The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Routledge Classics)

Rating:
Summary: read this book at your own peril
Review: As a generous present to all would-be social critics, Max Weber left us with "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," probably the most insightful work ever written on the social effects of advanced capitalism, or "geselleschaft": psychological repression, bureaucracy, conformity, etc. Unfortunately for him, he went absolutely nuts after writing it. As a political scientist, I cherish Weber solely for his definition of the state as having a "monopoly of legitimate coercion". Having brilliant insights like this on a regular basis, however, apparently drove Weber further and further from sanity over the course of his life. The tragedy for Weber . . . well, he had many of them. He spent most of his life in the rubber room, and he didn't have a particularly happy marriage, based on the biography written by his wife Marianne. These Germans are not party animals, you know. They need to go to Club Med in the winter. These are the first examples of seasonal-affective disease; before they had those lamps. Don't laugh! I have one! I can't make it through the day without my lamp. If Weber were Marx, which he wasn't, although he really dug nudism. He liked all these young people doing it, including D.H. Lawrence and his German wife. He thought that was really swell. Anyway, buy this book . . . unless you value your sanity, your religion, and the very social fabric of your nation itself.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books in social science
Review: As it is one of the most important and influential masterpieces in the history of the social science, if you can understand the analytical methods used in this book, the rest is few. Since even the details are interesting, I stress the structure of this book.
The first part is the proposal of the question. Found on several statistical analysis, the following problem is arisen; why merchants and manufactures were willing to be protestant, which has the much severer attitude to desires in the world than Catholic?
The reason is the estimation of the job. Their preference is bound to their social situation in the Middle. This is the fundamental leading discipline of Weber.
The second part is the results of such Protestantism. They willingly entered them, which obligate their work as sacred. Then, what happened as results? The main influence is brought by the predetermined dogma, which means that the fatal of people has already been determined before their birth. It makes people disinterruptedly anxious and stress, because nothing to do is useful for the salvation in this world. Its psychology became the engine for the world to be free from the magic.
His existential analysis of Protestantism attracts readers even now and we applause it, but in his eyes their psychology was bound by their social situations. His analysis seems to stress the psychological change at the second stage to have believed in them, but he shows the importance of the motivation at the first stage to have entered into them.
This overview may make clear the composition of his analysis. However, maybe, almost all readers will forget this framework in the face of his analysis' seriosity.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books in social science
Review: As it is one of the most important and influential masterpieces in the history of the social science, if you can understand the analytical methods used in this book, the rest is few. Since even the details are interesting, I stress the structure of this book.
The first part is the proposal of the question. Found on several statistical analysis, the following problem is arisen; why merchants and manufactures were willing to be protestant, which has the much severer attitude to desires in the world than Catholic?
The reason is the estimation of the job. Their preference is bound to their social situation in the Middle. This is the fundamental leading discipline of Weber.
The second part is the results of such Protestantism. They willingly entered them, which obligate their work as sacred. Then, what happened as results? The main influence is brought by the predetermined dogma, which means that the fatal of people has already been determined before their birth. It makes people disinterruptedly anxious and stress, because nothing to do is useful for the salvation in this world. Its psychology became the engine for the world to be free from the magic.
His existential analysis of Protestantism attracts readers even now and we applause it, but in his eyes their psychology was bound by their social situations. His analysis seems to stress the psychological change at the second stage to have believed in them, but he shows the importance of the motivation at the first stage to have entered into them.
This overview may make clear the composition of his analysis. However, maybe, almost all readers will forget this framework in the face of his analysis' seriosity.

Rating:
Summary: The Essence Of National Liberalism...
Review: courtesy of America's great technocracy tectonician.

The theoretical legacy of Max Weber -- namely, sociology as an independent science only dubiously dependent upon either economics or philosophy -- is a task which one is not highly encouraged to pick up in the present day, but the use of Weber recommended by Pierre Bourdieu (as a form of cold comfort surpassing Marx in his cultural materialism) may have involved too obscure a camera for the import of this book relative to extant social theory to be properly appreciated. Perhaps there is even a tonic more readily administered than recent disputations of Weber's famed religio-economic history: which has it that the cultural norms of Protestantism (denial of self-gratification in pursuit of a spiritual ideal) are responsible for the rise of the modern entrepreneural economy, perhaps all too securely. In fact, perhaps the architect of Weimar's Caesarist exceutive branch ought to be trusted with relatively little in this respect: that is to say, there should be some fact by virtue of which his work is available to us as an unstable amalgam permitting of virtuous appropriation.

Might this be the new "availability" of the former standard translation by Talcott Parsons? Indeed it might: Parsons was not only the dean of American sociologists (and how), he was actually a fantastically acute observer of "Lakatosian" dynamics in the history of ideas, and the problematic character of the Weberian conceptual scheme was unlikely to have passed him by. If we compare this version to George Schwab's translation of *The Concept of Politics* by Carl Schmitt (once explicitly claimed to be the "legitimate heir" of Weber by Habermas) the relative lack of excitement is palpable, and perhaps tangible too: Parsons was actually rather fond of "cages of rationality", and in all seriousness there may be no very good reason to consider "cylindricized" elements of meaning employed in goal-directed behavior all that ironclad. Kudos to Routledge for providing a durable reprint of the Simon & Schuster version, even with the screams of Anthony Giddens.

Rating:
Summary: The Essence Of National Liberalism...
Review: Courtesy Of Someone Who Might Help Break It Down A Little Bit.

The theoretical legacy of Max Weber -- namely, sociology as an independent science only dubiously dependent upon either economics or philosophy -- is a task which one is not highly encouraged to pick up in the present day, but the use of Weber recommended by Pierre Bourdieu (as a form of cold comfort surpassing Marx in his cultural materialism) may have involved too obscure a camera for the import of this book relative to extant social theory to be properly appreciated. Perhaps there is even a tonic more readily administered than recent disputations of Weber's famed religio-economic history: which has it that the cultural norms of Protestantism (denial of self-gratification in pursuit of a spiritual ideal) are responsible for the rise of the modern entrepreneural economy, perhaps all too securely. In fact, perhaps the architect of Weimar's Caesarist exceutive branch ought to be trusted with relatively little in this respect: that is to say, there should be some fact by virtue of which his work is available to us as an unstable amalgam permitting of virtuous appropriation.

Might this be the new "availability" of the former standard translation by Talcott Parsons? Indeed it might: Parsons was not only the dean of American sociologists (and how), he was actually a fantastically acute observer of "Lakatosian" dynamics in the history of ideas, and the problematic character of the Weberian conceptual scheme was unlikely to have passed him by. If we compare this version to George Schwab's translation of *The Concept of Politics* by Carl Schmitt (once explicitly claimed to be the "legitimate heir" of Weber by Habermas) the relative lack of excitement is palpable, and perhaps tangible too: Parsons was actually rather fond of "cages of rationality", and in all seriousness there may be no very good reason to consider "cylindricized" elements of meaning employed in goal-directed behavior all that ironclad. Kudos to Routledge for providing a durable reprint of the Simon & Schuster version, even with the screams of Anthony Giddens.

Rating:
Summary: For an amateur sociology student-nothing of a real value...
Review: I had to read this book as a part of my Social Theory class. I did not find this book interesting (much less relevant to the real life...unlike works of Emile Durkheim, "Father of Sociology", that are still powerful and fascinating read). In my opinion, Weber's work is just another example of a 19-century man, sitting around, having "much ado about nothing", and afterwords being satisfied with himself and his intellect...

Rating:
Summary: slight typo...
Review: I meant Heinrich Rickert, not Richter. Weber was a sociologist (among other things), not a seismologist.

Rating:
Summary: Revewing the revew...
Review: I think it's a revew on the revew you've got there, as it shows a little misunderstanding of Max Weber plan. He wills not to turn Marx upside-down, therefore falling into some kind of idealism, but instead, he trys to complicate Marx thesis, in the way he understands it, sayng that causality is much wider than materialistic, and ideas can have "elective afinities" with interests. Both authors do not exclude each other, but can be used to criticise one anohter.

Rating:
Summary: Just the facts, Max
Review: I was impressed with Weber's point about capitalism being an offshoot of Calvinist's trying to please God through hard work, but this is a long and tough read for the layman.

Rating:
Summary: Historically Significant
Review: My spin is that Weber's work is helpful in that so many writers reference him that you need to know what he said in order to comprehend the point they're making. Having said that, I think Weber has some validity, but his sociological explanation of how socieites fuction is lacking.

He does not equate capitalism with greed. He explicitly states that and goes on to define a capitalistic economic action as "one which rests on the expectation of profit by the utilization of opportunities for exchange, that is on (formally) peaceful chances of profit."

Weber contends that "business leaders and owners of capital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labor, and even more the higher technically and commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises are overwhemingly Protestant." He goes on to discuss how the teachings of Calvinism bring this about. He talks about stewards on earth having heaven as an ultimate goal. This is a classic, thought provoking book.