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Summary: A Sociology Classic
Modern readers may find the dry style this book is written in a bit boring, but the subject matter makes up for it. Weber looks at 4 branches of Protestantism (Calvinism, Pietism, Methodists, Baptists) and how they each affected the development of modern capitalism. It also sheds light on some of the origins of modern Western beliefs.
Summary: Brazilian reality shows Max Weber was wrong.
I tried to read this book(translated) to the portuguese, about 15 years ago.Even never finishing it, I as a brazilian (unemployed) agronomist must tell the reality about weberianism.
At first, Max Weber was a man looking to show the reality.He wasn't a bigot(or mad) such as Loraine Boettner, Eric Jon Phelps, etc.
With no doubt, Max Weber was a great scholar, a man with great IQ, a man man looking for reality.Even with this qualities, Max weber was wrong.Even a man like Max Weber, like you and me, is ever a prisioner of his times, informations and reality.
The core idea of this book is that capitalism, industrial revolution and modern science were made by protestantism.
Very believed idea in Weber's times.
In fact, Weber puts "the cart ahead of the horse", in this idea.In fact, modern world wasn't created after Luther.It was shaped in XV Century, with the press and Great Navigations.
The press was invented by a catholic german, called Johann Gutemberg.All the great navigators were catholic men.Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Bartolomeu Dias,Cabral, Gil Eanes,etc. 100% of then were catholics and were under catholic kings money and orders.With the Great discoveries the American continent was under Europe's hands.The claim that protestantism was the source of Europe's power was and is a fraud.
In fact economically and lively, after Luther, protestant Germany became a nightmare until the end of 30 years War, in 1648.The claim that protestantism was good for Europe is a possibility, not a fact.
In fact, we could see protestantism is a result of nacionalism, church's abuses, education and greed for church's money.
Not all protestants countries of Europe had good economical results.Germany was doomed after Luther's Reformations.Not all catholic countries had bad economic results, as France shows.Spain and Portugal were bad, after jew's expeling, not after any reformation.
With the Industrial Revolution, coal became condition "sine qua non" for economical sucess.And the Geology(not theology)decided the future for nations in Europe.With no coal Portugal, Spain, Italy were senteced to relatively poverty, in Europe.France with bad coal reserves, has some dificults in industrialization.Belgium, even more than 90% of his population in catholic church, had no economical problems, because Belgium had great coal's mines.
Why England had so good economic results, ahead of every other european country?Beeing an island, England shouldn't have an expensive army against invasions.Then, England could built the biggest navy in the world.Geography, not theology gave economic sucess to England in XVI and XVII Century.With the Industrial Revolution, England had coal reserves looking to be minerated. Geography and later geology gave England industrial and economical sucess.With the 30 years War, Germany was splited in about 300 feufdoms.
The England's decadency also came from no theological problemas, but geological, political and tecnological problems.With the reunification of Germany, an industrial enemy was created in continental Europe.With the invention of airplane, England could be attacked by an enemy with no navy.With the coming of oil's age, England (North Sea oil's reserves not found before the 1960's) had to import100% of his fuel.With both World wars, England's empire was sentenced to death.
Protestantism in fact, like today, was ever divided in thounsands of cults, since his beginnings.If fact all kinds of protestantisms are image and similarity of his human creator, culture and society.Luther made a anti-semithic protestantism suc as himself.Calvin made a bank's friend protestantism, as himself was.And the England's king Henry VIII made an english protestantism.All reformator made a Jesus equal to himself.This fact is true until today.Protestantism don't make a society and culture.In fact a society and a culture makes a protestantism.
The brazilian and latin american reality shows that protestantism itself don't make economical sucess.Here in Brazil, 80% of people who go to a church, go to a protestant (pentecostal) church.Do we have economical sucess with all this protestantism?
NO!!!!
This same fact happened in many parts of latin America.Bad economic results followed protestantism growing.El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua all are as protestants(pentecostals) as Brazil.All with bad economical results.
About 35% of brazilian population are protestants, against about 80% of brazilian maids are protestants.In fact the brazilian protestants are, poorer than the general brazilian population.Also brazilian states with more protestants have bigger crime rates.In fact, more protestants, more crimes in Brazil.The poorest of all religious groups in Brazil are, the protestants(pentecostal).Only protestantism as a medicine for economical, political and cultural troubles is a quackery.
Not a single african or latin american country had good economical results after protestantism's growing.At the same time, Spain with less than 1% of his population protestant, is an economical sucess.Italy and Portugal with only about 2% of protestants are also developed countries.
This book is a source with some good things to read.As I wrote up, Max Weber was an honest scholar, not a mad or a bigot.After all, Max Weber was looking to show us the reality, but he only wrote us rooted, in his own times, believes and realities.Every man is a prisioner of his times, friends and realities.And Max Weber wasn't an exception.
Summary: Bad edition of a somewhat flawed classic
Weber's thesis is plausible-in fact, very plausible. However, it is a bit difficult to take seriously for a couple of reasons. The first is that he doesn't offer much empirical support for his ideas-he relies merely on the fact that the understanding of calling developed by Puritanism is consonant with the attitudes of the "spirit of capitalism." He expresses concern for working only with doctrines that had a kind of widespread psychological effect on the petit bourgeois of capitalist countries, but then doesn't prove that the doctrines he works with did have such an effect.
The second problem is that Weber does not deal at all with the causal links among class, religious doctrine, and capitalist activity. In fact, he explicitly admits (in n. 84 of the last chapter in the Routledge edition) that he has not dealt with class at all in this work. I find that problematic-certainly there seems to be a connection of some kind between the middle-class capitalist ethic and Calvinistic religion, but it is not clear which direction that link goes.
Finally, and only partially relevant, is the fact that this edition and this translation are terrible. The translator, working in the 1930s, assumed (rightly or wrongly) not only knowledge of Italian, French, and Latin on the part of his readers, but knowledge of German. Several quotations in the footnotes were left untranslated, which is not of much use to those who are reading Weber in English because they themselves don't understand German (well). References were also left untranslated; Routledge should have paid a grad student to track down good English editions of the most relevant German, Dutch, and French titles. Most insultingly, this rather expensive reprint edition is riddled with typographical errors. Routledge definitely dropped the ball on this one, perhaps assuming it was a sufficiently important work that even a very, very poor edition would sell.
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