Weber's Protestant Research Articles

CONTEMPLATION ON RELIGIOUS WORK ETHICS IN 'THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS' AND 'DOA YANG MENGANCAM'

The two films The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and Doa yang Mengancam (2008) as the representations of Protestant and Muslim communities both demonstrate significant implications toward the dynamics of work ethics. The problem addressed by this comparison of two cinematic works is the influences of two different religious values on personal work ethics. The foundation of comparative literature paradigm is the idea that by studying literary works from various cultural and linguistic contexts, we can better understand how historical and cultural situations form human experiences--in this case, religious work ethics--occur. The aim of this research is to compare the representation of work ethics within the two main characters in the films as influenced by their respective religious values. The theory used for solving the case is Stuart Hall's (1997) representation theory by using the constructivism paradigm (symbolic, image, discursive, and myth function) with qualitative research method. The findings show that Chris, as a Protestant, has higher work ethics than Madrim, a young Muslim, according to Max Weber's Protestant Ethic principles. However, this situation has an impact on the Protestant’s attitude which is more materialistic than that of the Muslim which shows an equality between worldly wealth and good deeds in the afterlife.

Otto Neurath's Distorted Reception of Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Abstract: Otto Neurath probably never read Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , but only perceived it through J.B. Kraus's book Scholasticism, Puritanism, and Capitalism . For Kraus, as a Jesuit, it was important to take a clear position in the conflict between Protestants and Catholics. The goal of his argument was to downplay and limit the importance of Protestantism to modern capitalism. He therefore hardly addresses Weber's particular argumentation. Neurath, in turn, presumably relied on Kraus in order to call upon a Jesuit as a key witness for Marxism. This as well as Neurath's well-known tendency for polemics made him follow Kraus, who with his criticism of Weber by means of Marx wanted to establish, as Neurath called it, a 'Marxism of a Jesuit' as a third way. Kraus's criticism triggered Neurath's misconception that Weber's writing should be understood as an anti-thesis to Marx. Surprisingly, he never realized how closely Weber's approach in the empirically based study corresponded with his own methodological approach of an empirical sociology.

Bernard Bailyn on the Craft and Art of Historical Writing

Bernard Bailyn on the Craft and Art of Historical Writing

The Prosperity Gospel: Debating Modernity in Africa and the African Diaspora

Abstract Debates over the role of Pentecostalism in effecting modernity through its widespread “prosperity gospel” remain inconclusive. Though Weber's Protestant Ethic has been persistently invoked, sociological analyses reveal that the prosperity gospel challenges dominant Weberian conceptualizations of modernity. On one hand, the doctrine refutes Weber's central claim of modern societies by its pervasive “enchantment.” On the other hand, the prosperity gospel shares modern traits of human autonomy and entrepreneurship. Does the prosperity gospel demonstrate simultaneously modern and antimodern themes? Using cases from Africa and the African diaspora, this essay critically reviews how modernity has functioned as a complicated category for analyses of the prosperity gospel and for Pentecostalism. Showing that modernity is mediated irreducibly by the historical and cultural backgrounds of the society it encounters, the essay argues for the potency of the “multiple modernities” paradigm as an analytical framework that better captures realities of Africana contexts, notably Pentecostalism and the prosperity gospel.

Weber Revisited: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Nationalism

We revisit Max Weber's hypothesis on the role of Protestantism for economic development. We show that nationalism is crucial to both, the interpretation of Weber's Protestant Ethic and empirical tests thereof. For late 19th century Prussia we reject Weber’s suggestion that Protestantism mattered due to an “ascetic compulsion to save”. Moreover, we find that income levels, savings, and literacy rates differed between Germans and Poles, not between Protestants and Catholics using pooled OLS and IV regressions as well as IV mediation analysis. We suggest that this result is due to anti-Polish discrimination.

National Hawthorne in the College Classroom: Contexts, Materials, and Approaches, by Diller, Christopher, and Samuel Coale, editors.

<i>National Hawthorne in the College Classroom: Contexts, Materials, and Approaches</i>, by Diller, Christopher, and Samuel Coale, editors.

‘Accountable creatures’: Scottish Presbyterianism, accountability and managerial capitalism

Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism remains a seminal text for social theory and economic and social history. Weber suggests a general relationship between religious belief and economic action. We argue that only by examining the practices of individuals and institutions can we adequately address Weber's question. Specifically, we re-examine the role of the confessional diary and Church governance practices as forms of accountability. Accountability practices were central to Scottish Presbyterian churches and made an important contribution to the development of managerial capitalism. This article is both a response to and a development of Sam McKinstry and Y.Y. Ding's micro-history of Charles Cowan and the business practices of his family's papermaking firm.

Alex Cowan & Sons Ltd, Papermakers, Penicuik: a Scottish case of Weber's Protestant Work Ethic

This study examines Weber's Protestant Work Ethic and its power in explaining the business ethos and progress of a leading Scottish papermaking firm, Alex Cowan & Sons Ltd. of Penicuik, which existed independently from 1779 to 1965. Beginning with a summary of the Protestant Work Ethic, as outlined in Weber's thesis of 1904–06, a review of key debates around it is given, followed by details of some recent works which demonstrate its continuing relevance for historical scholars as well as the shortcomings of some recent studies which have sought to test it in detail. A brief outline of the business progress of Cowan's papermaking business then follows, after which key aspects of Weber's thesis are tested against the firm's experience. The study concludes that Weber's thesis adequately describes the motivation and progress of the firm and its owners, providing detailed empirical evidence which supports the Weber thesis and justifies further detailed studies.

Emerging philanthropy markets

Entrepreneurs are not the only ones to salivate at the call of emerging markets. Major nonprofit organizations that raise money in high‐income Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries for redistribution in developing countries are also looking for new sources of funds. Some of the countries that benefited from private philanthropy not too long ago are now in a position to help. The contribution of this paper is two‐prong. First, it introduces a robust market screening methodology to determine countries' capacities to give on the basis of macroeconomic and infrastructure indicators. Second, it identifies cross‐cultural predictors for charitable donations taken from the World Value Survey. A logistic regression calibrated on already successful fundraising operation scores countries on their propensity for private philanthropy. Research findings receive theoretical support from Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Top countries for private philanthropy are of Protestant tradition and are at the origin of capitalism, as we know it today. Confucian countries that share a similar ethic and have opted for capitalist economies are first class candidates for private philanthropy.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

The protestant ethic and the religious tattoo

This research illustrates how basic ideas from Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism are reflected in religious individuals’ choices in obtaining tattoos. Qualitative responses to survey questions show that, among 60 university students who indicated they have one, religious tattoos reflect asceticism in their lives, point them to service (calling) in the name of God, or provide a level of assurance (or anxiety) regarding life after death. We offer this work as an illustration of how the essence of Weber's work persists in the popular culture of the 21st century.

Protestant Work Ethic Endorsement and Social Justice Values in Developing and Developed Societies

Taking Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism thesis as the point of departure, this paper compares work ethic endorsement patterns and social justice correlates in a developing society, Jamaica, and a developed society, New Zealand. A condensed version of Mirels and Garrett's Protestant work ethic scale and related demographic and social values-related measures were administered at Jamaican and New Zealand universities. High and low Protestant ethic (PE) clusters were isolated, within each culture, among comparable samples of undergraduate social science students, and multiple analysis of variance applied to test effects of culture, Protestant religious affiliation and related “social justice values” variables (welfare state support, redistribution, intergenerational equity, free enterprise, social distance from the disadvantaged, social Darwinism). Results suggest there are significant cultural differences between high and low PE scorers on key justice-related societal values often seen as being associated with the Protestant work ethic. Possible reasons for the differences are advanced in light of Jamaican and New Zealand social and political conditions.

Capitalism as Religion: Walter Benjamin and Max Weber

AbstractBenjamin's fragment 'Capitalism as Religion', written in 1921, was only published several decades after his death. Its aim is to show that capitalism is a cultic religion, without mercy or truce, leading humanity to the 'house of despair'. It is an astonishing document, directly based on Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, but – in ways akin to Ernst Bloch or Erich Fromm – transforming Weber's 'value-free' analysis into a ferocious anticapitalist argument, probably inspired by Gustav Landauer's romantic and libertarian socialism. This article analyses Benjamin's fragment and explores its relationship to Weber's thesis, as well as to the tradition of romantic anticapitalism.

The invention of purgatory

The contribution of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic to debate on the cultural forces that precipitated the shift from feudal to capitalist modes of production is without precedent. While this debate is presumed to have run its course, contemporary preoccupations with extensive and intensive working hours suggest a revisit may be timely. This article proposes an affinity between the shift to abstract modes of time in capitalism and the ideas underpinning the medieval invention of purgatory. This `invention' was seen to overcome the problem of time scarcity, but similar to the Protestant Ethic, illustrates the conundrum that the cure can become the disease. In the case of purgatory, the disease is a purgatorial complex, a profound anxiety-driven relationship to time.

The Meaning of Protestant-Calvinist Imagery in Urban America

Inspired by Max Weber's Protestant Ethic, and applying a social-geographical framework, this discourse analysis inquires into the influence of religious imagery on a characteristic settlement structure in modern America. Cultural guiding images such as the Garden of Eden and the frontier, built in a tradition of Protestant, Calvinist Puritanism, are linked with a specifically Christian corpus of broadly biblical orientations. They are integral parts of the American way of life and had a lasting impact on modern urban development, particularly in America. Although the dispersed suburbs are supposed to carry on the political ideal of a decentralized society, the topologies of the centralized cities are the hubs of business activity, places of economic assertion. Calvinist imagery plays an important part in this: on one hand, it reflects the desire for a way of settlement that was originally agrarian motivated; on the other, the need for a centralized settlement for economic purposes.

What Every Political Leader in America and the West should Know about the Arab-Islamic World

While America is preparing again for an important shift in policy-making, how would its Leaders read the map in the Arab-Islamic world? That's our concern here... The dramatic global resurgence of religious, often fundamentalist, movements over the last decades has caught many people by surprise. However, the point that seemed more enticing is that the social scientists in their attempts to cope with their own cognitive dissonance have been as interesting as this surprising return of religion. Focusing on the resurgence of religion outside the modern West allowed some authors to pretend that these revivals of religion are still part of a modernizing process. And, not surprisingly, many have taken pains to detect a Puritan spirit or an inner-worldly asceticism in such movements, revealing their problematic reading of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic as a general theory of modernization. Other authors, particularly the sociologist Steven Warner, emphasized American exceptionalism in contrast to the European trend towards secularization. Warner maintains that there is a new paradigm in the making for the study of religion in America which rejects an older paradigm based on the European experience of secularization. Besides, at least concerning the American view, the Bush administration expressed what sounded as a new paradigm concerning world policy. The Europeans did not feel obliged to have the same analysis. However, with the new American presidential elections looming at the horizon, the need for handling regional and international issues differently, may be very appealing for Republican and Democrat runners. A new pattern of thought may be already acting behind the scene and pulling the strings. People in the Middle-East region are still concerned with issues like: how much the U.S. presidential candidates are concerned with our problems and to which extent are they different from the predecessor?

Max Weber and the `Faustian Universality of Man'

Famously, the final pages of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic present a powerful diagnosis of the condition of modern man trapped in an `iron cage' of impersonal economic processes. Yet just above these famous words Weber tells us something else, that what we have sacrificed in entering the iron cage is `the Faustian universality of man'. What does Weber mean by this phrase, and why does he point us to the writings of Goethe at this key point in the book's conclusion? This paper argues that both the phrase `Faustian universality' and Weber's philosophical footnotes reveal a deeper and hitherto neglected argument, giving us a very different diagnosis of modernity than that usually associated with the `iron cage'. Following the clues Weber left us leads us to a more complex and challenging picture of The Protestant Ethic's lasting message.

Max Weber's Politics of Civil Society by Sung Ho Kim (review)

Book Reviews 259 Despite all these critical remarks, the merits of the book are obvious. The reader will find particular value in the observations on Weber's writing process (pp. 173ff.) as well as in Radkau's explanations of the way Weber finds his questions and themes of research. This can be noticed especially in the chapter on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (pp. 316ff.), which is one of the book's best chapters. It has often been stated that Weber's Protestant Ethic contains some biographical aspects. Radkau manages to describe their implications in a colourful way. Not the least important result of this is that he points out two important things. The first one is his hint on Weber's—like everyone's—deepest desire, a 'longing for deliverance' (p. 221). The second is his consideration of an aspect that has mostly been either ignored or mis understood, namely the question of Weber's own religiosity. Radkau is surely right in saying 'Weber's own religiosity is the biggest puzzle of the entire Weber research' (p. 805). There is one final question remaining: does this imposing biography bring Weber closer to us? The answer is both yes and no. Radkau discloses many inaccessible or unknown aspects of Weber, but all the pieces of this puzzle do not or will not fit into a consistent portrait. Maybe this is not possible at all, because Weberis personality is full of ambiguity—like the personality of every great thinker. Andreas Anter Leipzig University Sung Ho Kim, Max Weber's Politics of Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 189 + references + index. ISBN 0-5218-205-7X. £45 (hbk). Max Weber's political thought and political sociology have probably received less attention than other well-known aspects of his thought, such as the work on bureau cracy, the sociology of religion, historical sociology, problems in the philosophy of science, or even economic sociology. The great exception to this generalization is, of course, the work of Wolfgang Mommsen, starting with Max Weber and German Poli tics (1959) and continuing with several books and essays. Wilhelm Hennis offered an important alternative political interpretation in Max Weber's Central Question (1987), elaborated on subsequently in a series of essays. Weber's ideas have also attracted attention in political theory and liberal-democratic thought, as with David Beetham's Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics (1974) and Peter Bremer's Max Weber and Democratic Politics (1996). Perhaps because of the unsettled nature of these discus sions and the controversies they have provoked, there is a sense that the field is open to new inquiries and that the entire range of Weber's thinking on political topics has not been fully explored. In his important study Sung Ho Kim enters this contested terrain with a thesis about Weber's little-noted contribution to the 'politics of civil society'. Kim is surely justified in suggesting that this dimension of Weber's thought has been ignored or misunderstood, linking the deficit in comprehension surprisingly to a kind of myopia regarding Weber's understanding of American social and religious life. Professor Kim's argument is that for Weber, a modern liberal-democratic politics depends on creating and sustaining a certain kind of 'moral personality', the Beruf smensch or 'person of vocation'. Socially, this kind of person and the ethos it repre sents is made possible only by a particular form of civil society, not the bürgerliche© Max Weber Studies 2008. 260 Max Weber Studies Gesellschaft of Hegelian thought, but the Sektengesellschaft of Weber's investigations, a civil society based on sects that he found in the social life of ascetic Protestantism. Not just any kind of voluntaristic associational activity characterizes this variant of civil society, but rather activity that involves the selection and moral testing of group members. A robust, authentic civil society thus requires a specific social construction of the modern self, a particular kind of 'characterology'. Much of the discussion in the book's six chapters is concerned with explaining the rationale, meaning, conse quences and political implications of this essential claim. The road to Weber's conception of civil society...

The Incarnation of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in Post-Colonial Sub-Saharan African Economic Discourse: The Quest for an African Economic Ethic

Max Weber's thesis that there was an early connection between the Protestant ethic and the ascendance of Western capitalism has been integral to contemporary scholarly efforts to explain why capitalism has failed in Africa while succeeding in the Western world. The failure of Western capitalistic development in post-colonial Africa is construed as evidence of the absence of the spirit of capitalism. The argument of this article is that African traditional religion and ethics are incompatible with the spirit of capitalism, and that it would be fallacious to expect the spirit of capitalism to incarnate in all social contexts when opposed by the values of that particular society. Contemporary attempts by African scholars to devise a modified system of economic philosophy that would incorporate traditional African indigenous values are aimed at making capitalism contextually relevant to African cultural realities.

Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Chinese Preference for Sons: An Application of Western Sociology to Eastern Religion

Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Chinese Preference for Sons: An Application of Western Sociology to Eastern Religion

Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Chinese Preference for Sons: An Application of Western Sociology to Eastern Religion

Sociologists are introduced early in their training to Max Weber's proposition that the collective imperatives of modern capitalism are rooted in a cultural transformation: That the obligation to achieve and maintain systematic control of everyday life has persisted into the modern age, though now bereft of its religious underpinnings. This paper offers the proposition that Weber's analytical construct provides equally fertile application in the analysis of simultaneous cultural persistence and change in non-Western civilizations. The Chinese preference for sons originated amid the ancient reaches of Chinese folk religion's demand that parents' funeral rites and three years of mourning be presided over by their first-born son, lest the parents' souls be relegated to an eternal destiny of wandering the world as hungry ghosts. The argument offered here is that the endurance of this preference for sons, as evidenced by demographers' findings of significantly distorted sex ratios in contemporary China, can be explained, as was the rise of modern capitalism, by Weber's conception of a cultural transformation from substantive to formal rationality.