Sociology

Weber sees the central threat to modern Western society, and to the wellbeing of its individuals, coming from within the logic of the Protestant Ethic. Discuss. * * * The restorative characteristics of the theology of the Protestant Reformation, and its secular spawn; socio-economic liberalism, include hard work, frugality and individual self-reliance. Modern materialism was developed around these principles, which favoured production over consumption and the interests of the individual over that of the collective community. The Protestant dogma of personal judgment advanced the concept of democratic governmental systems based on representing the preference of a majority or a plurality of individual voters. The destruction of the medieval system of authority removed traditional religious restrictions on trade and banking, especially proscriptions against usury, which had inhibited the development of modern capitalism. * * In his remarkably prescient conclusion to his book the Protestant Work Ethic , Weber lamented that the loss of religious underpinning to capitalism's spirit had led to a kind of involuntary servitude to mechanized industry. “The Puritan wanted to work in calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.’ But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.” (2001:181 Weber) * Weber pointed out that while the necessary material and circumstantial factors that could have accommodated the establishment of capitalist economic structures had existed in Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Judaic, and indeed Orthodox/Catholic societies; various philosophical, religious, and ethical characteristics inherent to those traditions inhibited such development. By contrast, post-Reformation Christian society provided just the right conceptual soil in which the seed of capitalism could germinate and flourish. Reformation theology, especially that of John Calvin, emphasized industriousness. The Calvinist Protestant idea that work for work's sake was innately virtuous supplied a theological rationale for liberal economics and its paradigm of growth. Calvin's emphasis on individualism meant each individual's responsibility to serve God. Every individual Christian had a duty and obligation to be as self-reliant as possible, and to lead a life centered on hard work and frugality. The central doctrine of Reformation theology is salvation by grace through personal faith in Jesus Christ. A question that naturally arose was how can one know that he is really a member of the elect' Catholics receive assurance of their salvation through rites of the Church: the Sacraments and priestly absolution, but these had been rejected by the Reformers. Therefore one answer was found in "By their fruits shall ye know them." A Protestant could receive assurance that God's grace was effective in him through living a daily existence characterized by moral order and devotion to temporal as well as spiritual affairs ( 2002:79 Jere). While one cannot be saved through one's good works, they still needed to be evidenced in one's life in order to provide assurance of salvation . Martin Luther's ideal for Christian living was apostolic poverty and simplicity, but he also held that we should apply ourselves to our work in a thoroughgoing manner and strive to do well at any enterprise we put our hand to. This amounted to a significant departure from the present needs ethic of work that prevailed under medieval Catholicism. The individual would no longer cease from his labours once his essential financial and physical needs were satisfied. Continuous work was necessary to fulfill one's obligations to God and to avoid the dangers of idleness . These economic implications led to unintended consequences. In Calvin's perspective we find the roots of 20th Century manic workaholism. Four centuries later, materialism is now centered on consumption rather than production. Unlike the economics that existed under Catholic Christendom, in which people tended to work only as much as absolutely necessary, Calvinism’s ceaseless, tireless production for its own sake was bound to create surplus material wealth which would go to waste if not consumed, an embarrassing problem since, to Calvinism’s way of thinking, enjoyment of the fruits of one's labour was as carnal and sinful as idleness. The solution to this dilemma was reinvestment of the surpluses in even more efficient production and the creation of a means of marketing it, leading to the development of consumer capitalism. Liberal capitalist economics soon took on a life of its own. Individualism gradually lost the ascetic ideals that Calvin and the other Reformers preached, and along with it the sense of individual responsibility to God. Today it has developed into a secular dogma of freedom to do and/or consume whatever one desires, uninhibited by any sense of moral restraint, let alone duty. Pleasure becomes the primary objective of life, an ethos that pulls the floor out from under moral society The Calvinist idea that productive work was outward evidence of Christian salvation became outmoded as far as most of society was concerned. However, pressure to conform with a Protestant Work Ethic ideal of behavior remained. Calvin's rigid asceticism, intended to focus the individual's mind on serving God, ultimately and ironically ended up creating and serving the hedonistic demands of a new bourgeois-consumer class. In conclusion, Max Weber was the first to clearly identify and define the organic relationship between the Reformation theological ethic and broader social and economic developments such as capitalism and liberalism. He argued that the following characteristics of Reformed theory led to the rise of capitalism: (a) the emphasis proto-reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin placed on the Christian "calling" inclined people to work harder; (b) the Reformers' emphasis on frugality, including a greater commitment to earning than consuming, encouraged accumulation of capital for investment and business growth; (c) belief that success in one's temporal work provided an indication and assurance that the individual Christian was living a well-ordered, disciplined life; and (d) the commercial attitudes that inevitably and many would say unfortunately evolved from these assumptions. *