Question

According to Max Weber, the rise of capitalism was driven by the Protestant ethics. But, R.H. Tawney’s thesis was opposite of the Weber’s thesis.

Explain why Weber thought that protestant ethics rises capitalism? And How is Tawney thesis?

Answer 1

RISE OF CAPITALISM

Capitalism started to emerge during the 17th century. This system uses the investment of money or capital to make profits. It was Adam Smith who noticed that mercantilism was not a force of development and change. So a new system want to create in trade to balance the trade between nations and keeping them for advancing. His idea for a free market opened a new world of capitalism.

German Sociologist Max Weber in The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, in that the Protestant Ethics was an important factor of rise in capitalism which helps the economy very much. It means that a person's duty and responsibility is to achieve success through hard work and thrift. In his book he said that because in Europe Capitalism is evolved when the Protestant which means Calvinist influence large number of peoples to work in the world. He said that it helps people to develop their own enterprises and to engage in trade and get money and wealth for investment. He also mentions that groups of religious ideas also lead to capitalism. Many of the economist and peoples support this statement and many of them didn't agree with this statement. Many historians value his statement to understand how capitalism emerge in Europe. For him capitalism was more than the wealth accumulation, it was the triumph of rationality over tradition. Weber got this idea from the writings of Benjamin Franklin where Franklin mentions early stages of rise capitalism in his writings.

R. H. Tawney, one of the Weber's most famous critic agreed with Weber that capitalism and Protestantism were connected but he mentions that the connections are going in an opposite direction of what Weber stated. R. H. Tawney in his work of Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926), states that Protestantism adopt the profit making and risk bearing ethics of capitalism with some good measure. He claims that, there was lot of capitalist spirit in fifteenth century in many countries like Germany, Venice, Flanders, etc. It is because that these areas were the greatest financial and commercial places or centres of that period. The capitalist development in many countries due, it is because of large economic movements. The strongest connection between Protestantism and Capitalism was rationality. He also claims that Protestantism was an approach against traditionalism and rationality as an approach to life and business. He didn't see the relationship between capitalism and Protestantism. He only though that Weber's thesis is very little and is too simplistic to explain the events which occurred in past. As Tawney mentions that "The Protestant ethic, with its insistence on hard work, thrift, etc., had contributed to the rise of capitalism, but at the same time Protestantism itself was being influenced by an increasingly capitalistic society."