The Quaker Ethic and the Fixed Price Policy: Max Weber and Beyond*

Abstract

Max Weber undertook his research on the Quakers and their fixed price policy as part of his attempt to understand the role of the Puritan sects in the rise of early modern capitalism. Although his comments on the group were sympathetic and penetrating, they suffered from inattention to the historical context. He failed to see, for instance, that the Quakers’economic policies in large part reflected their resentful frustration over the Puritans’failure to institute popular political, economic, and religious proposals.This paper corrects Weber's portrait of the Quakers and their unique fixed price policy by paying close attention to the social climate in which they formulated this economic innovation. In doing so the research establishes an important relationship between religious doctrines and social frustrations that Weber himself did not see, but that existed in Nietzsche's theory of “resentment,” and in Eduard Bernstein's analysis of the earliest Quakers.