The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - Max Weber

[Music] welcome to episode four of our series called myth is America on the revolution and ideology channel or podcast I'm Jared Tomich and we kind of left off with talking about the southern colonies in our last episode here in what would eventually become the United States we talked Jamestown in one episode I believe is episode two and then it gave us some depth on the use of race and how that was manufactured in Jamestown in episode three and now we're going to look towards New England but before we really dig into New England there's very important context here that we want to build and of course that context is going to take us back to Europe a little bit and in addition to the context one of the things that we really want to emphasize in this episode that will help kind of guide the way basically for the rest of this of the series is ideological and Nick's gonna give us a good ideological breakdown of something important it's called the Protestant work ethic and of course he is going to use Max Weber to deconstruct that of course Weber is a very famous sociologist towards the end of the nineteen and early twentieth century and he's gonna again break down this ideology using Babers historical idealist lens but before we do that we probably need to talk a little bit and that's where me the eye is the historian you're gonna fill in some gaps how did this work ethic come into being due to certain historical circumstances and we're gonna kick right off with the Reformation so we're gonna be in Europe for a little bit I am NOT a European assist or Ian so if I'm missing something and you are a European switch it seems like everybody that likes history as a European assault issues that we will dig into later um just know that that it's okay that it's not necessarily relevant what we're trying to talk about here so again I'm just gonna probably do some highlights here in the first ten maybe fifteen minutes or so to try and just build us towards this work ethic that really is inside the minds and the way that the Puritans think speak and act when they show up on the shores of New England and it's really going to have an effect on the indigenous populations when they come into contact is gonna have an effect on the societies they seek to construct it's going to have an effect on certain notions of privilege that they have so that's why we're doing this episode before we dig into the actual history of the pilgrims that will be in the following episode so okay let's get started uh the best place to start of course is with the most famous reformer Martin Luther who lived between 1483 and 1546 he was from a town in what is now Germany was not at the time Vinton Berg and the famous myth is that on October 31st of 1517 he nailed ninety-five theses on the door of the All Saints Church in in Vinton burg it is likely a fabricated event although there's still some people clinging to it but regardless it's an ethically constitutive story that that shows that he was protesting the church some call him a rogue priest he was also a theology professor but he is a key mover and shaker in history no matter what you think of him now I want to focus heavily on what Luther was hoping to promote with his protest of the church first and foremost as most of our listeners are aware it was prompted by Church corruption and he actually had found a voice due to another important mover and shaker Erasmus who had been already using philosophy to challenge certain ways of thinking during the time but Luther takes it to another level by outright protesting the church to be blunt and again without going into all of the details this is not meant to be a European podcast but to be blunt one of his main messages in the 95 thesis and we do not have to five B C's we don't have time to go through all of them but one of the main messages is of course you can't buy your way out of purgatory one of the things that was going on it was the selling of indulgences and of course the purchase of salvation again people's way out of purgatory and Luther thought that was problematic both based on gospel imperative and the fact that it was leading to corruption within the church leading to corruption socioeconomically of course dividing what are supposed to be somewhat I don't know that he's like you know some sort of like middle-aged like socialist or anything like that trying to make everybody even but it did pit people with means against people without means in terms of how God showed favor to them um here's the thing Luther more or less in these 95 theses echoed some very important ideals that would begin to gain traction in Europe first and foremost he had a problem with the selling of indulgences as we just mentioned but one of the other things that really becomes prominent not just in his theses but in some of the other things that he wrote when he eventually was challenged by church leaders is that it is through faith and faith alone that one achieves their salvation rather than having any sort of both material and ideological hegemonic power the Catholic Church had been more or less for centuries that it was up to the individual and their interpretation of Scripture and the relationship with God that would determine whether or not they were going to be saved and again he's writing numerous things here again addressed a Christian nobility of the German nation Babylonian captivity of the church freedom of the Christian all of these things are publications that he is writing some of them of course in response to the church denouncing his new teachings he's eventually even summoned back in what August 7th of 1517 to appear before the Pope but in Frederick the wise rearranged it to be at a neutral neutral meeting at Augsburg there were further more or less collegiate debates taking place between Luther and other church leaders like I said some of those publications are products of these debates but here we go by the time we get to 1521 so after about four years of back-and-forth both again not even both most of the time it is through publications through writing it's there's not a lot of like you know it's not like a modern TV debate where one guy's standing behind a podium and another guy's staying behind a podium and they're really hashing this out it's usually through publications but he's eventually excommunicated by the church in 1521 now before I continue forward and I did not go through every one of Luther's gripes I went through basically two but I want Nick to kind of fill in why are these two so important the the challenging of the selling of indulgences is more or less buying your way into salvation and then of course more or less echoing the idea that it is only through faith that one can achieve salvation why the church gonna be be pissed well when he starts suggesting that only through faith do you get your salvation that is a step in the direction of removing power from the Pope and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church because if all you need is faith then in theory you don't need anyone else to help you interpret the Word of God to be the power of God etc you can develop your own relationship directly with God and so very clearly the Pope and its hierarchies gonna have a massive problem with that absolutely and and the best way one of the things that Luther really moves forward regarding theology here best way for people to achieve salvation and interpret the Word of God rather than relying on the corruption of priests and and and other leaders that had bit more or less bought their way into positions or were being funded by again the wealthy wealthier constituents was to allow the unwashed masses to read the Bible for themselves and so his popular appeal really takes off when he helps put together what is known as a vernacular Bible into the common language spoken by the people at this time in in again what is now Germany most people spoke a a version of German it's not modern German but yes it was in middle age German and the church was still teaching of course in its favorite language latin so there's clearly a disconnect here between of course the people that control the narrative and the people that were meant to receive the narratives so one of the ways that luther challenged that authority is to open up the ability to interpret gospel imperative for the individual by translating in a german and of course again he translates a rasmus's version into german not necessarily the traditional latin version and of course this coincides with europe I don't wanna use this word inventing but using the printing press contrary to popular belief it's not necessarily the first print press is not in Europe it's actually starts all the way in Korea makes its way into China and then eventually into Europe now what is the actual connection there I'm not a historian the ghosts are inventions but I do know that the first version of this was was in Korea not not Europe so that take that for what it's worth google it have a good time but the printing press is important because it is it is it is a new way to transmit information to the masses right it's mass production of of this work so it is it's a game-changer it is the the sixteenth century version of the Internet I suppose so it can be used to of course awaken people's individual minds or it can be used to just yeah print print state-sanctioned work which it was used for both so it's always interesting how that works every time we invent something new that could challenge prevailing systems those systems are usually pretty good at evolving to then create their power or base their power on this new invention again whether it's a printing press a telegraph a television or the Internet so anyway here's the thing his ideas we did begin to spread he was wildly popular and again it was challenging certain things within the church that were seen as problematic he hid their attacks on celibacy at the time there is this wide support for now charity from the individual rather than relying on tithing like all of these things were popular because it allowed the individual themselves to decide how they were going to engage not just in their own lives but in society at large and how again since they are believers how God would view that and again it's basically liberation it's it is liberating the individual believer that was the goal and these ideas spread it's based on the freedom from authoritarian rule not only of the church and many but well here let me pause for a second it's based on the freedom for the authoritarian rule of the Catholic Church which of course there was centuries of back and forth between both lay and ecclesiastical leadership but this also many of the princes around there like so people in lay people in position of material power actually really liked the Reformation because it makes them now no longer beholding to the church whatsoever they now kind of get to get to dictate the rules of discourse during this period of time Thomas Mansur is an individual that wants to get on board and he leads of course a peasant war where Lutheran's end up looking for support to basically break away from the feudal hierarchy Luther however even though Mansur is kind of inspired by by this growing growing Protestantism protesting into the church he refused to actually support months or excuse me who saw Luther is more or less working for himself and again this insurrection leads to revolution and there is this debate should they be revolting against society as in total or should they merely be reforming the institutions there that's why it's called the Reformation Luther at least originally didn't necessarily see a completely breakaway sect but thought about fixing the one that already existed and listeners are probably like well why does all this matter well as this word begins to spread through things like the peasants Wars and I mean there's I mean over a hundred thousand people died in these conflicts so I mean it's it's really no joke but it begins to spread it ends up spreading into Switzerland and a man named Ulrich Zwingli and in Zurich begins to contest the church there as early as 1519 and then of course also related to this as is it spreads through Switzerland we have the the man I want to focus on and gonna be one of the main emphasis of what next gonna be talking about john calvin who begins to work on a a different understanding of the relationship with the individual and God in Geneva so Calvin John Calvin is an interesting fellow and he arrives in Geneva after the city adopted the Reformation itself in 1536 so he's now since the city itself adopted the Reformation ideals and more or less that's basically breaking away from the rule of the church he's gonna have a lot of freedom here too again more or less manufacture a new ideological belief system and and new might be a not completely new but to take Christianity as it was known and as it was evolving at that time and turn it into something that he saw as progressive for his time period he himself was from France and he's a little bit of an intense individual basically John Calvin when he arrives in Geneva wanted it to become the symbolic city of morality that's one of the things that he was really hoping for and that's why he chose Geneva as his destination right it had already adopted the Reformation ideals and he thought this was going to be a france of course and not and he thought this was going to be the place where he could really showcase the moral virtue of his new branding of Christianity he was like I said so intense he was briefly banished even from Geneva in 1541 but eventually excuse me before and then he's brought back in 1541 now without going through all of John Calvin's ideas and Nick is going to emphasize this a little bit one of the key components that he brings forth of this new version of faith is the idea of predestination now it's not brand new in world history by any stretch of the imagination but it is making its coming back after being gone for a while and not necessarily something that would have been believed by any of the earlier Christian sects Italy at least not to the best of my knowledge now if our listeners know of some sort of obscure sect that did define so be it but you know earlier Christian churches historians the Catholic Church the Coptic Church eventually the Eastern Orthodox Church all of these other earlier institutions didn't necessarily have predestination fully built in the way John Calvin would and of course he goes on to write something called the Institute's of the Christian rites which creates this very pure understanding of faith where more or less you're attempting to show off your salvation to your neighbors I'm not gonna steal much of Nick's thunder here because he's really gonna go into depth on this but some would even know he one of the critiques of the time against Calvin is that this idea of predestination and more or less individual showing off of your morality was actually antithetical to the Bible itself so this is one of the things that he becomes famous for at the time Geneva itself while he was working there becomes intolerant to the religious state and it it it makes time there for John Calvin a little bit tenuous this is though like I said this predestination being taught by John Calvin and all of the the things that are going to be tied to it then it's gonna go into great detail on right now are important because again this is an a podcast on on European history or Reformation history it's a podcast on of course myth is a myth it's called myth as America we're gonna deconstruct our beliefs about the United States well it just so happens that these beliefs are going to be the ones that instill themselves eventually we're not there yet but eventually in a group of people called the pilgrims and again the way they approached their faith and not only their faith but the faith of all of their other Christian denominations around them would eventually become quite problematic and eventually they're going to alienate themselves in most places they end up again England would be an easy example Amsterdam would be another and of course they end up having to to leave those places and they will seek a new place to create this symbolic city of morality somewhere else and eventually we no I wouldn't say the rest is history because we're gonna do an episode on this but the rest is history they end up of course crossing crossing the pond and ending up in New England so without now any further ado let's let Nick deconstruct the Protestant work ethic heavily founded on the teachings of like Luther and Zwingli and most importantly John Calvin so so we're gonna be discussing like Jared said Max Weber which is super famous sociologists this publication we're talking about the Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism gets published in 1905 and basically just like Jared alluded to he's breaking down the his idea logical explanation for essentially how capitalism came into being he's writing this in response to the Marxist conception for how capitalism came into being which I'm not going to spend any time on that's beyond the scope of this podcast but just know that this is vapers idealist sort of version for how capitalism came into being and as Jared told us it has a lot to do with the Protestant sect the Calvinist so let's dive right into Faber's Theory here first we have to understand a couple of terms that are used in sociology because they're used in sociology and they're not common outside of sociology and sort of the common usage of these terms the first one we have to understand is economic trade lism so I'm gonna read this is a quote actually from the translator of the Protestant work ethic the copy that I have he says economic traditionalism is a frame of mind in respect to work work is viewed as a necessary evil and only one arena of life nor no more important than the arena's of leisure family and friends traditional needs are amplified when fulfilled then work ceases so this is important and it's really hard for us to think about because we are so far beyond being able to relate to economic traditionalism at all but just in a very simple example think of during an era that was focused on economic traditionalism the workers would only work as much as they needed in order to survive and to provide for themselves and their families and that is literally it so think of if we're like a basic agricultural society you would work just enough in the field to produce enough to consume yourself and the trade so that you and your family could survive and that's it so if we make this as simple as possible and use a simple example if you need to work four hours a day to support yourself you will go and work four hours a day and that's all that you will ever work and the rest of your time you would be spending doing things that are more important to you spending time with your family leisure your hobbies whatever you want to do but you would only ever work the amount of time it was necessary to work so for Weber in this book we're starting from a period of economic traditionalism and we're explaining how we evolved from there the next phase is economic rationalism this again is the translator of the book he says this term refers to modern capitalism that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the West it implies the utilization of science on behalf of a systematic organization of labor and the entire production process and hence qualitative increases in productive capacity so economic rationalism is the idea of applying reason and science and rationality and so on to the economic system and to daily work and to the work life so this is easy for us to relate to because this dictates all of our behavior now in a modern capitalistic society we try to be as efficient as possible we mass-produce things as much as possible we work as much as we possibly can and earn as much money as we possibly can so that's economic rationalism so Weber is attempting in this work to explain how we transition how humans transition from economic traditionalism to society is defined by economic rationalism economic rationalism is basically modern capitalism so how do we make that big jump like I said it's kind of difficult for us to relate to economic traditionalism but we have to understand how much of a massive qualitative jump this is in a way of behaving a way of thinking the structures of society the way we would live our daily lives just on an hour-to-hour basis this is a huge jump and so Weber is setting out to solve this and he uses this term the spirit of capitalism and interestingly he uses quotes from Benjamin Franklin and he says that the American spirit of capitalism is very unique so here's some examples of writings this is this is actually in vapors book but he's quoting this is a blockquote of Benjamin Franklin so here's some things that Benjamin Franklin has to say he says remember the time is money heed that can earn 10 shillings a day by his labor and goes abroad or sits idly one half of that day though he spins but sixpence during his diversion or idleness ought not to reckon that the only expense he has really spent or rather thrown away five shillings besides remember that credit is money remember that money is of the prolific generating nature money can beget money and its offspring can beget more and so on five shillings turned as six turned again it is seven and three pence and so on till we become a hundred pounds the more there is of it the more it produces a returning so that the profits rise quicker and quicker he the kills of breeding sow destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation he that murders a crown destroys all that it might have produced even scores of pounds remember the same the good paymaster is the lord of another man's purse the most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded the sound of your hammer at 5:00 in the morning or 9:00 at night heard by a creditor some easy six months longer but if he sees you at a billiard table or hears your voice at a tavern when you should be at work he sends for his money the next day he demands it before you are able to pay it shows besides that you are mindful of what you owe it makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man and that still increases your credit for six pounds a year you may have the use of 100 pounds a year if you are a man of known prudence and honesty and on and on and on here's a long quote from Franklin defining essentially what is the spirit of capitalism now this is Weber he says we provisionally employ the phrase spirit of modern capitalism to refer to the particular frame of mind that as in our example of Benjamin Franklin strives systematically and rationally in a calling for legitimate profit so ever setting out to explain how we got to this unique American style of capitalism now this is super easy for every listener to relate to is this is exactly what we do in our daily lives we invest our money we save our money we earn our money we try to use our money to get more money and on and on and on we work hard we get up early right the early bird gets the worm all of these ridiculous things that we know and even if we disagree with them we are forced to live our lives according to them and we'll get to favors explanation for that now it's important for us to note here that this behavior existed prior to the 16th century when Weber is beginning his analysis and he talks about this extensively but the ethic behind it did not exist and that is what is key very obviously people sought surplus and a community accumulated resources prior to the 16th century you know about the Neolithic Revolution and imperialism and colonial that took place at the time but they weren't doing it for ethical reasons they weren't doing it because they viewed it as being the quote-unquote right thing to do they were doing it for power usually and status it wasn't profit for profits sake but that's what it becomes and that's what Weber is trying to unlock or for followers may be just utilitarian material purposes like that I need to do these things to provide for myself and those around me right that yes but there was no specific ideological imperative and that's where like again the relay we kind of started off this podcast he Weber is gonna weave that in so that's important and and Nick's using the term ethic here but that's where that's gonna get woven in in favor discusses how this behavior when it starts to sort of rear its ugly head in the beginning it was never individualistic even when people would behave this way it was always done for something that was greater than themselves they were doing it for God to fulfill God's destiny their destiny to serve God or they were doing it to serve the crown as in the Columbus example like we discussed a couple of episodes ago clearly people exploited other people clearly people saw accumulation and surpluses but before this very unique spirit of capitalism it was never done out of purely a individualistic interest so that's really what they were trying to get at here so the question becomes okay how do we make this transition Jarrod's already giving us the intro sort of to John Calvin and the idea of predestination I'm gonna read a quote actually here from Calvin as Jared mentioned this is the Institutes of the Christian religion which was published in 1536 he says we say then that scripture clearly proves this much that God by his eternal immutable counsel determined once and for all who those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation and those whom on the other hand it was his pleasure to doom to destruction then he continues but that's enough context for us and Calvin for now so the idea of predestination which is key to vapers analysis is that it is already determined predetermined that's where the term comes from you are predestined to go to heaven or hell before you're even born so this is very clearly a huge deviation from traditional Catholic beliefs in the Catholic system you can sin and repent for those sins and so on and your behavior on earth dictates whether or not you go to heaven or hell for the Calvinist this is no longer the case it's already determined before you are born whether or not you're going to heaven or hell and sort of the theological logic here is if God is omniscient and he knows everything both past and present and he already knows what you're going to do throughout your lifetime so he already is aware of whether or not you're going to have in our health obviously this brings in the question of free will but that's way beyond the scope of this conversation one of the other aspects to one of the explanations is that God's intellect and his power is so far beyond the understanding of any mortal human that we can't possibly try to understand who goes to heaven or hell and that he must predetermine it before any of us are even born with his knowledge of all of eternity so that's sort of the logic behind it now well and it also in comparison to Luther who again paves the way for a lot of these other various Christian or Protestant breakaway sects again faith and faith alone may not be enough as far as again may be controlling morality and ethical behavior and so Calvin sees this and see some of the results like I said that's why I brought up like the the peasant wars and things along those lines and it helps perhaps inform his choice to try and again Riaan still maybe a little bit of a sense of doubt rather than this somewhat and again this is these are this is my my language not Calvin's but more or less this get out of hell free card that maybe some people were taking advantage of once they were able to break away from the rule of the Catholic Church well of course I could do whatever I want because I believe you know whatever I believe in God and Jesus died for my sins and so on and so forth but then there's no other check on my behavior so as long as I believe that I'm free to do what I want Calvin is trying to reel some of those folks back in a little bit so Weber argues that this results in a significant amount of existential anxiety for the Calvinist for the followers of John Calvin that believe in this tenant of predestination and this seems logical right you if you you don't know whether you're going to heaven or hell that very clearly is terrifying so Weber says a particular question must arise immediately for every single believer it forces all such this worldly interest into the background am i among the predestined who have been saved how can I become certain of my status as the chosen so Weber argues that the Calvinists start to ask this question how can I make sure that I am a member of the elect who is going to heaven because I'm terrified otherwise now to deal with this anxiety Weber says the Calvinists were given two pieces of the advice and this becomes key to the analysis of how we transition to economic rationalism first they were told it was their duty to believe that they were a member of the elect Weber says it became a matter of duty pure and simple for the believers to consider themselves among the elect few and to repeal every doubt about their state of grace as nothing more than the temptations of the devil so the logic here goes it's your duty as a believer to think that you are a member of the elect and if you ever begin to question that that is the devil starting to invade your thoughts and so as a devout believer you must think that you are a member of the elect can we just pause for a second on that for just I mean that's such an important revelation here like the again keeping in mind that the the reason we're doing this is because this is going to be the belief system of the quote/unquote pilgrims they're gonna have it instilled in their mind that it is their duty to believe they are elect that term is important elect there is a certain amount of and this is a very important word in 2019 privilege arrogance attached to that and it is their duty to feel this way that they are elect they are superior or better than those around them because they have been or believe they have been granted God's favor again that's wildly important they didn't have to necessarily specifically earn it at least not yet Nick will be getting to that but it is through this idea that merely even self doubt even maybe thinking about another belief system or listening to other people in their proselytization whether they're Lutheran or Catholic or or whatever I did the Jewish population was also being persecuted at this time no not elect I am the elect and again this mentality is going to meet and we're gonna talk about it next episode like people with very different belief structures ie the First Nations and and this idea of being elect is going to wreak massive havoc so yeah okay so first they were told that it was their duty to believe that they were the elect the second thing they were told is they were told to work simply weber says work without rest and adequate vocational calling was recommended as the best possible means to acquire the self-confidence that one belonged among the elect work and work alone banishes religious doubt and gives certainty of one status among the saved now this plants the seed for working for works sake no longer are they working to just sustain their lives and lives of their families now they are working to prevent idleness which would result in this existential anxiety now I think that probably our listeners in modern-day capitalist society can relate to this a little bit we have become so conditioned that we are just to work all of the time that if we actually find ourselves having some free time and having time to sit and be with our thoughts for many people that result in anxiety for them they don't know what to do with themselves they get bored this is why we have snapchat and Netflix and anything else that you can imagine that we use to fill our time because we're hardly even capable anymore of just sitting sitting idle and being with our thoughts and thinking about the universe and our existence and on and on and on so the Calvinists are told you must work you must work you must work for works sake you must work because any idleness will give you time to question your belief structures so that's very key now the Calvinists if you can picture your experience in this existential angst you don't know if you are a member of the elect or not you essentially are going to try this kind of game the system you're going to look for signs that are evidence of you being a member of the left elect so this is a Weber again he says wherever the doctrine of predestination was adhered to the question could not be avoided of whether infallible signs existed that allowed recognition of one's membership among the elect so one of the signs Weber argues that the Calvinists developed over time as demonstrating their membership in the elect was wealth was financial success this became the sign over time and the logic is because surely God would not allow a member of the Damned to become wealthy clearly he would only bestow this privilege and the status upon someone that was a member of the elect now think back to what we just talked about and how this relates to their directive to work and to work and to work to take their minds off of their existential ends so coincidentally they're told that they must work endlessly so they don't have enough time to think about this anxiety and then they start developing the sign of wealth means that they are a member of the elect so think about how these two things have a reflexive relationship with one another also one of the other tenants of Calvinism is that they should lead an ascetic life ascetic ASCE T I see is an asceticism this means essentially to do without it's self-denial most of the time you're probably familiar with like monks leading an ascetic lifestyle it's not exactly the same here for the Calvinist but you can think of doing without luxurious goods so they start to develop this ethic this sort of moral duty to not consume to not enjoy luxurious things to live a lifestyle that is a very free of material consumption etc so the combination of this lack of material consumption removing the moral restraints from accumulation and a heightened work ethic led to the incredible acquisition of wealth these things combined so what do they do with this wealth then if they're not going to use it to whatever show off their wealth they're not buying Bentleys and Rolexes of course in the 17th century but whatever that might be whatever version of that that might be what are they doing with this wealth they're just hoarding it it is like the more they have they have acquired the more elect they are and it's sitting somewhere wherever it might be obviously at this point in time it's a mix of hard currencies and and various other currencies they're all mixing together and this what will become the colonial period but what are they doing with it very clearly aren't just letting it sit there in fact Benjamin Franklin talks about this right you shouldn't let your money sit idle either because money begets money and so on so the ethic becomes overtime that you will reinvest your money you'll lend it out to people on interest you'll start new businesses you'll etc all the things that we now associate directly with modern capitalism because that's what it is this ethic this this means of earning money comes to really comes to light and begins to flourish during this time period among the Calvinists because they are taught the more wealth you have the more likely you are to be a member of the elect at least that's how they feel so the more wealth that I can accumulate the more comfortable I feel that I not have been not not have been damned to destruction so money becomes an ends it is no longer merely a symbolic thing that I exchange whatever in the Middle Ages I have five goats and you have five chickens and we want to make an exchange but we you know it's very difficult if I traveled a long way so I'll use this symbolic thing this represent this amount of currency these coins represent my goats because I don't wanna bring them everywhere and your coins represent your chickens and we'll have an exchange there it's no longer attached to that but the now the thing of exchange the symbol of exchange is now no longer just a simple of exchange it is the ends you're seeking in and of itself that's a crazy switch you're not even seeking money so you can buy things you're merely seeking money for money itself that is it yeah yeah yeah Wow so even relating this back to what we just talked about like the middle-aged accumulation of things it had to do with providing for your family and even if you were like the crown it was status right you were using these things to prove your status and you never had currency just sitting around you had rare things jewels and etc various kinds of spices and I like we have so many examples but you never just had currency sitting around or that was not a thing but it starts to happen during this period where the currency is is the end itself you want that and you want you don't want it to be idle and just sitting there but you want it to be out there working for you at all times and this connection is super-important again keep in mind that currency wasn't originally invented symbolically now in the ancient world yes they coined things with various Kings like Darius of Persia or something on there meant to show like the power of Empires and things along those lines but when we get to like the Middle Ages in it big comeback there because of the travel economy that develops in the late Middle Ages right because of like pilgrims and University lectures and trade fairs and all the cool things that like develop and create a basically a trade economy based on a lot of travel needless to say carrying a bag of representative of all of your wealth is way easier than bringing all your wealth everywhere you go to make exchanges so it's obviously it was utilitarian it made sense right people like the Medici in Florence use this - even of course fund great works of art as you all know so it was actually useful for that but it was always merely a symbol it was not the currency in and of itself it was symbolic you would have to have faith in that symbol so if you are travelling to whatever let's pretend you're traveling to Frankfurt for whatever reason maybe there was a trade there trade fair there when you go when you go there and you have this little bag of coins the only reason in exchange takes place is because whoever you're exchanging with somebody's selling whatever horseshoes in Frankfurt is because that person has faith you guys share the same faith that that currency can be turned into something else right but it was not the currency that was important it was the faith in the currency that could be turned into something else and of course our listeners can probably already see where we're going with this the faith in a course religion in this case faith in God and now we're transferring faith slowly but surely away from God but faith in a symbol and that's gonna play a very important role in what NICs trying to trying to talk about here analyzing Weber so this is the beginnings of ethical capitalist behavior now what I mean by that is think back to what we just talked about a few minutes ago about how people there was a time that if people believed in this spirit of capitalism and they behaved in this way where they were out for themselves and they wanted accumulation merely for accumulation sake and they were out for individualistic ends this was viewed as morally reprehensible this was completely unacceptable and went against your religious faith it went against the teachings that you were supposed to be passionate about the community and helped those that were less fortunate and so on and so on now this is a massive point where now this spirit of capitalism becomes the ethically correct thing to do it is the right thing to do and doing the opposite and not doing that becomes the morally reprehensible behavior and this is a massive turning point yes no I mean it's not necessary really it's necessarily even unique to Europe right like if we look at like like whatever Han Cheng Tong Dynasty China like it is the business people the merchants and so on and so forth that are usually the materially they're actually kind of wealthy but the rest of society doesn't like hanging out with them because of what they do for a living there they are profiting off of of course the the more traditional communal ethic there they are individually profiting on them yeah so it's it's even though they they might have some stuff and some wealth and maybe status in that regard they have almost no social status because no one wants to be around these these individuals so it's not even unique to Europe like other excuse me other societies a conquer and societies at the time felt this way about like again like making money for the sake of making money I mean it's that simple I mean even think of the term profiteering right that has a negative connotation they were talks essentially I don't have a quote here on there but he calls it adventure capitalism it was capitalism that existed but prior to it becoming the morally justified thing to do it always existed on the fringes of society so like Jared just explained the capitalist might have existed but they were profiteering and exploiting and taking advantage of people which was hugely frowned upon so they always existed they never had a social status they might have material status but they were not valued in society as contributors but this is the change in that this is when the when capitalism becomes viewed as the right and the normal yeah here's a quote by Weber he says if we now combine the strictures against consumption with this unchaining of the striving for wealth a certain external result that is one with an impact outside the realm of religion now becomes visible the formation of capital through asceticism compulsive saving the restrictions that oppose the consumption of wealth indeed have their productive use for profit and gain became used as investment capital he then talks about how this entire belief structure and the hey viewers behind it begin to serve to justify a class structure he says religious asceticism gave to the employer the soothing assurance that the unequal distribution of the world's material goods resulted from the special design of God's providence in making such distinctions as well as in deciding who should be among the chosen few God pursued mysterious aims unknown to terrestrial mortals so just think about how this ideological system serves to justify class inequality according to this logic the people that are poor are poor intentionally because they are not members of the elect because God has not chosen them to be blessed and to go to heaven he has not welcomed them into their kingdom so just think about how the Calvinist would have thought about the poor at the time didn't think about how this has transitioned and transferred into our own modern society we carry these very same beliefs even though hardly any of us are Calvinists anymore which waiver we'll talk about in a second we still you think about when you see the homeless person on the street you assume that somehow they are immoral that somehow they are not good people which is completely I just didn't work hard enough and so on yeah yeah we morally judge people who do not take part in our economic system the ways that we think that they should be participating in the economic system we place moral judgment on those people it is completely absurd and absolutely asinine when you think of it on that level paper argues that this is when the moral ethic behind capitalism came about and it has to do with the Calvinists and this tenant of predestination now the main question that we're sort of gonna wrap this up with we have a little bit more is hardly any of us like I said are Calvinists but very undeniably all of us are capitalists even if you're like the most about socialists out there you still must participate in the capitalist system just to survive so every single one of us is a capitalist so this is Davers quote on that and this is a super famous passage from the work so I'm gonna read it it's kind of long but there's some important term here he says quote the Puritan wanted to be a person with a vocational calling we must be four to the extent that asceticism moved out of the monastic cell and was carried over into the life of working a vocational calling and then commenced to rule over this worldly morality it helped do its part to build the mighty cosmos of the modern economic order namely an economy bound to the technical and economic conditions of mechanized machine based production this cosmos today determines the style of life of all individuals born into this grinding mechanism and not only those directly engaged in economically productive activity it does so with overwhelming force and perhaps will continue to do so until the last ton of fossil fuel has burnt to ashes the concern for material goods according to Baxter should like on the shoulders of his Saints like a lightweight coat that one can throw off at any time yet fate allowed this coat to become an iron cage to the extent that asceticism undertook to transform and influence the world the world's material goods acquired an increasing and in the end inescapable power over the people as never before in history so Weber says here this began as an ideology a religious belief structure that then resulted in a very specific way of behaving and then that way of behaving became so pervasive throughout society and spread so quickly that the religious aspect of it faded away it withered away and was completely stripped from this way of behaving and the way of behaving then became the foundation of our society and now we are all trapped in this iron cage and we are unable to escape even if we don't want to even if we don't believe in predestination and so on we have no choice but to participate in Calvados our capitalism now I have iron cage here highlighted in my notes because it's interesting the translator of the copy that I use which I think is probably the most widely used he says that the more accurate translation is actually steel hardcase but sociologists Talcott Parsons was the first that ever translated this work from German into English and he used the term iron cage when he did his translation since it was the first to became by far the most widely used for a really long time and so now this term itself is super famous vapers concept of the iron cage and it's used extensively in philosophy and sociology etc so I always just stick to the iron cage so basically we're stuck in the iron cage of capitalism as a result of Calvinism and the tenets of predestination so what do you had to say about that I mean it's it's I mean this ideology is definitely gonna like I said informed not only like the next immediate episode where we talk about the actual pilgrims who came at the beginning of the 17th century and their interaction of course with the Wampanoag and other First Nations it's definitely gonna inform those interactions it's also going to inform very quickly a different set of Puritans that show up after them called the Massachusetts Bay Company and they're going to again take it to a whole different level now all of those early actors are definitely working under the religious auspices that are attached but as weber goes on for further here and he's writing from the early 20th century that religious piece withered away and what I always find intriguing is that again religious constituents regardless of faith if they live here in the United States whether they are still Protestant or Catholic or Muslim or Jewish or whatever they those scriptures the scriptures that they're supposed to be looking at whether it is the Torah or the Quran or the New Testament whatever it is often have some very clear very clear cuts imperatives regarding materialism and hoarding and and charity oh those types of things so it's always interesting me to me how like even though the religious pieces weren't away and modern religion or you can still look at texts that that would maybe argue against these morals and ethics the type of mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance that that many of us are able to go through to still basically try and synthesize these two things like the religious impaired tied to again materialism what's an easy example shoot Jesus and the money changers there aren't really in my opinion is my opinion I'm not a theologian there's not a whole lot of different ways to interpret what he meant when he goes in there and wreck shop and yet and yet we still people that are like again very religious practitioners are willing to still adopt this idea of hoarding an investment and moral judgments against those that don't practice the same way and getting up early and working hard and we could see that right most of the studies out there um show that Americans and this I'll give them a give us all a little bit credit here are some of the hardest-working people on the planet we work on average more hours and just about anybody else in the world we usually kind of go back and forth with South Korea Japan on this but and that's actually not coincidental keep in mind those are two economies modeled on ours in a post-world War two Marshall plans so again that's actually not even coincidental right like those are economies that we we helped rebuild after World War two so yeah I mean like what are we working so hard for we have more than enough surplus just here not not to mention the globe we could feed seven and a half billion people if we had to but but let's just focus here it's myth is America we have more than enough surplus here for everybody to be more or less well taken care of why not why is that not a thing how is that not a thing and it's not even talking like full-blown like some sort of you know listeners like weird communist utopia so I'm saying like there there can be status and there can be people with unique skills and so on and so forth but like why do we have people that have like nothing like no you know no health care no food no place to live we have houses just vacant everywhere and yet homeless populations how is that a thing how does this ideology again rationalize that type of society that's that's why this this work ethic is so important to me is in it it's not just the immediate aftermath that I'm gonna do in the next episode with Puritans and so on and so forth it's it's the modern-day ramifications how do we again how can one person walk down downtown wherever you live and look at a homeless person there and then go back out to the suburbs and see six houses for sale on your street where is the brake ridiculous ridiculous and then we morally justify it or ethically justify it mmm yeah like the homeless person didn't do the right thing they didn't follow the norms of society and work really hard or whatever we have to like I love your term mental gymnastics we convinced ourselves somehow I have everything that I have because I deserve it because I land exactly we're no longer the elect in the Calvinist sense of the term now we are the chosen I did this and I deserve it because I worked so hard etc we're stuck in the iron cage Weber would argue that till the end well now we even like to now which is weird we even this other part with every way we do sometimes like to show off how elect we are or make ourselves feel elect with the fancy car the fancy clothes or the fancy watches or whatever in you know a selfie based culture like I am elect I am special I am all of these things and here's here's here's the surprised listeners and you all or if you already listening to this know we're none of those things no none of these individuals are special no one's special a snowflake or anything along those lines right like regardless of what our parents say we're doing these things we're buying these things we're taking these selfies we're not even sometimes selfies I'm showing my breakfast every morning on Facebook to see to show everybody how good a cook I am so I can feel special I can feel elect the reason we have to do those things is because you don't feel that way none of us feel that way these are just like any drug we are trying to compensate we're trying to overcompensate for the fact that we actually don't feel that way and that's kind of the sad part is we've even lost that little bit from the original version oh gee version of the Protestant work ethic is now we're just trying to compensate any way we can that I am a left in my own way my society likes me my friends like me my I need likes I need whatever upvotes whatever it is I need these things to feel more quote-unquote elect so yeah that's all I have I actually have a theory on that of like I think there is very specific transitions from this sort of like the traditional Calvinists would never show off their wealth right like Weber Weber has a past a personal connection to this because his father was a successful civil servant he was like a politician that was fairly well-off his family was fairly well his mother was a devout Calvinist so in the Weber household this debate would happen all of the time where the father with his father would be consuming obviously and buying luxurious things and his mother constantly would be telling them telling him you know take that back don't spend this money we need to be saving and investing and we shouldn't we shouldn't be flashing our success etc I one of my theories is that we actually made that transition when the economy reached a point where it wasn't possible for everyone to actually be successful so we transitioned to start flashing and demonstrating our success in other ways and we art largely used debt to do so well and and yeah we have an episode coming up on that and when that becomes a very important part of the Americana project with again ohio valley company of speculators and those types of people that are willing to try and sell the idea of status for those that can't afford status yet that don't have this wealth they will finance your status and you will then be beholden to them for work so again that we'll be getting to in a future episode not the next one but maybe the one after that it will be coming up here pretty soon so it's not like you know i finance my fancy car because i think that's going to get me into heaven like that's been long removed but we buy nice things and we display signs of our status and our wealth because that makes us feel good and makes other people think that we are good and that we do the right thing in society that we work really hard and we follow the norms and like my expensive watch makes people think that i am a good person so ya know i'm and and i'm shoot i'll even quote the story of stuff here at this point was that video on youtube it's a great video if you haven't seen it just type in the story of stuff it's what ten fifteen years old at this point and it's more of an environmental thing but but but and i forget her name but the woman that's like the narrator she does a very good job when they get to the point of why do we like consume so much now and she uses like i don't know different shoe styles specifically for women and basically there's a status attached to it that it's not that the styles are so cool that they change every year and you need to be up to date just for the sake of being attractive it's actually also showing that you are contributing to the capitalist system that if you do not have the newest shoe since the child is style has changed you are then frowned upon because you're not contributing to of course the ethic in this case the ethic behind the capitalism it's not the style specifically if you have last year's shoes on and you surround yourself with friends only with this your shoe it's not just oh I'm out of style it's your friends are then judging you you are not contributing anymore to these cycles so I mean and again I'm paraphrasing again please check it out type in story of stuff on on youtube you can find it super popular videos 15 10 15 years old but yeah like that that's what you just made me think of this and you saying that just made me think of now another sort of transformation that's happened over the past decade or so the whole minimalist movement and how much privilege is associated with that now it's not like I have this like stark lifestyle and I have one chair in my apartment because I'm poor now it's because well I can afford whatever I want but ideologically I choose to be a minimalist and like now that is a sign of status oh absolutely yeah yeah I don't want to get it started on like that tiny house movement I mean at one point I was like man I'm super into this and then I started seeing the videos being made on it and like these people are like this isn't I don't know people that are making them for like homeless populations in Los Angeles and stuff I know that's actually really an awesome movement and they're making these great little houses for like twelve fifteen hundred bucks but the ones I'm talking about are the people that are building like hundred and fifty thousand dollar like tiny houses like come on what are you doing like like that that yes anyway whatever we're getting off we're getting way off off the rails here at this point we got to bring it we got a real bad I do when I reel this back in and just end with sort of explaining that which Jared already alluded to in the very beginning the Calvinists were awful to be around they were terrible human beings because they were constantly judging everyone and constantly like it says like Weber argues it was their duty to believe that they were a member of the elect so just picture someone walking around and it's part of their belief system that they have to think that they're better than everyone else just think about that for a second and let that sink in now clearly no not everyone is like that to this day even modern Calvinists I'm I hope aren't like that either but at the time they very much were like this so like Jared said everywhere they existed they ended up alienating themselves from the surrounding populations this is why they found themselves crossing the pond and eventually landing in the what came the northern colonies of the United States so the myth of they were seeking oh they were so persecuted yeah they were seeking freedom from religious persecution that's like they were persecuted but they in a way brought that upon themselves by not just whatever staying in their lane and living in society peacefully and always again pointing out everybody else's faults and flaws and so on and so forth and needing to be in positions of power they actually would actually attain power in England ironically enough after the first colonies were already founded which actually cuts off some of the Calvinist migration but again we'll get to that in a future episode yeah so like this whole narrative of they were seeking religious persecution is like at best a half-truth like yes they were being persecuted against because they were awful people and no one wanted to be around them not just because of like the tenants of their faith were disagreeable is because who they were and how they behaved was awful and no one wanted to be around them so think about how that's that's a unique kind of religious persecution it's not so much about the tenants of the faith it's the way that they believed and behaved as a result of their religion that nobody else could stand and that's why they found themselves exiled and exiting their currencies I mean even exiled at one point or at least asked to leave from Amsterdam which was arguably one of the most accepting cities still outshoot to this day right like during the Spanish Inquisition a lot of Jews found refuge there like I mean it has this rich history of accommodation and even there they had found themselves it not too popular so we're coming off there because that's exactly where Jared's gonna pick up is when they make their way across and start establishing the colonies in New England so we'll stop there that concludes this episode of the myth is America series of the revolution and ideology podcast you can research reach us online revolution and calm we're on Twitter at Rev and ideology find us on iTunes give us a rating yeah that's it so I'm Nicola I'm Jed talk to you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Revolution and Ideology

Views: 15,693

Keywords: max weber, martin luther, calvin, calvinism, predestination, asceticism, indulgences, the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, protestant reformation, weber spirit, work ethic

Id: X5XTWiDfM8I

Length: 60min 0sec (3600 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 11 2019