The religious origins of Capitalism

[Baluarte]

Personal compendium of information on the matter.

Serves as summary of the most important works on the matter, with brief and important notes, given the enormous amount of literature available.

To be updated progressively. Relevant additions and contributions are welcomed

-------------------------------------------------------------

- Max Weber, : Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, translated into English as The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 1905

In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism. This idea is also known as the "Protestant Ethic thesis

- Werner Sombart, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben, translated into English as The Jews and Modern Capitalism: 1911

Sombart’s book was conceptualized as a rejoinder to Max Weber’s study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (first published in 1904/1905), in which he notably established a link between the spirit of capitalism and Protestantism. Sombart accepted Weber’s thesis of the religious sources of modern capitalism and even offered his book as a direct development of Weber’s study on the origins of modern capitalism. Yet, in contrast to Weber, Sombart claimed that everything Weber had ascribed to Protestantism was actually rooted in Judaism and more intensively practiced by the Jews. Further, Sombart identified the Jews themselves, as opposed to Jewish culture or religion, as the originators and drivers of modern capitalism, based on their alleged racial and physiological characteristics

- Amintore Fanfani. Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism 1935

Fanfani produces arguments to assert that Catholicism is incompatible with capitalism; whereas Protestantism and Judaism can both co-exist with capitalism, its form, its works and its spirit. He firmly anchors his position in Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) and Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno (1931).

Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism is one of the most scholarly and comprehensive treatments of the antagonism between Catholic doctrine and the capitalist spirit. As such it is eminently persuasive. The author, Amintore Fanfani, was the Chair of Economic History at the University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy, and was the heir to a long and unmatched tradition of Italian Social Catholicism, a tradition effectively sanctioned and promoted by Popes Leo XIII and St. Pius X. Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism will be of particular interest to those seeking to better understand both the preconceptions and mentalities that the pioneers of the capitalist system possessed, and the reaction of Catholicism to that system. The book demonstrates, conclusively, that there is a scholarly, intelligent, and convincing answer to the propaganda which suggests that the world is irreparably divided into two camps, the capitalist and socialist.

- Murray Wax, Ancient Judaism and the Protestant Ethic Published in the American Journal of Sociology . 1960

Abstract:

Within ancient Judaism may be found development precursive to the Protestant ethic. Besides the hostility to magic, or disenchantment of the magical world view, these include: a collective religious discipline typified by a perception of time as the schedule of activities; an open or linear time perspective or "frozen" eschatology; an the need to create or establish one's personal identity as an heir to the divine blessings.

- Yuri Slezkine The Jewish Century 2004

Direct Quote (page 54, Chapter 2).

Capitalism is inconceivable without the Protestant ethic; Judaism is much more Protestant (older, tougher, and purer) than Protestantism; Judaism is the progenitor of Capitalism ... Puritanism without pork

[Baluarte]

Recently I've found two thesis that were published after Slezkine's book and treat this issue once again. Refreshing to see that a part of the academia is still concerned with the current world paradygm.

I suppose it'd be worthy to do the same exercise with post-revolutionary democracy or secularism.

Barbalet, J. (2006). Max Weber and Judaism: An insight into the methodology of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Max Weber Studies, 6, 51-67.

Jewish rationalism, Protestant rationalism

In PESC Weber holds that the ascetic rationalism of the Puritans and Calvinists has Old Testament sources in so far as these groups selectively emphasized ‘those parts of the Old Testament which praise formal legality as a sign of conduct pleasing to God’ (Weber 1991: 165). Weber goes on to say that this appropriation gave ‘a powerful impetus to that spirit of self-righteous and sober legality which was so characteristic of the worldly asceticism of this form of Protestantism’ (Weber 1991: 165). Indeed, the ‘rational suppression of the mystical’ typical of Puritanism and Calvinism was a feature ‘of the God-fearing but perfectly unemotional wisdom of the Hebrews’ (Weber 1991: 123; see also Weber 1991: 222 n. 19 and Weber 1981: 360-61)

Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto Questioning the Weber Thesis: Capitalist Ethics and the Hebrew Bible?

Abstract:

Weber’s thesis proposed that it was ascetic Protestantism which supported the emergence of modern capitalism in 17th and 18th century Europe, and that this was a completely new and unique phenomenon in the history of mankind up to that point in time. This paper casts doubt on the Weber thesis by examining findings from an economic reconstruction of the Hebrew Bible, and proposing that modern capitalism the way Weber understood it is already visible in the ancient religious text of the “Hebrew Bible”. By means of institutional economic reconstruction, I show that the Hebrew Bible and particularly the stories involving Jacob and Joseph reveal a conceptual structure that can be compared with ideas of modern constitutional and institutional economics. Through this reconstruction, I find myself in agreement with one of Weber’s early but largely forgotten adversaries, Werner Sombart, who suggested, in a behavioral tradition, that other religions, and more specifically Jewish thought, contributed to the emergence of modern capitalism long before the advent of Protestantism.

------------------------------------------------------------------

This brief assessment would then confirm Slezkine's main thesis, where the contemporary economic system is in reality, the byproduct of the joint influence of Judaism and Protestantism, very compatible with each other.

[Pontios]

I knew I would see Judaism here somewhere.

[Anglojew]

Actually the first modern capitalists were the Catholic Knights Templar.

[Oneeye]

Looks like Jews are trying to claim dibs on Protestant work ethic...

Actually the first modern capitalists were the Catholic Knights Templar.

Masonic teaching?

[blogen]

The source is the Catholicism. But the capitalism does not have a religious origin, some elements of the capitalist thinking have a religious origin. For example the freedom of the choice (the damnation is not pre-ordained), or the concept of the profit (freedom of choice + good works = getting in into the heaven) or the rate (the proportion of the good and bad acts), the legal personality (the church and the congregation), the immaterial value, the present value of the future things (the redemption and the salvation) the ancient world knew the real value only, the share or the capital could not exist without Christian philosophy, etc.

The medieval -mostly Italian- Christians translated this religious language into the language of the economy and they created fundamental things on this basis. For example the early medieval bonds and the trade with this bonds = the attribution of a value to the debtors' future payment inclination. If there is not Christian salvation based on free will, this would have been impossible.

The Protestants were nonsignificant characters in the birth of the capitalism. The bases of the capitalism came into existence before them already. They were poor northern ones only who utilized this. The Low country was "Bangladesh" in the early Middle Ages, horrible misery and constant hard work for the survival. This laid the thriftiness and the hard work tendency in the Northern countries and the envy of the poor peoples established the hatred against the rich southern church and lifestyle. The Protestantism the consequence of the northern poverty, but the capitalism was consequence of the southern richness and economic opportunities, especially in Italy. The poor North got rich from the capitalism because of their frugality only. The southern ones worked for the delight of the prosperity, the capital accumulation was less typical.

[Vogon Poet]

Capitalism is a relatively new term, and to use it in a historical context is obfuscating, because there are certain prejudices the word itself incites and there is a lack of a realistic common understanding of the term, something I think reflects in the opening post. Economic trade for profit, however, is ancient, possibly pre-historic. It arose not as a device, plan, as the thread starter posits, but simply by itself. Economic trade is a naturally occuring process. To put it another way, how old are markets? I doubt Jews invented markets. Jews played their role in shaping our world, largely as the creditor class in Catholic societies, but it's not the same thing.

[blogen]

The trade is a single and the capitalism is an other thing. The capitalist trades in new things and these things did not exist before the Western economy. Immaterial but valuable things. than the share, bond, dept and pays by immaterial but valuable things, than the paper* or the account money. The medieval Jews did not know and understand this, the story of Shylock was the story of a conflict between the immaterial value with the material value. The Jews lived in the ancient view then: value = the weight of something valuable.

*except the Chinese experiment.

[Anglojew]

Looks like Jews are trying to claim dibs on Protestant work ethic...




Masonic teaching?

1. The whole point of Balarte's post is to blame Jews for what he no doubt sees as the evil's of capitalism. Now you're blaming Jews for claiming capitalism when it's a Judeophobe linking he two not a Jew. He's trying to blame Jews when in fact it's his fellow Catholics that began modern capitalism.

2. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking

"The Templars' wide flung, large land holdings across Europe also emerged in the 1100–1300 time frame as the beginning of Europe-wide banking" -

[Vogon Poet]

The trade is a single and the capitalism is an other thing. The capitalist trades in new things and these things did not exist before the Western economy. Immaterial but valuable things. than the share, bond, dept and pays by immaterial but valuable things, than the paper* or the account money. The medieval Jews did not know and understand this, the story of Shylock was the story of a conflict between the immaterial value with the material value. The Jews lived in the ancient view then: value = the weight of something valuable.

*except the Chinese experiment.

The things you're out are characteristics of capitalism but not capitalism in itself. Capitalism reduced down to its core is simply trade for profits (accumulation of capital). The banking system furthers this goal, but is not capitalism itself. Indeed, the very thing you're describing is a result of the innovation capitalism promotes. However, your understanding of it is wrong. Those immaterial but valuable things are only valuable because you hope to earn money for it - and money is only worth whatever it can buy. That is going off-topic, though. Point is that no-one created capitalism, capitalism is a system that sprung forth naturally.