Weber, Passion and Profits: 'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' in Context

by Jack Barbalet

• ISBN13: 9780521895095
• ISBN10: 052189509X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the best-known and most enduring texts of classical sociology, continually inspirational and widely read by both scholars and students. In an insightful interpretation, Jack Barbalet discloses that Weber's work is not simply about the cultural origins of capitalism but an allegory concerning the Germany of his day. Situating The Protestant Ethic in the development of Weber's prior and subsequent writing, Barbalet traces changes in his understanding of key concepts including 'calling' and 'rationality'. In a close analysis of the ethical underpinnings of the capitalist spirit and of the institutional structure of capitalism, Barbalet identifies continuities between Weber and the eighteenth-century founder of economic science, Adam Smith, as well as Weber's contemporary, the American firebrand Thorstein Veblen. Finally, by considering Weber's investigation of Judaism and capitalism, important aspects of his account of Protestantism and capitalism are revealed.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. x
Note on citations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
From the inaugural lecture to the Protestant Ethic: political education and German futures	p. 15
The inaugural lecture	p. 17
Religion and economic outcomes	p. 20
Political education and calling	p. 25
Minding the gap	p. 34
Science and values	p. 36
Conclusion	p. 43
From the Protestant Ethic to the vocation lectures: Beruf, rationality and emotion	p. 46
Beruf, rationality and the modern personality	p. 48
Beruf, rationality and emotion in the Protestant Ethic	p. 53
Beruf, rationality and emotion in the vocation lectures	p. 58
Weber's retreat from ascetic rationalism	p. 65
Conclusion	p. 71
Passions and profits: the emotional origins of capitalism in seventeenth-century England	p. 75
Profits	p. 78
Passions	p. 85
A presentation of Passions of the Minde	p. 90
Management of passion by means of passion	p. 93
Expression of emotions	p. 97
Capitalism, seventeenth-century Catholicism and cultural apparatus for market actors	p. 102
Conclusion	p. 107
Appendix	p. 109
Protestant virtues and deferred gratification: Max Weber and Adam Smith on the spirit of capitalism	p. 111
Moral Sentiments as a sociological text	p. 113
Protestant virtues	p. 115
Deferred gratification	p. 118
Self-control and self-command	p. 125
Emotion and reason in self-command	p. 129
Smith's social principles and Weber's religious legitimation	p. 137
Conclusion	p. 143
Ideal-type, institutional and evolutionary analyses of the origins of capitalism: Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen	p. 146
Capitalist personality	p. 148
Capitalist institutions	p. 151
The state and capitalism	p. 158
The variable incidence of capitalism	p. 162
The religious factor, again	p. 166
Ideal-type method	p. 169
Evolutionary method	p. 172
Instincts and institutions	p. 176
Conclusion	p. 179
The Jewish question: religious doctrine and sociological method	p. 183
Jewish rationalism, Protestant rationalism	p. 185
The Jews as a 'pariah people'	p. 188
Anti-Semitism and Jewish marginalization	p. 190
Talmud or social relations	p. 196
Values and practices	p. 198
The ideal type and universal values	p. 202
Religious belief as a social cause	p. 209
Conclusion	p. 211
Conclusion	p. 214
References	p. 226
Index	p. 244
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