He theorized that the religious environment of Protestantism influenced the growth of capitalism and that once the ascetic sentiment of religion died out society sought to gain fulfillment from external goods. Weber accounts the rise of Capitalism in western society to the ethics of the Protestants who were more concerned with success and productivity than their Catholic counterparts. Early in The Protestant Ethic Weber uses these two religions in comparison to describe the changes that occurred that lead to the spread of the capitalist society. He noted this in the strikingly lesser number of Catholics in the skilled labor force of modern industry as compared to that of Protestants. Catholics, he found, preferred to master their crafts.
The Catholic Church went through a change to its very core when Martin Luther voiced what was wrong, mainly how far the church had moved from the actual words in the Bible. The Christians in the Lutheran faith believed that the decline of the church is related directly to the word of God shared through man. With this relationship, the word of God can be misconstrued to feed the egos and desires of man, rather than God’s will. Martin Luther was interested in reforming the church, and in particular, man’s belief of what is true about God’s word. During this same time, the Catholic Church was moving further from the theology of the Protestants.
Adam Smith’s writing is structured around his economic metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’ which perceives the marketplace to be self-regulated. He dismisses the mercantile system that existed at the time of his writing and contends that self-interested individuals will benefit society, even if unintentionally, because they have the motive to produce better products and at lower costs. Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, conveying the inextricable link between the ‘invisible’ force of the market competition which feeds individual greed and the promotion of the national interests in improving society. He gives the example of the
Where once there was only religion to explain the immediate world, now there is the concept of rationalisation as Weber suggested where science, technology and global media help to build an idea of why and how things happen away from religion and its beliefs based on magic and the supernatural. Many argue that religion and the church is losing its power in society as we no longer depend on it to answer the unanswerable questions as Parsons suggests and now it is just something we go to in times of great need where there is no other rational, scientific answer. This process is known as disenchantment whereby the old Protestant ideas in society which believed God to be existing beyond the world as and all-knowing figure, have been erased by the development of the scientifically proven facts and technology for the answers to questions that were previously unknown. However, many do still turn to religion in the traditional sense to answer their questions when all else fails so it is still performing traditional functions to a degree. Davie takes this idea of the religion losing power and becoming less prevalent in society and attributes it to the idea that faith and religion has become privatised – we can now feel more able to make a personal choice whether we go to church and believe in God because we feel less obliged to do so and therefore he argues
Missionaries did their job of preaching that the savages of the world need to be civilized and Christianized. Thus, the United States began to become very nationalistic, and tensions with foreign powers began to rise. Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” gave a call to the white population of the United States to reach out and ‘civilize’ the rest of the world With the White Man’s Burden and the widespread dogma of social Darwinism, the United States also started taking advantage of the fact that it could make quite a fortune by doing what it felt was ‘right’. Roosevelt’s quote, “Our endeavors overseas are not for the purpose of empire, but rather salvation.” spoke of what the ‘White Man’ was supposed to do. The United States claimed they weren’t taking advantage of the Cubans, Filipinos, and Hawaiians because of imperialistic measures, but because it was what the ‘needed’ to do.
Calvin chose to support the peasants and won following over the Dutch Netherlands and made a small gain in Germany. They in turn promoted the development of capitalism in Europe. In social order, Luther and Calvin had very different beliefs. Luther believed in salvation, that only God could grant the gift of salvation, while Calvin believed in predestination, the belief of God or fate decides what will happen to a person, and there was nothing that could change your destiny. Luther also opposed the sale of indulgences, reformed the local church, abolished monasteries, and ended the requirement of celibacy for clergy.
April 5 Notes Public protestant Originated from Calvinist Christianity Protestant ethic is hard working The protestant code Patterns of the code (rules governing behavior) Activism- this is not just religious activism but to approach beliefs generaly in the world. Reductionism- “reducing matters to their simplest terms” How to spend money, how to allocate resources, elections, budget cuts, political and social issues. Nonitellectualism- people are more attracted to a sort of street smartness than actual intelligence. Ahistoritism- we have no history, we left the old world behind. We are making history.
Drawing on Weber’s metaphor of an‘iron cage’, discuss the ways in which modern society has been ‘rationalised’ and ‘bureaucratised’. Sociologist Max Weber depicted capitalist society as an ‘iron cage’ through a pluralistic approach that goes beyond mechanical Marxist theory where he discusses ways in which rather than being defined by “class situation”, it was in fact a positive and frequent basis for social action - but not the determining factor. Through ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, Weber looks at religious groups to explain how capitalism originally formed whereby religious followers pursue a relationship with God through labour and that acts as the inspiration for the values of capitalism. Where class used to be described through the Marxist theory through the means of production, Weber takes another approach of describing it through the principles of the consumption of goods – we are “tied to the technical and economic conditions at the foundation of mechanical and machine production” where previously “the Puritan wanted to be a person with a vocational calling; today we are forced to be”. Through the course of this essay, these concepts will be explored in more detail together with the metaphor of the ‘iron cage’ put in context with theories of rationalization and bureaucratization in modern society.
How successful was Bismarck in unifying the German state during the period 1871 - 1890? It is argued that Bismarck was both successful and unsuccessful in unifying the German state. In the period of 1871 - 1890, Bismarck faced many factors that both hindered and helped in unification, such as the nature of the constitution, his relationship with the national liberals, his relationship with the Catholics and the creation of the new working class. The North German Confederation was mainly Protestant however when the southern states joined, the population became nearly a third Catholic. Bismarck did not help to make the Catholics feel welcome in the Confederation.
Marxists argue that religion promises us happiness, but this is an illusion hiding the truth; true happiness can only be found in a revolution. Finally, early capitalists used religion as a means of keeping their workers sober and willing to work. However, Marxism can be criticised as religion is no longer used to justify the status of powerful leaders, for example PMs and Monarchs. Also, Marxism ignores secularisation and it can be argued that religion is not a conservative force as it can cause social change. A