The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Page 41
I say “seems,” for in truth it has to be said that Rachfahl does not have any point of view of his own that one could argue with. Arguing with him is like shadowboxing. One asks oneself in vain what his peculiar onslaught against me, which goes on for five sections, is supposed to have achieved, when he himself finally announces the result, namely, that he would have to “concede that the religious factor discussed by me (col. 1349) is of great significance for the development of economic conditions.” But he goes on to say that he would “not expect to find this significance in quite the same area” or—conceding a further point here—“at least not exclusively in the same area” as I am supposed to have done—although I am at a loss to know where I am supposed to have done this. He goes on to say that the ethic of the calling characteristic of the Reformation was “undoubtedly” one of the elements which drove economic development (he even uses the expression “one of its motivating forces”), while (erroneously—see above) maintaining that I had first analyzed it in this sense. His only reservation with any substance concerns the description (much criticized by him in his article) of this ethic of the calling [Berufsethik] as “ascetic”—which we have already discussed. I could be perfectly satisfied with these admissions by my severe critic [Herr Zensor], since I myself had stressed with the greatest possible force that it never entered my head to assume any more than the mere presence of this “motive force.”
Important though this task is, I have not in fact attempted to discover “in detail” (as Rachfahl would like me to) to what extent this motive force, in comparison with other elements, has actually worked in the adequate direction. Such a task would, of course, have to be tackled for each individual country separately, and would not be an easy one. [19] One quite useless proposal of Rachfahl’s is that I compile some kind of table of statistics. My opinion would be shared by anyone who knows from personal experience what unbelievable difficulties mount up when one tries to measure, on a living subject, the import of a certain “philosophical” [weltanschaungsmässigen] motive, even though its existence and effectiveness may be beyond doubt. [20] The task I chose—it is described with the greatest possible clarity in my essay—was first of all to establish, not where and how strongly, but how, through what process of spiritual [seelisch] motivation, certain forms of the Protestant faith were enabled to have the effect that even Rachfahl admits they had. I illustrated the effect by citing a number of examples, otherwise—as there was nothing “new” about it—I assumed that it was generally known. Rachfahl also, like me, takes it for granted as an undoubted fact (col. 1265, top) [21]—which makes the following remark all the more curious [22] (and not just for the nonhistorian!), for he goes on to say that the next task is to demonstrate the existence of these connections—having just told us that their existence is beyond doubt. Speaking of this “task”—one that, as I have said, I never set myself—Rachfahl then declares that I had made it “easy” for myself. I must wait to see if the readers have the impression that I made the task that I really had in mind too “easy” for myself.
In light of what one can only call these really arrogant remarks, the question arises as to how “hard” this demanding critic has made this task for himself—a task which I, he alleges, have failed to accomplish. And in view of the fact that in all of his five sections he has contributed precisely nothing (or can anyone think of anything?) on the subject of the relationship between Calvinism (and Rachfahl speaks only of this) and capitalism that could not already be found in my essay, I hardly need to answer this question. There remains nothing further for me to say on the matter other than the simple, but admittedly demanding, request to any interested parties that they should now—after Rachfahl’s “critique”—take up my essays once more and read them (as Rachfahl presumptuously failed to do) in their entirety. Certain things will then become clear: (1) In my essay, I myself dismissed as “foolish” the suggestion that it was possible to simply derive the capitalist economic system from religious motives, or from the ethic of the calling associated with “ascetic” Protestantism (as I have called it). I went into great detail, and indeed stressed as virtually the foundation of my problematic [Problemstellung], that at different times there has been both the “capitalist spirit” without a capitalist economy (Franklin) and the reverse (all of which Rachfahl quotes himself, but, whenever it suits him, immediately forgets again, only to produce the same argument as an “objection” against me). [22a] (2) It never occurred to me to identify those “ascetic” motives that in my view were religious in origin with the capitalist “spirit” (as Rachfahl tries to persuade his readers from start to finish, indeed as early as his résumé of my essays, col. 1219). On the contrary, I maintain only (vol. 21, p. 107 [here in this volume]) that they were one constituent part of this “spirit” (and indeed of further modern forms of culture as well) alongside others (something which, as I have said, Rachfahl himself, after much to-ing and fro-ing, finally admits). (3) I have expressed myself so unambiguously on the relationship of the so-called acquisitive drive [Erwerbstrieb] to the “capitalist spirit” that Rachfahl’s remarks on this point are only further proof that he is either disinclined to conduct a controversy with the goodwill that assumes any good sense in his opponent’s argument (let alone the best possible sense), or that at the moment of writing his “critique” he can no longer remember what the work he is criticizing says.
We may leave aside the question of whether one should apply the general term “acquisitive drive” [Erwerbstrieb], which is taken from a very much outdated form of “psychology,” at all to the varied psychological [psychischen] facts underlying the striving for money and wealth. The term is certainly not indispensable. This so-called drive [Trieb], especially in the compulsive [triebhafter], irrational, unbridled form, may be found on a huge scale in all stages of cultural development and in all social strata: in the Neapolitan “barcaiuolo,” the ancient and modern Oriental trader, the “respectable” Tirolean landlord, the “impoverished” farmer, or the African chief. By contrast, it cannot be found in this naive and compulsive form in the “type” of the Puritan or in a man like Franklin, with his strictly “respectable” [respektabel] ideas. This is one of the most distinctive starting points of my thesis, and I was entitled to expect that it would not be forgotten by (of all people) a man who intended to “criticize” it. To repeat once again: wherever large-scale capitalist development has taken place, in distant antiquity or in our own days, that type of unscrupulous moneymaker has existed, whether in the exploitation of the Roman provinces, in the plunder colonies [Raubkolonien] of the Italian maritime cities and the worldwide speculations of the Florentine patrons, in the plantations of the slave owners and the gold fields all over the world, in the American railways, the practices of the grand princes in the Far East, or the similarly worldwide speculations of the City [of London] “Imperialists.” The difference lies in the technical means and opportunities, not in the psychology of acquisitiveness. Since few people are likely to challenge them, Rachfahl need not have bothered to express such astounding verities as that the striving for “happiness,” for “benefit,” “enjoyment,” “honor,” “power,” “the future of one’s descendants,” and the like were, in all places and at all times, involved, in different combinations, in arousing the striving for the highest possible level of profit. [23] I have only mentioned these motives where they appeared to conflict with the ascetic “ethic of the calling” (my particular interest). [23a] When I did mention them, however, I did so with emphasis.
Equally blindingly obvious is Rachfahl’s statement that psychological links exist between all the other kinds of inner relationship with acquisitiveness and the one with which I am concerned, and that the motive described by me “in isolation” [24] could not in reality be “completely detached,” was normally “combined with others,” and “even today” could not be completely . . . etc., etc. [25] This probably applies to every possible motive of human action, and in the case of an attempt to repre
sent the specific effects of one particular motive, it has never yet prevented anyone from analyzing the motive in the greatest possible “isolation” and internal consistency. I would advise anyone who has no interest in all this “psychology,” and is interested only in the external forms of economic systems, to leave my essays unread, but then to have the courtesy to leave it to me whether I wish to pursue an interest in this psychological aspect of modern economic development, an aspect which is revealed by the great inner tensions and conflicts between “calling,” “life” (as we like to say today), and “ethic,” which were in a stage of equilibrium such as has never existed before or since.
All this took place in an area where the traditions of antiquity and the Middle Ages pointed in a different direction, while today we live in a state of renewed tensions which—far beyond the limitations of the sphere I have selected—are developing into cultural problems of a magnitude known only to our modern world [bürgerliche Welt]. It is simply not correct for Rachfahl to declare airily—and, incidentally, as throughout his polemic, in flagrant contradiction to his own aforementioned admissions at the end of his “critique”—that the “ethic of the calling” familiar to the “ascetic” followers of Protestantism (as I understand them) had already been dominant in the Middle Ages. Regarding the contrast with the Middle Ages, the more external points such as Church doctrine on “usury” are by no means decisive for me, as anyone who has read my essays will know, whereas, on the other hand, Rachfahl’s remarks on the subject are classic examples of his total lack of comprehension of the subject matter of these problems. Let us listen to his words: “And if a capitalist really felt so troubled by this (prohibition of interest) that he thought he had to soothe his conscience with pious foundations—is that not precisely a proof that his basic philosophy was antitraditional? For the acquisitive drive was so powerful in him that he did not even need the vehicle of a religious ethic, as the later Protestant ascetics did, to feel driven to making money . . .” (col. 1300). [26] The “acquisitive drive” of all those founders and speculators who “operate on the fringes of criminality” to earn their millions, the “acquisitive instinct” of the waiter in the Riviera holiday resorts, who has been trained to shamelessly and routinely cheat his guests by falsifying the bill, needs far less an “ethic” than a “vehicle”—and if a league table of the strength of the “acquisitive instinct” were to be drawn up, Puritanism would certainly not be near the top, and neither would the type of rationalist moneymaker, of whom I chose Benjamin Franklin as the prime example. [26a] But we are not here talking about the instinctive desire for money, happiness, the splendor familiae, etc.—all of which are things that hold fewer attractions for serious Puritans than they do for others: they become rich in spite of their otherworldliness [Weltabgewandtheit]. The point is, rather, that “ascetic” Protestantism creates the appropriate “soul,” the soul of the “man of the calling” [Berufsmensch], who has no need of the means required by medieval man to feel at one with his activity.
The merchant of the Florentine early Renaissance was not like this. This is not the place to analyze how profoundly torn the more serious men of those days were, despite their apparent wholeness and vibrant energy. One phenomenon that fits into this picture is the restitution of wealth acquired through “usury.” It may be one of the more superficial ones, but it certainly does fit into this picture. I—like any more or less unbiased person—can only see these “means of appeasement” as one of the numerous symptoms of the tension between “conscience” and “action,” of the irreconcilability of the principle of “Deo placere non potest” (which even Luther never superseded), the ideals of precisely those people who were serious about their Catholicism, and the “commercial” striving for profit. And I see the innumerable practical and theoretical “compromises” [27] as simply that—compromises. It is simply not true that every kind of activity has simply—as Rachfahl maintains and is indeed “what one might expect”—created its “ethic of the calling” at all periods in the same manner. I had hoped that my essays would contribute to the awareness of how far this conception (essentially one of “historical materialism”), whose superficial veracity no one, least of all myself, would dispute, has its limits with regard to historical development. [28]
To summarize, I would say that my essays are concerned with a certain constituent element [Komponente] of the style of life which stood at the cradle of modern capitalism and had a share—together with numerous other forces—in building it. My essays aim to analyze this constituent element and to follow it through its transformations and its waning. Such an undertaking cannot set itself the task of discovering what was present at all times and everywhere where capitalism existed. On the contrary, it aims to discover what is specific about a unique development. [29] I have already categorically refused to be responsible if other people overemphasize [verabsolutieren] the religious factors (which I have expressly and most emphatically described as an individual component) and identify them totally with the “spirit” of capitalism, or even derive capitalism from them. Rachfahl, however, has felt under no obligation to take account of this. My efforts may or may not be successful. But when a historian can think of nothing better to do than to list a series of other components which—as no one doubts—have always accompanied economic expansion, he does scant service to the tasks and interests of his discipline. Why profess an interest in “history” if all that history tells you is that basically “nothing has changed”?
Enough of that, and now a few remarks on the relationship between the “spirit” of capitalism and the capitalist economic system.
In the previous volume of this journal, pages 689 ff., Werner Sombart devoted an article to this subject which, in view of the large measure of agreement between us [30] in all essential points, especially in questions of method, relieves me of the need to deal at length with the subject. Both the concept of “capitalism” and, even more certainly, that of the “spirit of capitalism” are only conceivable as thought constructs of the “ideal type” variety. [31] They can either be conceived of in the abstract, so that features that are permanently alike can be extracted in conceptual purity. In this case, the second of the two concepts becomes rather empty of content and almost purely a function of the first. Or they may be conceived of historically, so that “ideal type” thought images are formed of the features specific to a particular era in contrast to others, while features that are generally present are assumed to be likewise given and well known. We must then, of course, concern ourselves with those features which are not present at all in the other eras of the construct’s existence or are present in a clearly different way in terms of degree. Incidentally, I have tried, in an admittedly quite imperfect manner, to do this for the “capitalism” of antiquity as an economic system (in the “Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften” in the article: “Agrargeschichte des Altertums”). [32] For the “spirit” of modern capitalism, as I wished to call it, my essay was intended to represent the beginnings [33] of an analysis which aimed primarily to pursue the new threads woven through the period of the Reformation.
And now to the question: What are we to understand by the “spirit” of capitalism in relation to “capitalism” itself? As far as “capitalism” itself is concerned, we can only understand by this a particular “economic system,” that is, a form of economic behavior toward people and goods that can be described as “utilization” of “capital.” We analyze the workings of this behavior “pragmatically,” that is, by whatever can be shown to be, according to the given circumstances, the “inevitable” or “best” means. As we have said: We either analyze everything that was common to such economic systems at all times, or we analyze the specifics of a particular historical system of this type. Here we are concerned solely with the latter alternative. A historically given form of “capitalism” can be filled with very different types of “spirit”; this form can, however, and usually will, have different levels of “elective affinities�
�� to certain historical types of spirit: the “spirit” may be more or less “adequate” to the “form” (or not at all). There can be no doubt that the degree of this adequacy is not without influence on the course of historical development, that “form” and “spirit” (as I said previously) tend to adapt to each other, and, finally, that where a system and a “spirit” of a particularly high “degree of adequacy” come up against each other, there ensues a development of (even inwardly) unbroken unity similar to that which I had begun to analyze.