Artikel

Max Weber: het westerse monnikendom als aanzet tot het kapitalisme

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Abstract

Max Weber :western monasticism as a precursor to capitalism - In the periodical Economisch Statistische Berichten (Economic Statistical Reports), vol. 76, no. 3818, 1991, a remarkable article was published by the Louvain economist Louis Baeck, entitled Een moderne onderneming in de middeleeuwen. De economische invloed van de cisterciënzer orde (A modern enterprise in the Middle Ages. The economic influence of the Cistercian order). The author argues that the Cistercians in the beginning of the twelfth century brought about a breakthrough in the fossilized production relations. This religious order was in the forefront of the domain of economic development. Thus long before the rise of the proverbial Calvinistic labour morality there was already an age in which an efficient industrial culture flourished. According to Baeck, the sociologist Max Weber argued in his Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus that the rational capitalistic development of Western Europe was initiated and supported by the Calvinistic and Puritan morality of the seventeenth century. On the contrary, Baeck states, the twelfth century was already an incubation period of economic rationality, to which Cistercian monks contributed with their practice of efficiency and their work ethics. Baeck suggests that Max Weber did not notice the influence exerted by mediaeval monks, namely the Cistercians, upon the rise of capitalism. In this article, however, it is demonstrated on the basis of numerous texts by Max Weber that he gave ample attention in his works to the role of monasticism in the rise and development of modern capitalism.

How to Cite:

Goddijn, H., (1993) “Max Weber: het westerse monnikendom als aanzet tot het kapitalisme”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 38(1), 1–15. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95126