by Max Weber
The distortions of Rachfahl’s polemic begin with the first word of the title of his essay: “Calvinism and Capitalism.” From the very first occasion [3] that I mention Calvinism at all (to contrast it with Catholicism and Lutheranism), I speak in terms of complete equality of those sects (or sectlike formations within the Church) that I have drawn together in the title of the second chapter of my essay and throughout the chapter as “ascetic Protestantism.”
If I may make this point straight away: Rachfahl attacks at the greatest possible length the use of the word “asceticism” to describe the conduct of life that I have attempted to analyze. This is, in fact, the only point that he himself is still arguing for by the end of his curious “critique.” And yet, at the beginning of his article (col. 1217, line 7), he himself evidently could not avoid using the same expression for the same thing. [4] We shall see, however, that he is happy to apply this double standard in his “critique”—after all, it is one thing for the “specialist” historian to make his pronouncements, but if the outsider,5 who “fabricates” history, says the very same thing, then this is a different matter altogether! For him, asceticism is “flight from the world,” and since Puritans (in the broad sense encompassing all the “ascetic” sects) were neither monks nor pursued the contemplative life, then that which I term “innerworldly asceticism” must ipso facto be a “false” concept, which wrongly implies an affinity with Catholic asceticism. I can scarcely imagine a more sterile polemic than one about names. I would happily exchange the name for any other that is more suitable. But unless we resolve to coin completely new words ad hoc on each occasion, or, like chemistry or Avenarius’s philosophy, make use of formulas [5], we shall have to continue to employ the most obvious and most appropriate words in traditional language, taking care to define them unambiguously—something which I believe I have done quite well enough with regard to “innerworldly asceticism” [innerweltliche Askese].
However, as far as the matter in hand is concerned (the inner affinity with Catholic asceticism), I might just mention that no less a man than Ritschl has gone so far in identifying the ascetic features (as I understand them) of “Pietism” (which he understands in a broad sense), with traces of “Catholicism” left behind within Protestantism, that I had to try to get him to modify his position. Rachfahl’s strictures would presumably apply equally to a contemporary of the Reformation like Sebastian Frank (justifiably cited by Troeltsch), who regarded it as one of the achievements of the Reformation that from now on not only monks by vocation [Berufsmönche], but every man must be a monk for his whole life—essentially the same as I have been saying.
Rachfahl would no doubt admonish us to recall that a monk is not allowed to take a wife, to earn money, or to cling to the things of the world in any way, and that therefore the term was highly inappropriate for a layman. But everyone knows that when we speak of “asceticism” today (whether it be in the sexual sphere in particular or in that of “indulgence” [Lebensgenuss] in general, or whether it concerns attitudes to aesthetic, or other “nonethical” values) we mean by it essentially conduct of life similar to that which the whole Puritan movement (not simply Calvinism but, even more, the Baptist movement and its allies) imposed upon itself.
This was an ideal of life that was “spiritually” akin to those Protestant tendencies having rational forms of monastic asceticism—forms that functioned as methodical rules of life. The difference was simply that the “asceticism” had to function within the orders [Ordnungen] of the world: family, commercial life [Erwerbsleben], the community; consequently, its material demands have been correspondingly modified. I have dealt briefly, but, I believe, clearly enough with this matter as it applies to various spheres of life, not exclusively “commerce” to dispense with a repetition here. [6]
Even the means with which Protestant asceticism works run completely in parallel with monasticism, as I have commented (vol. 21, pp. 77ff [footnote on page 106 in this volume]). On the other hand, as I have also pointed out, it was precisely the asceticism of the monasteries that made possible their considerable economic achievements. I could have added that the rational ascetic sects, or sectlike formations, of the Middle Ages constantly exhibit quite similar features in the character of their bourgeois [bürgerlich] behavior, as do (in particular) the Baptist sects later and certain categories of Russian sects (not all!) right up to recent times. The notion that “old Protestantism” as a whole took over asceticism “from medieval Catholicism” [col. 1263] is one of the many foolish assertions that Rachfahl attributes to me. I have repeatedly emphasized how severely and uncompromisingly what I call the nonascetic “old Protestant” denominations such as the Lutheran, the Anglican, and others attacked those features analyzed by me as “justification by works” [Werkheiligkeit]—as they also attacked Catholic monasticism. Protestantism is very far from forming a united front in its attitude toward asceticism (as I understand asceticism). For the moment I can think of no better word than “ascetic” as a common description of the features of the groups in question as compared with Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and the less distinct kinds of churches in the Reformed tradition. These common distinctive features, however, are present. And the development of those “ascetic” groups is just as much a product of the processes collectively known as the “Reformation” as, for example, “Gnesio-Lutheranism,” the spirit of which (God knows) differed no less from the Luther of the 1520s than the “Calvinism” which interests me differed from the personal views of Calvin himself. This is a point I have forcefully stressed [6a], and, as on almost every occasion, have despite this—or perhaps because of it—been lectured on it by Rachfahl.
What kind of a “historian” is it who, for the simple reason that an immensely important phenomenon (he does concede its importance), namely, the Puritan commercial ethic (because it is not “ethical” [cols. 1250, 1324] and he has an antipathy toward it) does not fit into the conceptual schema he has devised for the development of the Protestant ethic as it really should have been (for this is what it is really all about), what kind of a “historian” is it, I say, that now labels this phenomenon (N. B.! the phenomenon itself, not my description of it) with value judgments such as “distortion” and the like? [7] What kind of a “methodologist” is it that (col. 1294) puts forward the curious proposition that the existence in England of the capitalist spirit could be “understood without this (religious) factor,” although “we do not wish to deny its influence in any way.” So: this is a “factor” that was causally important for a certain context, but one which the “historian” can leave aside as irrelevant if he wishes to understand that context. Instead of “understand,” we could equally well say “construct.” We can then see in Rachfahl, with his fierce professional pride directed against the “fabricators of history” [Geschichtskonstrukteure] from outside the profession, an “ideal type” of what commonly befalls historians when they unwittingly employ undefined concepts, full of prejudices and value judgments.
There is no approved concept of “asceticism.” [8] I freely admit that the concept can be understood in a far broader sense than that in which I used it when I compared the conduct of life that I termed “innerworldly” asceticism with the “otherworldly”6 asceticism of monasticism. When speaking of Catholic asceticism, I refer expressly to rationalized asceticism (its most potent form is seen in the Jesuit order) in contrast to (for example) “unplanned flight from the world” (on the part of Catholics) and mere emotional “asceticism” (on the part of Protestants). My concept is therefore one that clearly differs from that of Troeltsch, as any person with any degree of goodwill—even Rachfahl—must see. And he has “seen” it. He even speaks [9] of “fundamental” differences between our respective views. But he is still quite happy to operate with a “Troeltsch-Weber” concept of asceticism, when it suits him to do so, and then to refute it by assembling all kinds of different concepts of “asceticism” from other authors, which may well be appropriate for their purposes, but ar
e not so for mine.
At the beginning of my first essay (vol. 20, p. 35 [footnote on page 27 in this volume]), I argued at length that one could consider the “rationalization” of life from very different points of view, and could therefore understand it in very different ways, a point that I have repeatedly emphasized (vol. 26, p. 278 [footnote on page 239 in this volume]). In spite of this (or perhaps because of it), Rachfahl even raises the point as an “objection” (col. 1263), although here, too, as he well knows, what I understand by it for my purposes had been fully explained. I confess that I regard this kind of discussion as rather pointless and find it a bit much for a writer who thrives to such an extent on the confusion provoked by mere linguistic “criticism” to express the fear that my well-defined, ad hoc linguistic creations could “blur fundamental distinctions.” I defy anyone to extract anything positive from Rachfahl’s confused argument. One is left wondering where these “fundamental” distinctions are to be found?
Let us, however, return to our starting point. Rachfahl’s quite arbitrary restriction of the topic to “Calvinism” persists for almost the whole of his argument against me. [10] He begins straight away by basing his polemic upon this point (col. 1217), and at numerous places in the essays the same distortion of the subject of the discussion recurs. Indeed, the only serious argument used against me would not be possible without it.
Let us deal with this argument first. Rachfahl is convinced of the paramount role played by “toleration” as such in economic development. Now, as anyone who has read my essays will know, I have no argument with him on this point, indeed, I myself have mentioned these matters (vol. 21, p. 42, note 1 [note 146 in this volume]), although they are not really relevant in detail to my argument at this stage. But the decisive point here is that although under the circumstances of the time undoubtedly any kind of toleration inevitably played its part in “populating the country,” and importing wealth and trade from abroad, this aspect of the question does not interest me. What was evidently important for the development of the disposition [Habitus] that I (ad hoc and purely for my own purposes) dubbed the “capitalist spirit” was the question of who benefited from the toleration in the specific case.
If the beneficiaries were (for example) the Jews or (in the sense of the word used by me—vol. 21, pp. 28f. [footnote on page 81 in this volume]) “ascetic” Christian denominations, then toleration regularly tended to promote the dissemination of this “spirit”—but of course this effect was not simply a result of “toleration” as such. Furthermore, the degree of “toleration” is, in general, far from being the determining factor for the development of the “capitalist spirit” (as ever, using the term in my sense). Conversely, it is a well-known fact (compare vol. 20, p. 5 [here in this volume]) that incomplete toleration (especially the systematic exclusion of religious minorities from the enjoyment of equal rights in state and society) has been shown to have the effect of driving those so deprived [Deklassierten] with particular force along the path of economic activity. Accordingly, it is the “churches under the cross” that seem to be most deeply involved. This very point is made strongly by Sir William Petty (Political Arithmetick, London, 1691, p. 26), quoted by Rachfahl. Petty says that it is always the heterodox that run “commercial life,” and in particular in the countries dominated by the Roman Church, “three-quarters” of the commerce is in the hands of heretics.
Now, however—and this is the clinching argument—we are confronted by the fact that disenfranchised or at least disadvantaged Catholic minorities—as I was quick to emphasize (vol. 20, p. 6 [here in this volume])—have not to the present day [11] exhibited this phenomenon anywhere in any unambiguous way, and that this phenomenon cannot anywhere be observed even among Lutheran minorities in the way that it can among the “ascetic” denominations—while, on the other hand, Calvinist, Quaker, and Baptist strata, which are by no means always in a minority but may equally well be dominant, generally demonstrate the qualities that are normally characteristic of this kind of economic behavior and conduct of life. Where “ascetic” Protestant denominations competed on level terms with other Christian denominations, the rule was that the former were more prominent in commercial life. Right up until the most recent generation, the conduct of life of the “Reformed” people in the classical old industrial region of Wuppertal was fundamentally different from that of the rest, and the areas in which they differed were precisely those that concern us here. The business activity of the “man of the calling,” together with what I (ad hoc) called “ascetic compulsion to save,” differed sharply and conspicuously in the case of the Reformed and Pietist groups (Pietism is of Reformed origin) despite all Rachfahl’s ad hoc invented “morality common to all Christians,” as anyone from that part of the country will confirm.
Incomplete though my efforts undoubtedly were, the entire essence of that conduct of life corresponded so closely to what I said about it that a wide range of people from that background themselves assured me directly that with the knowledge of these historical antecedents, they now completely understood the specific character of their own traditions for the first time.
And when (to mention another point) Rachfahl points to Lutheran Hamburg as a place where the “capitalist spirit” has continually flourished without help from “ascetic” Protestant influences, I can only refer to a letter from my colleague Adalbert Wahl of Hamburg. According to him, in typical contrast to conditions he used to be familiar with in the Reformed city of Basel, with its thrifty accumulation of old patrician wealth, in Hamburg none of the wealthy families, even those regarded as having ancient inherited wealth, went back as far as the seventeenth century. The single exception was one well-known Reformed family. I could add more evidence from many similar personal communications from other sources, regarding the position of Baptists and others, but that will suffice. As I should like to emphasize, my crucial “thesis” regarding the significance of the “calling” was “new” only in the manner of its presentation. In matters of substance, that preeminent contemporary, Sir William Petty, who is well known to Rachfahl (and whom he evidently acknowledges as an authority, since he sees fit to use his arguments on the economic blessings of toleration—wrongly, as we see—against me), is still correct when he writes only two pages earlier (pp. 23–24) about the reasons why toleration (especially in Holland, the country where his interest lies) had such a favorable influence on “business”: “I now come to the first policy of the Dutch, viz.: liberty of Conscience . . . dissenters of this kind”—meaning those carrying on the Dutch struggle for freedom, primarily Calvinists—“are for the most part thinking, sober, and patient Men, and such as believe that Labor and Industry is their Duty towards God (How erroneous soever their Opinions be).” [12] It now seems to me that the passage is so close to one of the fundamental theses of my essay that the latter must appear as a piece of plagiarism against Petty [13] (albeit an unconscious one). I could therefore leave it to the reader to choose between the authority of Petty and that of modern critics. [14] I could then drop out of this discussion altogether. I would do this all the more willingly, since I must also admit that Groen van Prinsterer, a writer who, with the greatest respect to Rachfahl, should be credited with a more thorough and original knowledge of the character of his Dutch homeland, has from time to time said essentially the same thing about the reasons for wealth creation there (ratio of—relatively!—low consumption to earnings) as I have.
The following section of the passage in Petty then elucidates a further point that Rachfahl has made the subject of one of the many pseudocontroversies with which his essay is teeming: “These people” (that is, the Puritan dissenters) “believing the Justice of God, and seeing the most Licentious persons to enjoy most of the world and its best things, will never venture to be of the same religion and profession with voluptuaries and Men of extreme Wealth and Power, who they think have their portion in this World.”
It is not the really big concessionaires and tycoons: the
economic “supermen,” but their adversaries: the considerably broader strata of the rising middle classes [bürgerlicher aufsteigender Mittelstände] that were the typical exemplars of the Puritan attitude to life—as I, for my part, have stated most emphatically, and, although Rachfahl knows this (indeed, he quotes it), he still continues to hold it against me as an “objection” whenever it suits him. [15] Petty’s remarks, taken together with the previously quoted passage, are an excellent illustration of the (apparently!) paradoxical attitude of “Protestant asceticism” toward wealth (in my sense of the word). This corresponds very well with what I had deduced from other sources, and especially from the principles of the ascetic denominations (which are even today still having their effect). Wealth as such, as the source of the greed for pleasure and power, is not only a danger, but the danger, and the striving for earthly possessions is (and I could quote any number of examples) in itself simply reprehensible: Petty says the same thing. And yet, Petty himself had just presented the “industry” of these elements (which were so hostile toward rich people and toward wealth) as a particularly important source of wealth creation, and stressed that they comprise the overwhelming proportion of the business community. Again, this is precisely what I have done myself.
Anyone who is familiar with my essays will be aware of how easily the seeming paradox can be resolved. Even Rachfahl knows this, although the manner in which he reproduces my argument is odd in the extreme. [16] He is well acquainted with my quite extensive work on the relationship of Puritans (in the broadest sense of the word) to commerce, a relationship which is, admittedly, strange and hard for modern man to conceive of without suspicion of hypocrisy and self-delusion, but for those who had to find a bridge between this world and that which is to come by no means all that “complicated.” He also knows the sharp distinction I have made between this and the disposition [Habitus] that finds expression in Fugger’s phrase, quoted by Sombart. [16a] Similarly, he knows that I expressly stated that the whole type represented by the great Italian, German, English, Dutch, and overseas financiers is simply a type that has always existed, as I have to keep repeating [17], from as far back as our knowledge of history extends. The nature of this type has none of the characteristics of the “early capitalism” of the modern age [Neuzeit]; indeed, “early capitalism” contrasts in the sharpest possible manner with those of its features that I was most anxious to reveal, because they are so easy to miss and yet are among the most important. But this exact knowledge of my intentions does not prevent Rachfahl from pointing, as though it were an argument against me, to that type of capitalist who lacks the features that I have called “ascetic,” and which, as he should be aware, has been known since the time of the pharaohs. One can read in my essays with the utmost clarity that I am not concerned with this type, thus, for example, in Holland [18], not with the universally known type of businessman who is “greedy for gain,” and who (and it should be noted that I quoted this myself) [18a]: “would go through hell for the sake of profit, even if it meant getting his sails singed.” Despite this, he still puts the question to me whether this is not the “true” capitalist spirit? I scarcely need to provide an answer for anyone who has read my essays. The same thing applies when Rachfahl’s zeal is turned toward the search for any regions where there has been a powerful development of a capitalist economy, in which, however, “Protestant asceticism” did not play a decisive role (actual or alleged), or in which conversely it did play such a role without a large-scale capitalist economy becoming established. We have already discussed the details of this criticism. I have already repeatedly spoken at length about this, but am happy to go into it again, if necessary. For we may have arrived at a point where it seems possible for our respective points of view to confront each other.