The article: “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” focuses on Weber’s study about the connection between the ethics established by Protestantism and the effects it had on the essence of modern capitalism. Through the article, Weber argues that the religious principles of the different groups such as those like the Calvinists have played a role in molding the spirit of capitalism.
He first observes the connection in being a Protestant and being involved in the capitalist business and states that he intends to explore the fields of religion as a possible cause for the growth of the modern economic conditions. Weber contends that the contemporary spirit of capitalism views profit/money as a means , and the following profit as good and righteous. Weber’s aim is to comprehend the origins of the spirit. He then turns to the idea of Protestantism for a possible explanation. According to Weber, Protestantism gives an idea of the concept of “calling,” thus gives the activity a religious character. While essential, this idea can’t explain alone the motivation to pursue gains. A branch of Protestantism, known as Calvinism has proven to provide the necessary explanations for the current
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Other religious groups such as the Pietists, Baptists, and the Methodists all had the same attitudes but to a lower level. It is argued through Weber’s study that the new attitude towards material success and profit have broken the usual system of the economy which then opened the way for the contemporary condition of capitalism. But then, once the idea of capitalism began, the values of the Protestant was no longer needed, and their ethic exercised and enlivened the idea of the contemporary capitalism. The economic status of the modern capitalists was now sealed into the life of capitalism because it has become beneficial for the contemporary economic