131-2) notes that in writing these essays, Weber was trying to counter naive historical materialism (of some Marxist writers), whereby Calvinism is considered as simply a reflection of economic conditions. This is the form in which the book is currently published. These were later collected together (1919), and a new introduction published by Weber. In 19, Weber published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as two essays. He had studied this earlier, and thought that this might help explain some of the processes of social change. Weber considered himself as social reformer, who was attempting to understand how change occurs.įollowing this study, Weber became interested again in the role played by religion. 124) Weber argued that sociologists should "examine the possible bearing of deep-rooted social and economic changes upon the nature of value held by the members of a given stratum or society." (Giddens, p. That is, there was a clash between ideas of "deference and patronage on the one hand, and an attitude of economic individualism on the other." (Giddens, p.
This was not a simple influence of the idea of freedom in the abstract, but emerged in a specific social and economic context, that of peasants on German estates when feudal forms were disappearing and market influences were being felt. Weber argued that the concept of freedom was an important aspect of the serfs’ desires and decisions. By freeing themselves from serfdom or the estates, the peasants generally became wage labourers, their income and security often declined, and life became more uncertain. This freedom was mostly illusory, because this free status often led to poverty. Weber found that often serfs would do everything they could to rid themselves of their status as serfs, in order to obtain freedom. Weber had been studying the role of the serfs and the day labourers (who were no longer serfs) in northeastern Germany where feudal estates still survived in Weber's day. Max Weber: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
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