The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism
The Protestant Ethic together with the Spirit of Capitalism German: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus is a book result by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, together with politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the number one time by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1930. it is considered a founding text in economic sociology and a milestone contribution to sociological thought in general.
In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant especially Calvinist ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in throw believe 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 emergence of innovative capitalism. In his book, except Calvinists, Weber also discusses Lutherans particularly Pietists, but also notes differences between traditional Lutherans and Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, and Moravians specifically referring to the Herrnhut-based community under Count von Zinzendorf's spiritual lead.
In 1998, the International Sociological Association talked this work as the fourth most important sociological book of the 20th century, after Weber's Economy and Society, Mills' The Sociological Imagination, and Merton's Social notion and Social Structure. it is the 8th near cited book in the social sciences published before 1950.