourish, once these activities were set in motion, the religious norms and impulses could fall away; men could continue to be diligent in worldly employments, find sufficient incentive in the rewards which their activities provided, and eventually find other ideological justifications for their enterprises. The religious forces had removed the inner resistance to the development of certain types of practical rational conduct. The rise of modern capitalism is thus an unanticipated consequence of the Protestant ethic.'