Mecklemburgo-Pomerania Occidental

“We will call economic action “capitalist” that which rests on the hope of a profit by the exploitation of the possibilities of exchange, i.e. on chances (formally) peaceful of profit” (in Protestant Ethics and the spirit of capitalism ).

Thus max Weber defines the Capitalisme: this definition, very formal, is extremely close to that of Marx, which makes research of the Profit the base of capitalist accumulation . A great difference exists, however: for Weber, the research of the profit through the calculation of the Rentabilité of a Investissement, by which it defines the capitalist action, is in a very great number of companies: not only in the companies which one usually describes as capitalists (and which one goes back emergence at the end to the Moyen-âge in Western Europe), but also in the Antiquité and other civilizations. For Weber, the economic action of capitalist type is not clean modern world: capitalism is found at other times and in several cultures.

What makes the specificity of the modern societies according to Weber is the emergence of a particular type of capitalist activity: modern capitalism. The characteristic of modern capitalism is due to the fact that it accumulates the profits by exploiting the work of Salarié S free (they signed a contract) within companies where this work is organized rationally. Modern capitalism moves away from other forms of capitalism known as traditional, as the search of spoils for example. Modern capitalism is thus founded on the work of directed employees, in a rational way, by Entrepreneur S, within companies which are organized bureaucratiquement. It is by the use of this work that the contractors seek to release a profit, and thus to accumulate capital. This form of economic organization is, for Weber, the specific form of the economic production of the time that he studied.

There exists for Weber several conditions with the emergence of this modern capitalism, conditions which in Occident arrived at a level ever reached elsewhere: the separation of the Undertaken and the household, the rational organization of the company, the rational Accounts Department and free labor.

By employing a sociological approach, Weber tries to show that a conduit of religious life specific made possible the emergence of capitalism modern. It will use example amongst other things, of the maxims used by B.Franklin

Protestant ethics

See also: Ethical Protestant woman of work

If the rationalism of the modern Occident is carried by the middle-class, it found, according to Weber, its original impulse in the Religion and, more specifically, in the Calvinisme. Max Weber (which writes with the whole beginning of the 20th century) notices that, in Germany, the Protestant are significantly richer than the catholic , and than they have tendency more, in their studies, to direct itself towards professional dies rather than towards the Humanités where the catholics go preferentially.

Weber also notices that the Protestantisme, that of Luther, Calvin and other founders of the Réforme is austere and is opposed to any research for they-even richnesses. For Weber, it is however in this austere, ascetic spirit which should be sought the source of capitalism. (see History of capitalism)

At Luther

Luther goes, according to max Weber, to bring an important transformation in the representation of the community activity. For Catholicism, the professional action in the world does not have a positive value for the research of the hello. The withdrawal out of the world, the refusal of the research of the wordly goods, on the contrary, are strongly developed as ways of hello. Contrary, for Luther, the community activity is a task that God gave to achieve with the men: the profession becomes a vocation (divine).

the single means of living in a pleasant way with God is not to exceed the morals of the secular life by the monastic asceticism, but exclusively to achieve in the world the duties corresponding to the place which the existence assigns with the individual in the company, duties which become thus its “vocation”.

The new significance that Luther gives at the end of Beruf in its translation of the German Bible testifies to this valorization of professional work. In its translation, the word Beruf , meaning " originally; vocation" , also takes the direction of trade. The term of Beruf , which has of equivalent only in the languages of the countries which knew the reform (like the anglophone countries with the word calling ), mark thus the transformation of the trade into a task wanted by God.

Luther, by its doctrines of the hello by the faith alone (and not by good works), and of the Beruf , rehabilitates the laic life thus and does work a value.

At Calvin

If Luther contributed to the rise of modern rationalism, for Weber, it is in the Calvinisme that capitalism finds its true source. Indeed, if Luther transforms the representation of work, there remains attached to a preserving vision of the world. The Calvinism will exert, him, a properly revolutionary influence. Weber finds of it the origin in the psychological effects exerted at the faithful ones by the dogma calvinist of the Prédestination. According to Calvin, God of any eternity intended certain men for the hello and condemned the others to the hell (dogma of the double decree or predestination). The faithful calvinist then will seek in his community activity the signs of his confirmation: the success in the research of the richnesses will seem to him to be the testimony of its statute of elected official. Only, indeed, the elected officials can have success in the activity that God gave to achieve with the men for his greater glory, i.e. in the Beruf (the profession) like vocation. To make sure of their statute of elected official, the calvinists thus will transform their life into a methodical research of the richnesses within the framework of their profession; of course, it is out of the question to transform the richnesses thus produced luxates some or open demonstrations. It is in this Ascèse, centered on the rational acquisition of richnesses, that capitalism will find according to Weber the fundamental impulse with its rise.

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