The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Weber Max

Author:Weber, Max
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Angelico Press
Published: 2015-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Notes

Introduction

1. Ständestaat. The term refers to the late form taken by feudalism in Europe in its transition to absolute monarchy.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

2. Here, as on some other points, I differ from our honoured master, Lujo Brentano (in his work to be cited later). Chiefly in regard to terminology, but also on questions of fact. It does not seem to me expedient to bring such different things as acquisition of booty and acquisition by management of a factory together under the same category; still less to designate every tendency to the acquisition of money as the spirit of capitalism as against other types of acquisition. The second sacrifices all precision of concepts, and the first the possibility of clarifying the specific difference between Occidental capitalism and other forms. Also in Simmel’s Philosophie des Geldes money economy and capitalism are too closely identified, to the detriment of his concrete analysis. In the writings of Werner Sombart, above all in the second edition of his most important work, Der moderne Kapitalismus, the differentia specifica of Occidental capitalism—at least from the view-point of my problem—the rational organization of labour, is strongly overshadowed by genetic factors which have been operative everywhere in the world.

3. Commenda was a form of mediæval trading association, entered into ad hoc for carrying out one sea voyage. A producer or exporter of goods turned them over to another who took them abroad (on a ship provided sometimes by one party, sometimes by the other) and sold them, receiving a share in the profits. The expenses of the voyage were divided between the two in agreed proportion, while the original shipper bore the risk. See Weber, “Handelsgesellschaften im Mittelalter,” Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, pp. 323–8.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

4. The sea loan, used in maritime commerce in the Middle Ages, was “a method of insuring against the risks of the sea without violating the prohibitions against usury. . . . When certain risky maritime ventures were to be undertaken, a certain sum . . . was obtained for the cargo belonging to such and such a person or capitalist. If the ship was lost, no repayment was exacted by the lender; if it reached port safely, the borrower paid a considerable premium, sometimes 50 per cent.” Henri Sée, Modern Capitalism, p. 189.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

5. A form of company between the partnership and the limited liability corporation. At least one of the participants is made liable without limit, while the others enjoy limitation of liability to the amount of their investment.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

6. Naturally the difference cannot be conceived in absolute terms. The politically oriented capitalism (above all tax-farming) of Mediterranean and Oriental antiquity, and even of China and India, gave rise to rational, continuous enterprises whose book-keeping—though known to us only in pitiful fragments—probably had a rational character. Furthermore, the politically oriented adventurers’ capitalism has been closely associated with rational bourgeois capitalism in the development of modern banks, which, including the Bank of England, have for the most part originated in transactions of a political nature, often connected with war.

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