The Capitalist Future: A Consequence of Calvinist Annunciation :: essays research papers fc

The Capitalist Future A Consequence of Calvinistical Annunciation     In his pretend, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, weberpredicts that the future will be a world of "mechanized perfection" devoid of" spiritual and respectable meaning." In this world modern capitalism becomes a selfsustaining schema no longer needing the Calvinist religious impetus that hadinspired the excogitate ethic. Weber argues that the future will be a capitalisticsociety, where the confinement and the bourgeoisie alike, will not be driven byreligious motivation, but instead by a constant struggle to arrive at from thesystem. He reasons that this future of the capitalist society is a direct essence of the teachings of Calvinism. The Calvinist work ethic of livingto work forms the core of modern capitalism. This ethic originated from theCalvinist doctrine of predestination and the notion of a transcendental god.Predestination decrees that God has a lready picked out who those "predestinedinto staring(a) life" (100) and those "foreordained to everlasting death"(100). Calvinists also believe that God, a distant "grand supposition" (164) whois "beyond all human comprehension," (164) is unreachable. Both these beliefstogether eliminated any hatchway of appeasing God through service orsacrifice. The answer to the header whether believers were the chosen or thedamned could thus neither be influenced nor known. If, however, maven turned hiswork into a calling, restricting any desire to uneconomic pleasure, he couldexperience a feeling of assurance that he is indeed a member of the Elect.Calvinism preached this abstinent ethic of hard work and despatch absence offrivolous waste of money and time. As a result, the work ethic of thepopulation shifted from working to live to living to work. Traditionalcapitalism which relied on the "greedy maximisation of profit in a one-shotenterprise," ( 14) became the rational modern capitalism, a round-the-clock cycleinvolving the constant "productive investment of capital." (172) The Calvinistteachings demanded honest dealing in business, steady production and sales, andcontinuous savings and reinvestment which no dubiety led to phenomenal businessgrowth and success. Weber illustrates in the following quote "When thelimitation of consumption is combined with the release of acquisitive activity,the fatal practical result is obvious accumulation of capital throughascetic compulsion to save." (172)This "diligent and frugal" (175) attitude made people richer and" substantive goods gained an increasing and finally an inexorable power over thelives of men." (181) The dependence on external goods went from the "light cloakwhich can be thrown excursion at any moment" (181) to a necessity, or as Weber putsit, an "iron cage." (181) The so called acetic lifestyle now led to an change magn itude