Abstract
Weber’s thesis proposed that it was ascetic Protestantism which supported the emergence of modern capitalism in 17th and 18th century Europe, and that this was a completely new and unique phenomenon in the history of mankind up to that point in time. This paper casts doubt on the Weber thesis by examining findings from an economic reconstruction of the Hebrew Bible, and proposing that modern capitalism the way Weber understood it is already visible in the ancient religious text of the “Hebrew Bible”. By means of institutional economic reconstruction, I show that the Hebrew Bible and particularly the stories involving Jacob and Joseph reveal a conceptual structure that can be compared with ideas of modern constitutional and institutional economics. Through this reconstruction, I find myself in agreement with one of Weber’s early but largely forgotten adversaries, Werner Sombart, who suggested, in a behavioral tradition, that other religions, and more specifically Jewish thought, contributed to the emergence of modern capitalism long before the advent of Protestantism.
Highlights
I Introduction MAX WEBER HAD HIS CRITICS EARLY ON when he proposed the thesis that it was primarily ascetic Protestantism which supported the emergence of capitalism in the Western World in the 17th and 18th century, because, so Weber claimed, Protestantism gave rise to a new spiritual attitude towards the making of profit
Werner Sombart was critical of Weber’s position, and claimed that there were other historic developments which had seen religion contribute to a capitalist ethos and a ‘calling for making money’, as Weber put it
I developed the thesis that Weber’s criteria for setting out modern capitalism and here especially the spirit of capitalism can be identified through institutional economic reconstruction for these stories
Summary
MAX WEBER HAD HIS CRITICS EARLY ON when he proposed the thesis that it was primarily ascetic Protestantism which supported the emergence of capitalism in the Western World in the 17th and 18th century, because, so Weber claimed, Protestantism gave rise to a new spiritual attitude towards the making of profit. Werner Sombart was critical of Weber’s position, and claimed that there were other historic developments which had seen religion contribute to a capitalist ethos and a ‘calling for making money’, as Weber put it. Basic concepts of institutional economic reconstruction of texts of the Hebrew Bible have been set out in detail elsewhere (Wagner-Tsukamoto 2009a, 2009b, 2010, forthcoming; see Wagner-Tsukamoto 2007). These stories belong to the earliest, best-known and most fundamental parts of the Hebrew Bible and are some 40005000 years old.
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