10 - The Longevity of the Thesis: A Critique of the Critics

Summary

introduction

The Weber thesis controversy has been one of the most significant and well-publicized disputes of twentieth-century scholarship. The multidisciplinary background of those who have engaged the thesis is a mark of this significance: Sociologists, historians, economists, and theologians have in one way or another taken up Weber's famous claim that the Protestant ethic was in some fashion responsible for the spirit, then the form, of capitalism. My purpose is to trace selectively the career of only one side of this debate, the side that has challenged Weber's claim on the causal efficacy of religious ideas. The purpose in doing so is to demonstrate why the thesis has shown such remarkable durability, surviving relatively intact for over eighty years. It can claim such an achievement, despite the fact that the ideal religious assumptions upon which the thesis is predicated are incorrect, as I have recently demonstrated. The current undertaking therefore seeks to enlarge upon this earlier work, showing in the process that three generations of critics must be held substantially answerable for the longevity of Weber's venerable polemic.

When selectively following in the footsteps of these critics, we shall see that they can be held responsible on two counts, the first an error of omission, the second an error of commission: (1) The earliest critics failed to take up and resolve Weber's theological mistakes, creating an inviting opening that Weber readily exploited in his replies to their commentary; (2) the critics erroneously assumed that Weber is all idealism and no materialism, again conceding the high ground, which allowed Weber to respond effectively to their sallies.