Weber and the spirit of capitalism. History of a problem and new perspectives

Abstract

The impassioned, century-long debate roused by The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism has made this work a classic of our time, but it has also made direct access to its content difficult, because of the accumulation of a great number of interpretations and commentaries, at times opposed to one another. This article seeks to help resolve this difficulty, offering a synthetic summary of Weber’s theses and guidelines for orienting oneself in the world of the secondary literature on this work. The article also offers some reflections on the significance for this debate of the encyclical Centesimus Annus and the thought of Michael Novak.