Tentative Answer: Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

2. Smith and others analyzed the rise of the industrial economy. Weber suggests why that rise occurs in countries with the ‘Protestant Ethic’ more strongly than others. Why does religion play a role in capitalism?

Weber is fundamentally interested in the patterns of rational social action that result in the legitimization of human organizational structures. To trace the rise of the industrial economy and the domination of capitalism, Weber finds a historico-social explanation in the reinforcement of the Protestant ethic. The rise of Calvinism emphasized a need to prove one's salvation through acts of hard work, almost as an anxiety-relieving gesture. Weber describes religion as a "historical switchman," which delivered the principles necessary for capitalism to continue on its own, running on its respective engine.

Catholicism and Lutheranism, unlike Calvinism, promote more traditional and emotional forms of action, which have hindered the development of capitalist economic action. The fundamental feature of Calvinism is its calculability that it as able to instill within human conduct, so that even after the religion's dominance faded away, its historical transformations—i.e. work ethic, separation of household from work, commitment to rationalization and profit—remained alive. The protestant ethic became institutionalized in everyday life under capitalism, so that it persisted when its religious connection dissolved. This is the famous Weberian iron cage metaphor: no longer do people have the agency to choose to behave within these systems of rationalization and calculation; rather, they are entrapped within the machinations turned on by previous social forces whose ghostly presence remains calcified today.