"Weber argued that capitalism evolved and thrived only in Protestant countries, where Calvinism had made worldly accomplishment a sign of membership in God's elect"
Source credit: Lawrence Calhoon, professor of political philosophy
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It may have been morphed and distorted into the prosperity gospel of rightwing mega-churches
Preeminent sociologist Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" is his study of capitalism's rise in the West.
He noted that capitalism flourished mostly in areas where certain forms of Protestantism had arisen. He therefore thought that there might be a connection between the two:
1. Weber emphasized that he was not saying Protestantism caused capitalism.
2. He saw the modern European situation as home to the spirit of capitalism; that is, the new capitalists were not greedy for money and did not use it for hedonistic ends.
3. He saw Protestantism as vitally connected to the rise of this kind of capitalism.
He noted Martin Luther's teaching that all are equal before God,meaning that all labor was equally valuable:
1. Previous Catholic teaching had valued religious work as vocation and had devalued common and secular labor.
2. Luther's teaching meant that all work could be valued in a religious framework.
Weber also noted the Calvinist teaching of predestination as a source of anxiety for Protestants who sought ways to reassure themselves of their election. The idea of predestination had originally been meant to solve a religious problem: the significant differences between Christians and non-Christians in terms of their virtue or piety.
Protestantism encouraged an "inner-worldly asceticism" that induced believers to work and earn but to save and invest their earnings instead of spending self-indulgently on pleasures:
1. Weber did not find in his data any indication that people could be induced to work harder by external rewards.
2. Protestantism, by valuing all labor and seeing success as a sign of divine favor, provided the inner drive needed for harder work.
Source credit: Professor Charles B. Jones
"Weber argued that capitalism evolved and thrived only in Protestant countries, where Calvinism had made worldly accomplishment a sign of membership in God's elect"
Source credit: Lawrence Calhoon, professor of political philosophy
I thought Jesus taught that material possessions were meaningless.
Religion and work ethic BOTH swung and missed at Nifty Niblick.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Samuel Johnson, 1775
Religion....is the opiate of the people. Karl Marx, 1848
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Kris Kristofferson, 1969
Cypress (12-07-2021)
Lol, Irish Catholics around Boston are a lot richer than Irish Protestants in West Virginia.
Bostonians themselves are wealthier on average than West Virginia hillbillies.
At the time Max Weber was writing, the Protestant nations of northwestern Europe were the richest and most dynamic on the planet.
I don't know if I agree with the thesis of capitalism and Protestantism, but it has been a mainstay of socio-economic thought for over a century
Okay, let's assume this is totally correct and there is a connection as proposed. Two questions:
You seem to imply this is bad, why is it bad?
Is there any other system in history that has produced more personal wealth and societial uplift than this combination?
I do not think the rise of Protestant capitalism is a bad thing, in and of itself. There are certain elements of Protestantism which were important to western civilization.
I made an observation that the Calvinist prosperity gospel is seemingly at odds with the early Christianity concieved by Jesus, the apostles, and the monastic tradition; a moral vision based on modesty, humility, rejection of wealth and materialism.
Doubt there's been a solution for decades while Christmas economics reinforces Christiananality pedophilia's fabricated misnomer immaculate Jesus the Christ pseudoscience reproduction conception resulting in "man is God" suicidal sociopsychopathilogical homicidal human farming schizophrenia lynching enforcement creation of it's Christian Nation supreme swastika up Uranus kangaroo court national religion where 2 Washington, D.C. born American citizens, due to Rehnquist's fabricated Islam misnomers & immaculate drug conceptions are again subjected to more thieving US Constitution arsonists as the Godvernment interpretation of "one nation under God with equal justice under law" to further those burning Bush's "serve the Pope or die" more perfect union 9/11 Arab "death to the infidels" health care plan patriot act maintaining their Federal Lynching KKK churchstate of hate fiefdom master race Peter Principle pyramid scheme master plan of organized crime which forgives themselves regardless.
What a word salad ^^^^^^^^^^
As to the thread, people who study the NT know that it teaches that the able should work to … 1) provide for himself and for his family, 2) to keep himself out of trouble (minding the business of others, gossiping, etc) and 3) to have to use to help others. So the premise of the article doesn’t surprise me.
The question is not about incentivizing work.
Hinduism's tenets promote work as a way to acquire the means to support one's self and the family.
The question is why did free market capitalism, aided by Protestant values of work and individualism germinate and flourish specifically in northwestern Europe.
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox were reading the same New Testament as Protestants were. But, strictly speaking, they were coming up with somewhat different priorities when it comes to the human experience in this life.
History shows that liberal, free market capitalism as we practice it would not have germinated or originated in Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Shinto. For one thing, Laozi, Zhuagzi, and the Daoist canon advocate a withdrawal from conventional worldly engagement.
As a point of order, the spelling convention "Taoist" is a relic of 19th and early 20th century western attempts to translate Chinese.
Since 1982, the international standard for translating Chinese into western languages is Pinyin. Therefore the Daoist spelling convention is the international standard, because Pinyin is more accurate at interpreting Chinese phonetics.
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