by Max Weber
3. Felix Rachfahl, “Kalvinismus und Kapitalismus,” Internationale Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik 3 (1909), cols. 1217–38, 1249–68, 1287–1300, 1319–34, 1347–66; Felix Rachfahl, “Nochmals Kalvinismus und Kapitalismus,” Internationale Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik 4 (1910), cols. 689–702, 717–34, 755–68, 775–94.
4. Ernst Troeltsch, Die Kulturbedeutung des Kalvinismus, Internationale Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik, ed. Paul Hinne-berg, vol. 4, 1910.
5. Weber uses the English word in the original.
6. The literal translation is “extraworldly” (auβerweltlich).
7. The first time Weber made such an “admission” was in his first response to Fischer. See this volume, here.
8. Weber is referring to the Canons of Dort, or the “Five Articles against the Remonstrants,” promulgated by the Synod of Dort in 1619. For more information on the Synod, see Editors’ note 5 in The Protestant Ethic, p. 123.
9. Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) was a Dutch theologian, journalist, statesman, and educator. A man of strong Calvinist convictions, Kuyper founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880 to establish more rigorous training for Calvinist pastors, and in 1886 broke with the liberal Reformed Church (Hervormde Kerk) of the Netherlands (this is the “schism” to which Weber refers). In 1892, he established the alternative Reformed Churches of the Netherlands. Kuyper’s mission was simultaneously religious, social, and political, combining Calvinist orthodoxy with a “progressive” social program. As leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, he served as prime minister between 1901 and 1905. During the course of his life, he wrote more than two hundred books.
Weber discusses Kuyper and the schism (or secession) at greater length in “The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism,” Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge, 1970), pp. 302–22, at 316; also pp. 452–53.
10. This was the start of a strict Calvinist period in Holland.
11. Refers to that part of the Catholic ruling aristocracy that governed the city.
12. See The Protestant Ethic, here in this volume.
A Final Rebuttal of Rachfahl’s Critique of the “Spirit of Capitalism”1
Contents: I. Rebuttal of critique II. Positive résumé
Professor Rachfahl has replied to my rebuttal of his critique [“Antikritik”], this time over four issues of the Internationale Wochenschrift (vol. 4, nos. 22–25). However, he fails to admit that his superficial reading has led him to make crude errors. Instead, he both tries a new tack and exacerbates the majority of his previous errors with increasing desperation. Furthermore, he continues to conduct the debate in exactly the same manner as I was obliged to indicate previously. He concludes with the confident assertion (strikingly reminiscent of American political parties in their election campaigns) that he has “achieved” the “goal” of his critique: the “bubble on the Neckar has burst.” And in another place he professes to believe that he (Rachfahl) must appear to me as “the vulture that feeds on the carcass of the opponent.” This “carcass,” as we shall see, is still very much alive, and Rachfahl appears to him to bear no likeness to a bird of prey [Adler = eagle] or anything of the kind. On the contrary, to judge by how he presents himself in this “critique” and “reply,” he continues to appear as a rather lightly feathered and at the same time unduly schoolmasterly author. One can only shake one’s head over such a man; yet one cannot really bear him any ill will, because his often quite unbelievable deficiency in literary integrity is due to the awkward spot he has got himself into, and is exceeded by the naivety of his self-justification, which evidently makes him convinced he is right—however hard it is to believe this at times. [1]
Having once acceded to the wish expressed by (impartial) friends that I should embark upon the sterile and wearisome business of taking issue with his sophistry, which is solely about words and obscures the plain facts, I am obliged to see it through to the end. In what follows, I shall attempt two things. Firstly, I shall necessarily have to establish the “spirit” of R.’s2 polemics once again. As things stand, it is necessarily a rather tedious process to follow R. into all his bolt-holes, and I recommend any reader who is not particularly interested in it to skip this part. Then, secondly, to counteract the confusion that Rachfahl, in an effort to avoid admitting that he is in the wrong, has sown and has now compounded, I propose to summarize in a few pages some of the features of my true “thesis” that R. has obstinately ignored. I do this merely for the benefit of those who have not carefully reread my essays. For the others it is superfluous, but they are, of course, a dwindling minority.
I [REBUTTAL OF CRITIQUE]3
Since I have called Rachfahl’s polemic “professorial,” he maintains that I am denigrating his standing as a “professor,” and claim to be something “better.” In the context of our otherwise totally sterile discussion, this is an instructive error, which is also typical of Rachfahl’s lack of understanding of the matter in question. It is indeed the case that he not only is a “professor,” he has also written what is in my view an unusually “professorial” essay. Everyone knows, however, that not everything that a professor writes (even Rachfahl, thank God!) must necessarily be tainted with the familiar flavor of that petty, opinionated quibbling and smug superiority that is the essence of the “professorial.” Nor must every piece produced by an editor necessarily have a “journalistic” flavor (note the quotation marks!). Nor must every state that operates according to bureaucratic forms be dominated by the “bureaucratic spirit.” Likewise, not every army, organized on the German or French pattern, and the state it serves, need be inspired by the “military spirit” (think of Italy and contrast it with Germany or France). Nor does every Gewerkverein (French: “syndicat”; English: “trade union”), though organized along the same lines, have to be imbued with the spirit of either “trade unionism” or of “syndicalism” (take your pick). A country with a colonial empire is not necessarily filled with the “spirit of imperialism.” And finally, not every economy that is organized on capitalist lines is imbued with the “spirit of capitalism”—and certainly not with that particular manifestation of this spirit that I have found in modern capitalism (in contrast to the capitalism of antiquity or the Middle Ages) and most strongly during the heroic age of early capitalism.
Nevertheless, we still speak of such a “spirit” in conjunction with the adjectival form of one of those systems. The reason for this is (to repeat) that the possible attitudes that we so term seem to us to be particularly “adequate” to just those forms of organization, that is, seem to have an “elective affinity” with them arising from internal causes, yet without having in every case, or even in any significant number of cases, any necessary link with them. It is a typical historical process for a (state or other social) institution to continue to exist in exactly the same form as before, but to have undergone a change in its “meaning” for historical life, and in its significance for the history of culture. If we speak of a change in its “spirit” in such cases (and we tend to do this), we are, of course, duty bound to make clear what is meant by this and what concrete causes have determined this change. The task which I set myself was to reveal one (particularly important) series of causes which determined the formation of one (again, par-ticularly important) constituent component of the spirit of modern capitalism: that is, a variety of this spirit which differed in specific important ways from that of either the classical period or of the Middle Ages.
Rachfahl, confident that 99 percent of his readers have read neither my essays nor my rebuttal of his critique, and are not going to read them, now behaves as if this carefully considered restriction of my task has only been introduced after the fact (and, of course, on account of his “critique”). I should therefore like to assist my readers to make up their own minds by reminding them once more of the following.
As a result of my investigations (I quoted the p
assages in my rebuttal!), I established (vol. 21, p. 107 [footnote on page 120 in this volume]) that one (NB!) constituent component of the “capitalist spirit” derived from the origin which I claimed for it, namely, the specifically middle-class [bürgerlich] “ethic of the calling” (vol. 21, p. 105 [here in this volume]) and especially the “ascetic” quality that clung to this ethic and retained its importance in the face of the powerful psychological resistance of tradition until the capitalism of the present day, which rests on a purely mechanical basis, was able to dispense with its support (vol. 21, p. 108 [here in this volume]). Furthermore, I described as “foolish” the attempt to trace the derivation not only of the capitalist system but specifically also of the capitalist “spirit” (in my sense of the word, be it noted—a matter to which I shall return) back to the Reformation alone (vol. 20, p. 54 [here in this volume]). Additionally (vol. 21, p. 4, notes 1 and 2, vol. 25, p. 246 [notes 3 and 4; here in this volume]), I explicitly asserted that it was obvious that those religious and psychological conditions could only bring about the development of capitalism in conjunction with numerous other “conditions,” especially those of nature and geography.
Finally, on a number of occasions, and especially in 1908, in reply (vol. 26, p. 275 [here in this volume]) to a critique of the same type as Rachfahl’s, just to make quite sure of eliminating any possibility of “overemphasis” [Verabsolutierung] from the causal connection I was investigating, I stated again that my investigations were concerned with the analysis of the development of an ethical “style of life” [Lebensstil] which was adequate to the rising capitalism of the modern period [Neuzeit], and only with this. I would also remind the reader that if other people have “overestimated the import of my words,” then I cannot be blamed for this: my investigations were concerned with the analysis of the development of a “style of life” [Lebensstil] adequate to the rising capitalism of the modern period, and with this alone; it was, I added, even perfectly possible that after completion of my essays, I would be “accused of capitulation to historical materialism”.4 In his “critique” (vol. 3, col. 1288, footnote), Rachfahl had even quoted the polemical little essay in which these latter remarks appeared. In answer to my objection (based on the foregoing quotations) that in spite of everything he had never felt under any obligation to take all this into consideration, although he was well aware of it, he now has the astonishing effrontery to assure the readership of the Internationale Wochenschrift that he knew nothing of these remarks of mine, indeed that “even today he had been unable to find them” (col. 790). I leave it to the reader to decide what expression would be appropriate for this “inability.” I prefer to merely shrug my shoulders at a man who is afflicted with a mania to prove himself in the right at all costs, even the cost of literary integrity. I merely make the point that Rachfahl even now, whenever it suits his polemical purpose, keeps harping on about “Weber’s view of the Calvinist” (sic) (after all his protestations that he has represented my views “accurately”!) “monopoly” (sic) on “the” (sic) “capitalist development” (col. 757, bottom), although, on the other hand, he assures us that “he never implied that I had derived the capitalist economic system from religious causes” (col. 759).
In view of all this, the fact that R. placed an “excerpt” from my essays at the head of his critique and summarized if not all of the content then at least the greater part of it correctly is neither here nor there. For having done so, in the very next columns he immediately forgot what he had written, as I demonstrated to him again and again and will continue to do. He was and remains in a predicament. He wanted to write a festschrift article on Calvin and fancied he would show an “outsider” his critical superiority as a historical “specialist.” However, he chose a field for which he first had to gather “material” ad hoc. It is therefore scarcely surprising that his “critique” turned out the way it did. Now, however, for [ressortpatriotischen] reasons of professional pride, he has to show that he is “in the right,” and, to make this possible, my “thesis” must be made to fit his “critique.” This is scarcely the right “spirit” in which to approach a literary task.
To give some idea of the level of the polemic that results from this, I should just like to point out that Rachfahl was kind enough to indicate to my “friends and supporters” (who are clearly to be pitied) that I am now “abruptly shaking them off” [2] (presumably in order to escape his polemics?). Apparently, he regards such antics as “acerbic shafts of wit.” To me, they are all rather childish for a serious article, but I am sorry to say that his critique and reply are full of them. But let us now come to the point.
Rachfahl’s reply begins with a lengthy attack on Troeltsch’s rebuttal in the Internationale Wochenschrift (vol. 4, nos. 15–16). Whether Troeltsch will think it worth bothering to reply, I do not know. For my own part, since I am now in the process of replying, I have an interest in calling attention to the following extract from the discussion. In Rachfahl’s “critique” (vol. 3, col. 1329), he writes (after citing examples in which, in reality or allegedly, religious circumstances are said to have had no effect on political events): “From all of this one thing is clear: how little the political, economic and secular development can be constrained by religious doctrines when the latter go beyond the religious sphere.” [3] Now, he says (col. 718): “I (Rachfahl) have referred to certain concrete cases, in which the influence of religious factors . . . has been exaggerated; I have, however, drawn no (sic) general conclusion along the lines asserted by Troeltsch [4], and if he implies that I have (sic), I should prefer not to say what I think of this, as I should have to choose very harsh words (sic)”—R.’s whole response is written in this tone, as we shall see. But should I myself employ “harsh words”? I am merely amused, and sincerely regret ever having taken as seriously as I did a critic so confused [5] as to suffer anxiety when confronted with his own assertions. R. can clearly not conceive of a dispute as having any purpose other than that of appearing to be in the right in the eyes of the public.
To continue: in my rebuttal (Archiv, vol. 30, p. 177, line 23 [here in this volume]) I refer (stating the source, namely, Archiv, vol. 20, p. 19, note 1 [here, note 26 in this volume]), contrary to the erroneous statements made by Rachfahl concerning the relationship of Sombart’s works to mine, to my emphatic and exhaustive remarks on this point in my essay, which R. had “criticized.” In his response to this, Rachfahl states that “Troeltsch reports (sic) that Sombart’s Capitalism [Modern Capitalism, 1902] had exercised an influence on Weber’s thesis” and asks, “What (sic) could have given me the idea that he (Troeltsch!) . . . was on the wrong track?”
As far as the relationship between the work of Troeltsch and my own is concerned, both he and I have made the following points perfectly clear:
1. For reasons which we have stated, neither of us is responsible for the work of the other.
2. My “thesis” cannot be adduced as proof of the “theses” that Troeltsch represents, and vice versa. Either of us could be totally correct in his theories even if the other should be completely mistaken in his.
3. The results of my work represent an excellent complement to those of Troeltsch, to which he has accordingly
4. made reference.
5. In so doing, he may have been guilty of minor errors in a few individual points that for him were quite insignificant (but which Rachfahl then, as I stressed, has attempted to “capitalize upon” in an extremely petty manner). [6]
I had then called it “underhand” for a so-called critic to use differences between Troeltsch and me, which everyone can see are merely differences in terminology (together with those quite immaterial errors in the representation of some few of my formulations) to present to his readership a picture of supposed differences in substance, which simply do not in fact exist. This does not prevent him from speaking of “Troeltsch-Weber concepts” at precisely those points (“asceticism”) at which those (purely terminological) differences exist between us [7]—d
ifferences that he exploited for the purposes of creating a “polemical” effect. Even now R. continues to pursue this line occasionally. [7a]. But when he goes on to say (col. 731) that both Troeltsch and I “recognize (sic) that ‘asceticism’ suggests different kinds of ideas to each of us,” the attempt to attribute this “recognition” to the merits of his “critique” can deceive no one except those who have read neither the works of Troeltsch nor my own. Troeltsch deliberately spoke of asceticism in Lutheranism, whereas I had made quite clear that my quite different concept of asceticism not only did not apply to Lutheranism (or certain other Protestant communities), but indeed was in marked contrast to it. There was therefore no need of any “spirit to arise from the grave”—or rather, from the inkpot—to establish this terminological distinction. Indeed, even the most superficial reader could not help seeing (and Rachfahl had seen it) that this was a case of differences of terminology rather than of substance. Without wasting another word, I therefore leave it to anyone who can spare the time to compare with this clear statement of the facts the little tricks by which Rachfahl even now, in spite of everything, that is, even after Troeltsch and I have explicitly stated our position, is still trying to show that he “knows better.” [8]
