Order Description
Max Weber writes, “One of the fundamental elements of the spirit of modern capitalism, and not only of that but of all modern culture: ration conduct on the basis of the idea of the calling was born… from the spirit of Christian asceticism.”

Please answer ALL parts of the three questions for this essay.

A. Explain Weber’s model of the development of modern western rational sober bourgeois capitalism and the role of the protestant ethic in its origins. In answering this question, make sure you 1) Discuss the various conditions necessary for the development of western rational sober bourgeois capitalism. 2) Describe the key characteristics of the Protestant Ethic according to Weber. 3) Explain Weber’s understanding of how these characteristics advance the process of rationalization that characterizes the modern division of labor.

B. What happens to the religious component of the Protestant Ethic as rationalization produces an “iron cage”?

C. How is Weber’s model a criticism of the economic determinism of Marx Engels and Adam Smith? How might these theorists in turn criticize Weber’s model of the origins of western rational sober bourgeois capitalism?