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The Protestant Ethic as a General Precondition for Economic Development*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Niles M. Hansen
Niles M. Hansen*
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

Problems of economic development have inevitably stimulated interest in human motivation as it pertains to economic action. In this regard, frequent allusion has been made to Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. This paper argues that understanding of Weber's thesis concerning both the Protestant ethic and capitalism has been frequently erroneous or incomplete, and that when his thought concerning the metaphysical foundations of economic rationality is seen in an adequate context its implications for economic motivation and development problems are more important than has been generally acknowledged. More specifically, the present analysis holds that Weber's basic ideas concerning the practical economic effects of the economic actor's value orientation are valid within the framework of any given economic system.

The first two sections attempt to clarify Weber's thought concerning the nature of the Protestant ethic and its relation to capitalism. The remainder of the article deals with the contemporary significance of Weber's insight for economic development in Soviet Russia and in the newly-developing countries.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , November 1963 , pp. 462 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1963

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Footnotes

*

The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of Professor Arthur Schweitzer.

References

1 Economic motivation was generally related to the social psychology of religion in Weber's thought. The section “Motives of Economic Activity” in The Theory of Social and Economic Organization is misleading, as Parsons points out, because it only deals with the “structural basis of an interest in income, without attempting to analyze the underlying motivation any farther. Important contributions to various phases of this problem are to be found in other parts of Weber's work,” notably his comparative studies of religion. Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, translated by Henderson, A. M. and Parsons, Talcott, edited by Parsons, Talcott (Glencoe, Ill., 1947), 319n.Google Scholar

2 Hagen, Everett E., On the Theory of Social Change (Homewood, Ill., 1962), 298.Google Scholar

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 298-9.

5 Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1960), 51.Google Scholar

6 Ibid.

7 The nature of modern capitalism is discussed below.

8 Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Parsons, Talcott (New York, 1958), 26–7.Google Scholar

9 Robertson, H. M., Aspects of the Rise of Economic Individualism (Cambridge, 1935), xii.Google Scholar

10 Weber, , Protestant Ethic, 183.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 47.

12 For a more elaborate discussion of the ideal type see Parsons, Talcott, The Structure of Social Action (New York, 1937), 601–6.Google Scholar

13 Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London, 1926), 211–13Google Scholar; Fischoff, Ephriam, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: The History of a Controversy,” Social Research, XI, 1944, 61–77.Google Scholar

14 Weber, , Protestant Ethic, 27.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., 97.

16 Weber, Max, “The Social Psychology of the World Religions,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, translated and edited by Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright (New York, 1958), 294.Google Scholar The italics are Weber's.

17 Weber, , Protestant Ethic, 217n.Google Scholar

18 As Hoselitz has pointed out, Italian economic development was held back because the financial aristocracy would not allow sufficient flexibility for the Reformation to take roots in Italy. Hoselitz, Bert, Sociological Aspects of Economic Growth (Glencoe, Ill., 1960), 109.Google Scholar The issue here is not a matter of relative acquisitiveness but of a conflict between an entrenched traditional society and a repressed minority (cf. Rostow's second condition above).

19 Weber, , “Social Psychology of the World Religions,” 276–7.Google Scholar The emphasis is Weber's.

20 Rostow, , The Stages of Economic Growth, 52.Google Scholar

21 The relevance of the ascetic ethic “beyond the orbit of Protestantism” is taken up below.

22 Robertson, , Aspects of the Rise of Economic Individualism, 33.Google Scholar

23 Weber, , Protestant Ethic, 91.Google Scholar

24 See, for example, Weber, , General Economic History (New York, 1961), 207–13Google Scholar; Protestant Ethic, 19–24; Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 278–80; Gerth, and Mills, , eds., From Max Weber, 168–9, 227.Google Scholar Excellent secondary sources are From Max Weber, 65–9; Rendix, Reinhard, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (Garden City, 1960), 71–99 Google Scholar, and Fischoff, “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.”

It should be emphasized that Fischoff's widely known history of the Weber thesis controversy is deficient in at least two respects. He underrates Weber's emphasis on the causal importance of the Protestant ethic for modern capitalism by failing to distinguish clearly between the latter and the various types of political capitalism which have always existed in one form or another (p. 76). Secondly, he concludes that Weber's essay is more important in sharpening “our appreciation of … doctrinal history” and in paving “the way for the formulation of an adequate social theory of religion” than in promoting “our knowledge of past economic life” (p. 77). Such a conclusion is completely untenable both in view of Weber's stated aims in The Protestant Ethic and in the light of Weber's whole work on religion and economic behaviour.

25 Although there was no simple mechanical relationship between the Protestant ethic and capitalism, the former evidenced a strong “elective affinity” with a capitalism that was already strongly emerging in many respects. “The term ‘elective affinity’ was taken from the title of a novel by Goethe. Weber used it frequently to express the dual aspect of ideas, i.e., that they were created or chosen by the individual (‘elective’) and that they fit in with his material interests (‘affinity’).” Bendix, , Max Weber, 85n.Google Scholar

In addition to the motivating force of the Protestant ethic, Weber held that six presuppositions were necessary for the emergence of modern capitalism: (1) rational capital accounting, (2) freedom of the market for labour and commodities, (3) rational technology, (4) calculable law, (5) free labour, and (6) commercialization of economic life. Weber, , General Economic History, 207–9.Google Scholar

26 Weber, , Protestant Ethic, 58–67, 178–9.Google Scholar Hannah Arendt notes that Weber's analysis of modern capitalism, including man's estimate of labour, is the only approach which has “raised the question of the modern age with the depth and relevance corresponding to its importance.” The Human Condition (Garden City, 1959), 369.Google Scholar

27 Weber, , General Economic History, 270 Google Scholar; Protestant Ethic, 249.

28 Weber, , General Economic History, 270.Google Scholar

29 Ibid.

30 SirWallace, Donald Mackenzie, Russia on the Eve of War and Revolution (New York, 1961), 93, 176, 193, 367.Google Scholar

31 It is pertinent to note that in the Russian steppes a religious sect called the Molokánye possessed doctrines similar to those of Presbyterianism, though the sect had no apparent contact with the West. In contrast to their fellow Russians the Molokánye were characterized “by their sobriety, uprightness, and material prosperity.” Since the Molokánye did not appear to be different from the surrounding population in any respect but religion, this factor must be given its due as a determinant of their material progress. See ibid., 392–401.

32 Ibid., 371–91.

33 Heilbroner, Robert L., The Future as History (New York, 1959), 113–14.Google Scholar

34 Brinton, Crane, Ideas and Men (New York, 1950), 478–9, 485.Google Scholar The emphasis is Brinton's.

35 Weber discusses the basis of the legitimacy of an order in Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 130–32. He notes that “Submission to an order is almost always determined by a variety of motives … In a very large proportion of cases, the actors subject to the order are of course not even aware how far it is a matter of custom, of convention, or of law.”

36 The effect of religion on Japanese economic development was primarily felt through its influence on the structure in which economic change took place. The samurai class of aristocratic officials was motivated by an ideology which fundamentally contributed to Japan's industrialization, a process which took place primarily under government auspices. Samurai ethics encouraged business enterprise, hard work and frugality, as contrasted with purely speculative or acquisitive behaviour. See Bellah, Robert N., Tokugawa Religion: The Values of Pre-Industrial Japan (Glencoe, Ill., 1957), 187–93.Google Scholar

37 Fisher, Ralph T. Jr., “The Soviet Model of the Ideal Youth,” in Black, Cyril E., ed., The Transformation of Russian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 628.Google Scholar

38 Henry V. Dicks, “Some Notes on the Russian National Character,” ibid., 640.

39 The feeling of a “calling” in Soviet life is quite akin to that of the Puritans. See Jaray, Gabriel, Tableau de la Russie jusqu'à la mort de Staline (Paris, 1954), 55–8.Google Scholar

40 In keeping with Lenin's expectations the psychology and customs of the peasants have been very slow to change. Consequently the agricultural sector has been notoriously lagging.

Rostow contrasts the problems created by the “easy-going psychology” of the peasants with the Soviet proletariat, which “is a new class … without long tradition or collective memory.” Rostow, W. W., The Dynamics of Soviet Society (New York, 1952), 222.Google Scholar

41 Puritan and Marxist ideologies have each lent themselves to fostering literacy and learning; in each case education has been regarded not so much as an end in itself as a tool for the furtherance of sectarian goals.

The general effects of nationalism on economic development have not yet received the attention they deserve. Nationalist sentiments may be useful in promoting a feeling of obligation conducive to the rational application of labour and capital accumulation. But this is by no means necessarily the case, for, as Lewis has pointed out, “the ‘new men’ in politics and the ‘new men’ in economic activity are not the same, do not necessarily spring from the same class, and are not always in sympathy with each other.” For a more general discussion of these issues see Lewis, W. Arthur, The Theory of Economic Growth (Homewood, Ill., 1955), 26–9, 153–4, 423–4.Google Scholar

42 Weber, , “Social Psychology of the World Religions,” 289.Google Scholar

43 Hsu, Francis L. K., “Cultural Factors,” in Williamson, H. F. and Buttrick, John A., eds., Economic Development: Principles and Patterns (Englewood Cliffs, 1954), 332–3.Google Scholar Hsu mistakenly accuses Weber of ethnocentrism because he called the Confucian ethic irrational. Weber in fact attributed a high degree of rationality to Confucianism as such; it was irrational only in its effects on practical economic life. See Weber, , “Social Psychology of the World Religions,” 293–4.Google Scholar

44 The thousands of persons in underdeveloped countries who are willing to risk their lives on behalf of Marxist ideology are as conspicuous by their presence as those willing to do likewise for capitalism (much less Protestantism) are by their absence. From the liberal-democratic viewpoint this may be deplorable, but this philosophy is largely meaningless to those lacking at least a satisfactory minimum of material goods.

Were it not for the East-West struggle for the allegiance of the underdeveloped areas the ideological fervour of the Soviets would probably have abated more into bureaucratic conformity than it has already. This is, of course, not applicable to China, whose economy is not yet a really “going concern.”

45 Foster, George M., Traditional Cultures: and the Impact of Technological Change (New York, 1962), 160–2.Google Scholar

46 Geertz, Clifford, “Social Change and Economic Modernization in Two Indonesian Towns—A Case in Point,” in Hagen, , On the Theory of Social Change, 394.Google Scholar

47 Quoted in Higgins, Benjamin, Economic Development (New York, 1959), 300.Google Scholar

48 Wolf, Charles Jr., “Institutions and Economic Development,” American Economic Review, 12, 1955, 867–83.Google Scholar

49 Smith, Bruce L., “Communications Research on Non-Industrial Countries,” Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 16, winter, 1952, 535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar