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SOCY 151: Foundations of Modern Social Theory

Lecture 16 - Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism. Max Weber wrote his best-known work after he recovered from a period of serious mental illness near the turn of the twentieth century. After he recovered, his work transitioned from enthusiastically capitalist and liberal in the tradition of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill to much more skeptical of the down-sides of modernization, more similar to the thinking of Nietzsche and Freud. In his first major work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber argues that the Protestant faith, especially Luther's notion of "calling" and the Calvinist belief in predestination set the stage for the emergence of the capitalist spirit. With his more complex understanding of the causes of capitalism, Weber accounts for the motivations of capitalists and the spirit of capitalism and rationalization in ways that Marx does not.
(from oyc.yale.edu)

Lecture 16 - Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism

Time Lecture Chapters
[00:00:00] 1. Similarities and Differences Among Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Weber
[00:10:22] 2. Weber in a Historical Context
[00:26:37] 3. "The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism": The Marx-Weber Debate
[00:32:23] 4. The Correlation between Capitalism and Protestantism
[00:34:11] 5. What is the Spirit of Capitalism?
[00:39:21] 6. Luther's Conception of Calling
[00:43:31] 7. Religious Foundation of Worldly Asceticism
[00:46:59] 8. Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism

References
Lecture 16 - Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism
Instructor: Professor Ivan Szelenyi. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov].

Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures:

Lecture 01 - Introduction
Lecture 02 - Hobbes: Authority, Human Rights and Social Order
Lecture 03 - Locke: Equality, Freedom, Property and the Right to Dissent
Lecture 04 - The Division of Powers- Montesquieu
Lecture 05 - Rousseau: Popular Sovereignty and General Will
Lecture 06 - Rousseau on State of Nature and Education
Lecture 07 - Utilitarianism and Liberty, John Stuart Mill
Lecture 08 - Smith: The Invisible Hand
Lecture 09 - Marx's Theory of Alienation
Lecture 10 - Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (1)
Lecture 11 - Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (cont.)
Lecture 12 - Marx's Theory of History
Lecture 13 - Marx's Theory of Class and Exploitation
Lecture 14 - Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality
Lecture 15 - Freud on Sexuality and Civilization
Lecture 16 - Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism
Lecture 17 - Conceptual Foundations of Weber's Theory of Domination
Lecture 18 - Weber on Traditional Authority
Lecture 19 - Weber on Charismatic Authority
Lecture 20 - Weber on Legal-Rational Authority
Lecture 21 - Weber's Theory of Class
Lecture 22 - Durkheim and Types of Social Solidarity
Lecture 23 - Durkheim's Theory of Anomie
Lecture 24 - Durkheim on Suicide
Lecture 25 - Durkheim and Social Facts