The Protestant Ethic Debate ― Max Weber's Replies to His Critics, 1907-1910

Max Weber's famous study of 1904-05, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, has been, and continues to be, one of the most influential texts in the sociology of modern Western societies. However, not all readers realise that the original was not meant to stand alone in the form in which we know it today. Weber always intended to extend the study with further instalments in the journal he edited with Werner Sombart and Edgar Jaffe, the Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Although he never in fact produced these essays, he did, instead, complete four lengthy Replies or 'Antikritiken' to reviews of the text by two German historians of the day, H. Karl Fischer and Felix Rachfahl. Written between 1907 and 1910, the Replies offer a fascinating insight into Weber's intentions in the original study, and the present volume is the first complete translation of all four Replies in English. Ranging across such crucial issues as the differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism, the spirit of the Renaissance and the definition of capitalism, the Replies clarify key aspects of the hypothesis about an 'elective affinity' between Protestant asceticism and rational economic 'conduct of life'. In keeping with the high standards of philological accuracy currently expected among Weber scholars - standards once notoriously neglected by his first English translator from the 1930s, Talcott Parsons - the present translation makes a point of preserving Weber's dense and often highly vituperative style, and is preceded by an introductory essay outlining the key significance of the Replies for our contemporary reception of Weber's complex sociological corpus.

Dr Austin Harrington is Reader in Sociology at the University of Leeds.