Distinguish between fact and value in Weber's Protestant Ethic ad Spirit of Capitalism. (UPSC CSE Mains 2018 - Sociology, Paper 1)
- Positivists believe that Sociology can be value-free because they are uncovering the ‘objective’ laws of how social systems work – these laws exist independently of the researchers observing them. All the researcher is doing is uncovering ‘social facts’ that exist ‘out there’ in the world – facts that would exist irrespective of the person doing the observing. However, Weber believed that complete Value Freedom is not possible. Facts and values are different but not disengaged to each other. Weber proposed sociologists distinguish and recognize their own qualities and beat their own predispositions while leading sociological research, this he named as worth non-partisanship. Consequently, he guaranteed that an analyst can be objective once a theme of research has been picked.
- Fact includes - historical conditions, material factors, Capital and other such dimensions which are accepted by all indisputably. Protestantism led to Capitalism because it encouraged hard work and saving, according to Weber.
- Based on historical observation and analysis, Weber theorized this was because these were the only two countries in which Protestantism was the predominant religion, rather than Catholicism, which was the formal religion of every other European country.
- Weber theorized that the different value systems of the two religions had different effects: the values of Protestantism encouraged ways of acting which (unintentionally) resulted in capitalism emerging, over a period of many decades, even centuries.
- Calvinism preached the doctrine of predestination: God had basically already decided who was going to heaven (‘the saved) before they were born. Similarly, he had also already decided who the damned were – whether or not you were going to hell had already been decided before your birth. According to Weber this led to a situation in which Calvinist communities encouraged work for the glory of God, and discouraged laziness and frivolity. Needless to say there was quite a motivation to stick to these ethical codes, given that hell was the punishment if you didn’t.
- Over the decades, this ‘work-ethic’ encouraged individuals and whole communities to set up businesses, and re-invest any money they earned to grow these businesses (because it was a sin to spend the money you’d made on enjoying yourself), which laid the foundations for modern capitalism. Weber argued that over the following centuries, the norm of working hard and investing in business became entrenched in European societies, but the old religious ideas withered away. Hence it was still the Protestant work ethic which was (unintentionally) responsible for the emergence of Capitalism.
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