Religion and Economics. Beyond the Protestant Work Ethic. - Detailseite

Is there a relationship between religion and economic success? Or, more precisely, was the economic rise of the Protestant world rooted in religious factors? Max Weber and others have argued that the Protestant Work Ethic indeed influenced economic success, whereas many modern-day economists doubt the value of Weber’s cultural explanations.
In our exploration of what Weber called the “spirit of Capitalism”, we will look at the scholarly debate from different angles by drawing upon sociological, economic and historical literature and use historical cases to analyze the interdependence of religion and economics. This course will go beyond Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic thesis and look at examples from different religious contexts in the 19th and 20th centuries. How did religion shape economic institutions in Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist societies? How can outliers, such as the Amish in Pennsylvania, the Hassidic Jews in New York or the Hutterites in the Dakotas, sustain their communities in a modern-day market economy? Finally, we will draw conclusions from historical evidence. Under which circumstances does religion promote or hinder economic development? Has the “spirit of Capitalism” developed into a universal phenomenon transcending religious denominations? Or is the perception of economic success and failure connected to religious affiliation through the present day?
The course will be taught in English.

Literatur    Marshall, Gordon (1982): In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism. An Essay on Max Webers Protestant Ethic Thesis. London: Hutchinson.
Swedberg, Richard (2000): Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kraybill, Donald B.; Nolt, Steven M. (2004): Amish Enterprise. From Plows to Profits. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press.