An explanation in terms of the internal dynamics of economic

forces alone is unable to account for this peculiarity.

It is necessary to take into account specific ethos of the early

European capitalistic entrepreneurs and realize that this was
precisely what was absent in other civilizations.

After all, according to Weber, any explanation of a historical

phenomenon must be traced back to human social action and,
thus, the investigator must try to gain an explanatory
understanding of why certain people acted as they did, based on
those people’s own conditions.

It was this that Weber attempted to do in his seminal work on the

connection between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of
capitalism.
• Early capitalism emerged in a part of Europe that
had also undergone a religious reformation.
• What meaningful link was there between
Protestantism and the appearance of modern
western industrial capitalism?
• Weber created two ideal types, the Protestant
ethic and the spirit of capitalism, to examine this
question.
• In his ideal type on the Protestant ethic, Weber
dwells on the values and beliefs that arose
within the ASETIC variety of the Protestant
faith, which developed in Northern Europe,
and later in North America, during the 16th and
17th centuries.
• ‘Asceticism’ is an attitude of self-restraint, even
self-denial, which imposes strict limits on the
kind of enjoyment a person may take in the
products of his or her work.