Weber argued that ideas, not just economic factors, shape history. Specifically, he believed that certain ideas from Protestantism, especially Calvinism, influenced the development of capitalism by encouraging hard work, thrift, and worldly activity as signs of salvation. This Protestant work ethic helped create the conditions for capitalism to emerge and become an "iron cage" that now seems impossible to change due to its taken-for-granted nature in modern society.

1. Weber
IDEAS ARE THE MOTOR OF HISTORY

2. The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism

3. Weber and marxism
 The economy is not a determining factor…
 It exists within a cultural context
 …the Protestant Reformation, and a specific kind of
Protestantism called Calvinism

4. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of
capitalism
 Working hard and saving money demonstrate that a
person is predetermined as “saved”
 Live to accumulate, without enjoying their lives, i.e.
spending their money…capital accumulates
and is reinvested

5. “The manufacturer who in the long run acts
counter to these norms, will just as inevitably be
eliminated from the economic scene as the
worker who cannot or will not adapt himself to
them will be thrown into the streets without a
job” (Weber 1930: 20)
 The iron cage of capitalism

6. What motors history?
 Ideas
 Ideas shaped the modern capitalist system,
which now ‘seems unalterable’ (19)