The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2024) Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged and removed. (September 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

"The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism" (German: Die protestantischen Sekten und der Geist des Kapitalismus) is an essay written by Max Weber.

The essay is based on Weber's observations of

This worked for two reasons. First, membership in a Protestant sect was voluntary (unlike the state-sponsored Churches in Europe), and they only accepted members who had demonstrated a certain standard of behavior. Any member who failed to behave as expected would face pressure to reform, or lose his membership. Therefore, any member in good standing could be trusted in business (regardless of which sect he belonged to).^[2]

Second, the Protestant sects were run by their members, and the pastor was their employee (unlike state-sponsored Churches, where the pastor might be a political appointee). If a pastor became lax or corrupt, the members could replace him. Congregations also insisted that their pastors should preach ethics, rather than the finer points of religious dogma (which they considered to be less important than ethical behavior).^[3]

As the influence of religion declined (particularly in the larger cities), this function had been taken up by secular businessmen's organizations. Again, these organizations only accepted members who demonstrated a certain standard of behavior, and that standard was enforced by the members rather than the hierarchy. Traveling salesmen would always be sure to wear a lapel pin indicating membership in one organization or another, because without such an affiliation, people wouldn't trust them. Joining such an organization was often a sign that an immigrant was becoming assimilated into American culture.^[4]

Both the religious and secular versions of this phenomenon were already dying out in the larger cities. In his book