A Polemic on the Spirit of Capitalism and the Role of the Reformation in Shaping It

Many modern researchers reject Weber’s hypothesis about the connection between the Reformation and the formation of rational capitalism. It is worth agreeing with critics that Weber did not present a complete theory of the origin of capitalism. Nevertheless, the Weber hypothesis provides indications of a necessary (but not suffi cient) condition for the formation of modern capitalism. At the same time, it explains not so much the formation of the capitalist spirit in principle – as something unchangeable and uniform for all countries and centuries – as one, but historically a key episode in the development of capitalism. For the first time, Protestantism successfully fulfilled the task of forming the spirit of capitalism, since it is a manifestation of anti-traditionalism and individualism. It is also more open to social innovations and contributes to the destruction of community ties. The Reformation created the ideological and psychological prerequisites for the initial accumulation of capital and contributed to the formation of capitalistically motivated classes of entrepreneurs and the proletariat.