Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- Note on citations
- Introduction
- 1 From the inaugural lecture to the Protestant Ethic: political education and German futures
- 2 From the Protestant Ethic to the vocation lectures: Beruf, rationality and emotion
- 3 Passions and profits: the emotional origins of capitalism in seventeenth-century England
- 4 Protestant virtues and deferred gratification: Max Weber and Adam Smith on the spirit of capitalism
- 5 Ideal-type, institutional and evolutionary analyses of the origins of capitalism: Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen
- 6 The Jewish question: religious doctrine and sociological method
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
5 - Ideal-type, institutional and evolutionary analyses of the origins of capitalism: Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- Note on citations
- Introduction
- 1 From the inaugural lecture to the Protestant Ethic: political education and German futures
- 2 From the Protestant Ethic to the vocation lectures: Beruf, rationality and emotion
- 3 Passions and profits: the emotional origins of capitalism in seventeenth-century England
- 4 Protestant virtues and deferred gratification: Max Weber and Adam Smith on the spirit of capitalism
- 5 Ideal-type, institutional and evolutionary analyses of the origins of capitalism: Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen
- 6 The Jewish question: religious doctrine and sociological method
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
In considering the force of Weber's argument concerning the origins of capitalism, it is useful to contrast it with the less-known but in many ways comparable account developed by the American thinker Thorstein Veblen. Weber and Veblen were contemporaries. They were both economists by training and profession, who contributed to the development of sociology and saw themselves as sociologists at different times in their careers, and neither of them was content to echo the prevailing thought and opinion.
It is uncontroversial to say that Max Weber's contribution to sociology is extensive and highly regarded. His single most acclaimed achievement is the account of the origin of capitalism in terms of the elective affinity between the Protestant ethic and the capitalist ethos that has been discussed in various ways in preceding chapters. The continuing currency of what is known as the ‘Weber thesis’, and its reputation among sociologists, remains unsurpassed. And yet, close, critical examinations of Weber's argument by diverse analysts have found his case not proven (Hamilton 2000; Hamilton 1996; Marshall 1982; Samuelsson 1957), even though others continue to celebrate its inventiveness and insights (Lehmann and Roth 1995). One response to the controversy about the Protestant Ethic has been to praise Weber's method and reject the conclusions drawn from its application (Greenfeld 2001: 11–21). Another is to redirect attention to Weber's later and more developed but relatively neglected theory of capitalism in the General Economic History (1927) (Collins 1990a).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Weber, Passion and Profits'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' in Context, pp. 146 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008