Protestant Ethic
How Protestants give glory to God
Through their "calling" or vocation – their job in the community.
Weber's ideal-type of the spirit
Benjamin Franklin! The entrepeneurial spirit (hard work + money for money's sake)
What is unique to Western modern bourgeois capitalism
(1) The spirit of capitalism! (2) The COMBINATION with the other elements that exist elsewhere into a RATIONAL system
What caused WWI?
Colonialism!
“Each nation felt it deep interests involved. But how? Not, surely, in the death of Ferdinand the Warlike; nor, surely, in the old, half forgotten revanche for Alsace-Lorraine; not even in the neutrality of Belgium. No! But in the possession of land overseas, in the right to colonies, the chance to levy endless tribute on the darker world…” China…India…Africa…South Sea Islanders…Amazonians (27)
"What do we see today? Machine-guns against assegais; conquest sugared with religion; mutilation and rape masquerading as culture."
"What do we see today? Machine-guns against assegais; conquest sugared with religion; mutilation and rape masquerading as culture." (DuBois, 21)
Protestants' relationship to spending their money
Asceticism... they spend less on themselves, choosing to reinvest to grow their businesses
The key difference between the ethic and spirit
Religion (glory to God) disappears as a motivation for the calling: work for work's sake, profit for profit's sake
The "interior" (triangle) conditions of MWRB capitalism
(1) separation of home & work (2) formally free labor (3) calculation
How DuBois' future is different than Weber's
He's more optimistic! A "race war" or a solidarity movement, but something will need to change
"We have seen already that there is tending to form, above European peoples, in a spontaneous fashion, a European society that has even now some feeling of its own identity and the beginnings of an organization."
"We have seen already that there is tending to form, above European peoples, in a spontaneous fashion, a European society that has even now some feeling of its own identity and the beginnings of an organization." (Durkheim, 337)
That source of anxiety that makes Protestants look for "signs of salvation" in their work
Pre-destination! Particularly important in Lutheranism, where community looks negatively on those who show doubt
The Protestant wanted to work in a calling, we are...
Forced to! (181)
What Weber says about race
Almost nothing – other than than it should be ignored! (30-31)
Western culture ("justice", "civilization") is a cover for what
For white domination and exploitation (a) through colonialization (b) domestically -- see the ESL riots
"For of the last stage of this cultural development, it might well be truly said[…] this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.”
“No one knows who will Iive in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. For of the last stage of this cultural development, it might well be truly said[…] this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.” (Weber, 181)
What the ethic can come to justify
Exploitation by the capitalists of the workers! A kind of "self-exploitation" (or consent) created by the ethic.
The future for Weber
An "iron cage"... instrumental rationality... a lack of emotions or feelings... specialization... capitalism for ever...
A condition of modern Western capitalism that Marx describes
(Formally) free labor! Giving the experience of freedom, as a way to better exploit labor
The real ethic or spirit of the West
Stealing!
“Is [Western culture] better because Europeans are better, nobler, greater, and more gifted than other folks? It is not.[…] In other words, the deeper reasons for the triumph of European civilization lie quite outside and beyond Europe, – back in the universal struggles of all mankind. Why, then, is Europe great? Because of the foundations which the mighty past have furnished her to build upon: the iron trade of ancient, black Africa, the religion and empire-building of yellow Asia, the art and science of the ‘dago’ Mediterranean shore.” (23)
"The world today is trade. The world has turned shopkeeper"
“We may, however, grant without argument that religious ideals have always far outrun their very human devotees. Let us, then, turn to the mundane matters of honor and fairness. The world today is trade. The world has turned shopkeeper[…] Is it necessary to ask how much of high emprise and honorable conduct has been found here? Something, to be sure.[…] But it is, after all, so low and elementary a step that sometimes it looks like honor among thieves, for the revelations of highway robbery and low cheating in the business world…” (DuBois, 21)
What does Weber care more about: Luther's theology or Baxter's speeches?
Speeches! They are what will impact everyday people's actions
The kind of rationality that dominates late stage capitalism
Instrumental (means-end) rationality: whatever is most efficient (calculated)
What is universally significant about Western civilization
Western culture and production methods impact the whole world, and spread all over the world
Du Bois' analysis of a new religion
Whiteness!
“…the capitalism especially concerned with exploiting wars, bears this stamp even in modern Western countries, and some, but only some, parts of large-scale international trade are closely relate to it, to-day as always."
“…the capitalism especially concerned with exploiting wars, bears this stamp even in modern Western countries, and some, but only some, parts of large-scale international trade are closely relate to it, to-day as always. But in modern times the Occident has developed, in addition to this, a very different form of capitalism which has appeared nowhere else: the rational capitalistic organization of (formally) free labor.” (Weber, 21)