The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

by Max Weber

  The phenomenon of the division of labor, and of the structuring of society according to occupation [Berufsgliederung], had already been seen by Thomas Aquinas (to whom we can here most conveniently refer again) as the direct result of God’s plan for the world. But the involvement of man in this cosmos occurs “ex causis naturalibus” and is fortuitous (“contingent,”46 to use scholastic terminology). In Luther’s eyes, as we have seen, the integration of men in the given estates and occupations, which followed from the objective historical order, was directly willed by God, and thus the individual’s perseverance in the position and within the limitations to which God had assigned him became a religious duty. This was all the more the case since the relationship of Lutheran piety to the “world” was always rather uncertain. Luther’s thinking produced no ethical principles according to which the world might be shaped, Luther never having quite rid himself of his Pauline indifference to the world. One therefore had to simply take the world as it was, and this alone could be declared a religious duty.

  Subtly different again, in the Puritan philosophy, was the providen-tial character of the interplay of private economic interests. True to the Puritan scheme of “pragmatic” interpretation, one can recognize what is the providential purpose of occupational structures by their fruits. Baxter elaborates on these fruits in ways which in more than one respect recall Adam Smith’s well-known apotheosis of the division of labor. [247] Specialization in occupations, because it enables the workman to use his skill, leads to improvements in both the quantity and the quality of performance and thus serves the common best,47 which is identical with the good of the greatest number. To this extent, the motivation is purely utilitarian and closely related to much that was already common in the secular literature of the time. [248] However, the characteristically Puritan element rapidly emerges, when Baxter prefaces his argument with the maxim: “Outside of a well-marked calling, the accomplishments of a man are only casual and irregular, and he spends more time in idleness than at work,” and concludes: “and he (the worker in a calling) will carry out his work in order48 while another remains in constant confusion, and his business knows neither time nor place . . . therefore is a certain calling (elsewhere termed a ‘stated calling’)49 [249] is the best for everyone.” The irregular work that the normal day laborer is forced to do is a frequently unavoidable, but always an unwanted, intermediate condition. The life of the man without a calling lacks the systematic and methodical character that, as we have seen, is demanded by innerworldly asceticism.

  According to the Quaker ethic, too, man’s life in a calling should be a consistent ascetic exercise, proof of his state of grace by his conscientiousness, which expresses itself in the care [250] and methodical approach with which he pursues his calling. It is not work itself, but rational work in a calling that is demanded by God. The Puritan idea of the calling always emphasizes the methodical character of the asceticism of the calling, and not, as with Luther, submission to the destiny which God apportions. For this reason, the question of whether one can combine several callings50 is answered in the affirmative—if this is beneficial for one’s own [251] or the general good, is not detrimental to anyone else, and does not cause one to be “unfaithful” in any one of these callings. Furthermore, a change of occupation is in no way regarded as reprehensible, provided it is not entered into lightly, and the change is to a calling which is more pleasing to God [252], which means, in general, more useful.

  Above all, the usefulness of a calling and correspondingly the degree to which it is pleasing to God depends, primarily, on moral criteria, and then on the level of importance for the “community” of the benefits produced; the third, and of course in practice the most important, criterion is private economic “profitability.” [253] For if the God that the Puritan sees as acting in all the fortunes of life reveals to one of his children the opportunity to make a profit, then there is a purpose in this. Consequently, the believing Christian must follow this call by taking advantage of this opportunity. [254] “If God show you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way (without wrong to your soul or to any other), if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be God’s steward, and to accept His gifts and use them for Him when He requireth it: you may labor to be rich for God, though not for the flesh and sin.”51 [255]

  Riches are only dangerous when they tempt us to idleness and sinful indulgence; and striving for riches is only dangerous when it is done with the aim of later leading a carefree life of pleasure. As an exercise of the duty of the calling, however, it is not only morally permissible, but actually commanded [256], the parable of the unfaithful servant who was cast aside because he had not invested the pound which God had entrusted to him seemed to express this directly. [257] To want to be poor, it was often argued, was the same as wanting to be ill [258]; it was to be condemned as seeking justification by works [Werkheiligkeit], detrimental to the glory of God. Most of all, begging by one who is capable of work is not only sinful sloth, but is also, as the apostle said, contrary to charity. [259]

  Just as the emphasis on the ascetic significance of the “certain calling” ethically transforms modern professional practice [Fachmenschentum], so also the knowledge that the opportunity of profit forms part of God’s providence ethically transforms the men of business. [260] The easygoing superiority of the lord and the ostentation of the upstart snob are both equally abhorrent to asceticism. By contrast, the plain middle-class [bürgerlich] self-made man52 enjoys ethical approval in full measure [261]: “God blesseth his trade”53 is a common expression for those saints [262] who successfully followed that divine guidance, and the whole might of the Old Testament God, who rewards his children for their righteousness in this life [263], inevitably tended to exercise the same influence on the Puritan, who, following Baxter’s advice, kept a check on his own state of grace by comparing it with the spiritual state of the heroes of the Bible [264], interpreting biblical texts as if they were “clauses in a code of laws.”

  In themselves the statements in the Old Testament were by no means unambiguous. We have seen that Luther first used the term “Beruf” in the secular sense when translating a text in Ecclesiasticus. The Book of Ecclesiasticus (Jesus Sirach), however, in the whole atmosphere with which it is infused, undoubtedly gives the impression of being one of the most traditionalist parts of the Old Testament (including the Apocrypha). It is noteworthy that this book seems to be particularly popular among Lutheran German peasants to this very day, [265] just as the strongly Lutheran character of broad swathes of German Pietism tended to express itself in a preference for the book. [266]

  The Puritans, who drew a sharp distinction between the divine and the creaturely, rejected the Apocrypha because it was not the inspired word of God. [267] Its absence, however, only increased the influence of Job, among the canonical books. In it, a magnificent glorification of God’s absolutely sovereign majesty, to which human measures could not be applied, and which was so congenial to Calvinist views, was ultimately allied to the certainty, less important for Calvin but important for Puritanism, that God customarily blesses his children in this life as well as the next, and not only spiritually but in a material sense, too. [268] The Oriental quietism that speaks through many of the most moving verses of the Psalms and Proverbs were glossed over, just as Baxter glossed over the traditionalist tone of the passage in 1 Corinthians on which the concept of the calling is based.

  Conversely, great stress was given to those passages of the Old Testament which praise formal legal observance as a mark of conduct pleasing to God. The theory was that the Mosaic law was only divested of its validity by the new covenant to the extent that it contained ceremonial or historically conditioned regulations for the Jewish people, but otherwise had always been valid and therefore remained so as the expression of the “lex naturae.” [269] This made it possible to eliminate those regulations which could simply not be ap
plied to modern life, while at the same time, through numerous related features of Old Testament morality, giving free rein to a powerful strengthening of that spirit of self-righteous and sober legality characteristic of this kind of innerworldly Protestant asceticism. [270] So if the tone of English Puritanism is defined as “English Hebraism,”54 [271] (and many contemporaries as well as more recent writers have defined it as such), this is, rightly understood, quite an accurate definition. However, it is only accurate if applied to the Judaism that emerged under the influence of many centuries of legalistic and talmudic training, not the Palestinian Judaism of the period when the Old Testament writings were being produced. The mood of ancient Judaism, which was, on the whole, inclined to uninhibited appreciation of life as such, is rather far removed from the specific character of Puritanism.

  In a sketch of this nature it would be impossible to set forth in detail the characterological consequences of the permeation of life with Old Testament norms, although it is tempting to undertake this task (so far it has not even been attempted for Judaism itself). [272] Alongside the features already suggested, what is worthy of consideration in particular for the inner disposition of the Puritan is the fact that in him the conviction of belonging to the chosen people of God enjoyed a magnificent renaissance. [273] Just as even the gentle Baxter thanks God that he caused him to be born in England and in the true Church and not elsewhere, so too does this gratitude for their blamelessness (effected by God) infuse the mood [274] of the Puritan middle classes [Bürgertum] and bring about that formal rectitude and resilience of character typical of the representatives of that heroic age of capitalism.

  We shall now highlight those particular points in which the Puritan concept of the calling and the insistence on an ascetic conduct of life directly influenced the development of the capitalist style of life. Asceticism turns all its force (as we have seen) against one thing in particular: the uninhibited enjoyment of life and of the pleasures it has to offer. This was most characteristically expressed in the battle surrounding the “Book of Sports,”55 [275] which James I and Charles I raised to the status of law for the declared purpose of combating Puritanism, and which Charles I ordered to be read from every pulpit. When the Puritans fanatically opposed the king’s decree that on Sunday certain popular pastimes should be permitted by law outside the time of worship, it was not only the disturbance of the peace of the Sabbath that enraged them, but the deliberate distraction from the ordered life of the saints that it represented. And when the king threatened any who attacked the legality of those sports with severe penalties, his purpose was precisely to break that ascetic tendency, which was dangerous to the state because it was antiauthoritarian. The monarchical and feudal society protected the “pleasure seekers” against the rising middle-class [bürgerlich] morality and the antiauthoritarian ascetic conventicles in much the same way as capitalist society today tends to protect those “willing to work” against the class morality of the workers and the antiauthoritarian trade unions. Against this, the Puritans stood for the principle of ascetic conduct.

  In fact, the Puritans—even the Quakers—were by no means opposed to sport in principle. It did, however, have to serve the rational purpose of providing sufficient recreation to maintain physical fitness. As a means of purely uninhibited expression of uncontrolled instincts, it was, of course, viewed with suspicion, and to the extent that it encouraged mere indulgence, let alone if it aroused naked ambition, raw instincts, or the irrational desire to gamble, it was, naturally, regarded as absolutely reprehensible. Instinctual enjoyment of life, which was equally prejudicial to the life of the calling and to piety, was quite simply the enemy of rational asceticism, whether it took the form of “seigneurial” sport or of the dance halls and taverns frequented by the common man. [276]

  Accordingly, the attitude to cultural products [Kulturgütern] that were not directly religious was one of suspicion and often hostility. It was not as though the Puritan ideal of life embodied a gloomy philistinism that despised culture. Precisely the opposite is true, at least as regards science and scholarship—with the exception of “scholasticism,” which they loathed. And the most prominent representatives of the Puritan movement were deeply imbued with Renaissance learning: the sermons of the Presbyterian wing were stuffed with classical allusions, [277] and even the radicals were not averse to the use of such erudition in theological controversy, while not hesitating to criticize others who employed it. Probably no country has been so rich in “graduates”56 as New England in the first generation of its existence. The satire of their opponents, like Butler’s “Hudibras,” also takes as its starting point the pedantry of the Puritans and the dialectic in which they were schooled. This, as we shall see later, had to do in part with the religious value placed on knowledge, a value which derived from the Puritan attitude toward the Catholic doctrine of “fides implicita.”

  It is a different matter as soon as we enter the area of nonscientific literature [278] and, beyond that, of the “art that appeals to the senses.” Here asceticism lay like a frost on the life of “Merrie England.” The fact that in Holland a great, often earthily realistic art could develop [279] only goes to show the limitations of authoritarian controls over morals in these areas. Once the brief dominance of the Calvinist theocracy had given way to a sober state church regime, and the strong ascetic appeal of Calvinism had waned, [280] the influence of the court and the regents57 and of the pleasure-seeking newly rich petite bourgeoisie proved too strong.

  The Puritans found the theater reprehensible; nor did the radicals stop at strictly eliminating eroticism and nudity from the range of what was “possible” in literature and art. The concepts of “idle talk,” “superfluities,” [281] “vain ostentation”58—all terms denoting behavior which is irrational, aimless, and therefore neither ascetic nor to the glory of God, but serving man—these were all quickly brought into play in order to decry the employment of artistic motives and decisively to promote plain utility. This applied particularly where personal adornment, such as style of clothing [282], was concerned. The powerful tendency toward increasing uniformity of lifestyle, which today is encouraged by the capitalist interest in the “standardization”59 of production [283], has its spiritual [ideell] basis in the rejection of the “worship of the creature.” [284]

  Of course, we should not forget that Puritanism embraced a world of opposites, that the instinctive sense of the timelessly great in art was certainly more highly developed in its leaders than it was in the “Cavaliers,” [285] and that a unique genius like Rembrandt, however little his “conduct” would have found favor in the eyes of the Puritan God, was yet vitally influenced in the direction taken by his creative work by the sectarian milieu in which he lived. [286] That, however, does not alter the total picture at all to the extent that literature (and only that of later generations) was the genre that chiefly benefited from the powerful spiritualization of the personality, which the further development of the Puritan aura was able to produce and in fact helped to form.

  Without examining all the directions in which Puritanism exercised influence, let us just recall that the degree of toleration afforded to pleasure in cultural products serving purely aesthetic or sporting indulgence was limited by one characteristic factor: they must not cost anything. Man was merely the steward of the gifts granted him by God’s grace; he, like the wicked servant in the Bible, must give an account of every penny [287], and it is at the very least dubious whether he should expend any of this money for a purpose which serves not God’s glory, but his own pleasure. [288] Which of us with eyes to see has not met people of this persuasion right up to our own time? [289] The idea of the obligation of man to the possessions entrusted to him, to which he subordinates himself as servant and steward or even as “moneymaking machine,” lies on life with its chill weight. If he will only persevere on the ascetic path, then the more possessions he acquires, the heavier becomes the feeling of responsibility to preserve them undiminished
to God’s glory and to increase them through tireless labor. Some of the roots of this style of life go right back to the Middle Ages, like so many elements of the capitalist spirit [290], but it was only in the ethics of ascetic Protestantism that it found a consistent ethical foundation. Its significance for the development of capitalism is obvious. [291]

  If we may sum up what has been said so far, then, innerworldly Protestant asceticism works with all its force against the uninhibited enjoyment of possessions; it discourages consumption, especially the consumption of luxuries. Conversely, it has the effect of liberating the acquisition of wealth from the inhibitions of traditionalist ethics; it breaks the fetters on the striving for gain by not only legalizing it, but (in the sense described) seeing it as directly willed by God. The fight against the lusts of the flesh and the desire to cling to outward possessions, as not only the Puritans but also the great apologist of Quakerism, Barclay, expressly testify, is not a fight against wealth and profit, but against the temptations associated with them.

  The latter lie, however, principally in the cherishing of ostentatious forms of luxury which are to be condemned as worship of the creature [292], and which are so dear to the feudal mind, instead of the rational and utilitarian use of wealth for the good of the individual and the community. The wealthy man should not be compelled to mortify the flesh [293], but he should make use of his wealth for necessary and practically useful things. The concept of “comfort”60 embraces the range of ethically permissible uses of wealth, and it is of course no coincidence that the development of the style of life defined by that concept has been observed earliest and most clearly in the most consistent representatives of this whole philosophy, the Quakers. Their ideal was the cleanliness and security of the comfortable middle-class home, in contrast to the glitter and dazzle of Cavalier pomp, which, resting on a shaky economic foundation, preferred shabby elegance to sober simplicity. [294]