The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by Talcott Parsons in 1930. It is considered a founding text in economic sociology and sociology in general.
In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism. This idea is also known as the "Protestant Ethic thesis."
In 1998 the International Sociological Association listed this work as the fourth most important sociological book of the 20th century.
Read more about The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism: Table of Contents (from The 1958 Scribner's Edition, Translated By Talcott Parsons)
Famous quotes containing the words protestant, ethic and/or spirit:
“blow as he would, though it made a great noise,
The flute would play only ‘The Protestant Boys’.”
—Unknown. The Old Orange Flute (l. 23–24)
“I’m a Sunday School teacher, and I’ve always known that the structure of law is founded on the Christian ethic that you shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself—a very high and perfect standard. We all know the fallibility of man, and the contentions in society, as described by Reinhold Niebuhr and many others, don’t permit us to achieve perfection.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
““Saint-Saens!” it seems to be whispering,
curling unerringly around the furry nuts
of the terrible puss, who is mentally flexing.
Ah be with me always, spirit of noisy
contemplation in the studio, the Garden
of Zoos, the eternally fixed afternoons!”
—Frank O’Hara (1926–1966)