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.But these are ethical qualities ofquite a different sort from those adapted to the traditionalism of the past.And, as a rule, it has been neither dare-devil and unscrupulous speculators, economicadventurers such as we meet at all periods of economic history, nor simply greatfinanciers who have carried through this change, outwardly so inconspicuous, butnevertheless so de-cisive for the penetration of economic life with the new spirit.On theGet any book for free on: www.Abika.comPROTESTANTISM AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM18contrary, they were men who had grown up in the hard school of life, calculating anddaring at he same time, above all temperate and reliable, shrewd d completely devoted totheir business, with strictly bourgeois opinions and principles.One is tempted to thinkthat these personal moral qualities have not the slightest relation to any ethical maxims,to say nothing of religious ideas, but that the essential relation between them is negative.The ability to free oneself from the common tradition, a sort of liberal enlightenment,seems likely to be the most suitable basis for such a business man's success.And to-daythat is generally precisely the case.Any relation-ship between religious beliefs andconduct is generally absent, and where any exists, at least in Germany, it tends to be ofthe negative sort.The people filled with the spirit of capitalism to-day tend to beindifferent, if not hostile, to the Church.The thought of the pious boredom of paradisehas little attraction for their active natures; religion appears to them as a means ofdrawing people away from labor in this world.If you ask them what is the meaning oftheir restless activity, why they are never satisfied with what they have, thus appearing sosenseless to any purely worldly view of life, they would perhaps give the answer, if theyknow any at all: "to provide for my children and grand-children".But more often and,since that motive is not peculiar to them, but was just as effective for the traditionalist,more correctly, simply: that business with its continuous work has become a necessarypart of their lives.That is in fact the only possible motiva-tion, but it at the same timeexpresses what is, seen from the view-point of personal happiness, so irrational about thissort of life, where a man exists for the sake of his business, instead of the reverse.Of course, the desire for the power and recognition which the mere fact of wealth bringsplays its part.When the imagination of a whole people has once been turned towardpurely quantitative bigness, as in the United States, this romanticism of numbersexercises an irresistible appeal to the poets among business men.Otherwise it is ingeneral not the real leaders, and especially not the permanently successful entrepreneurs,who are taken in by it.In particular, the resort to en-tailed estates and the nobility, withsons whose conduct at the university and in the officers' corps tries to cover up theirsocial origin, as has been the typical history of German capitalistic parvenu families, is aproduct of later decadence.The ideal type of the capitalistic entrepreneur, as it has beenrepresented even in Germany by occasional outstanding examples, has no relation to suchmore or less refined climbers.He avoids ostentation and unnecessary expenditure, as wellas conscious enjoyment of his power, and is embarrassed by the outward signs of thesocial recogni-tion which he receives.His manner of life is, in other words, often, and weshall have to investigate the historical significance of just this important fact,distinguished by a certain ascetic tendency, as appears clearly enough in the sermon ofFranklin which we have quoted.It is, namely, by no means exceptional, but rather therule, for him to have a sort of modesty which is essentially more honest than the reservewhich Franklin so shrewdly recommends.He gets nothing out of his wealth for himself,except the irrational sense of having done his job well.But it is just that which seems to the pre-capitalistic man so incomprehensible andmysterious, so unworthy and contemptible.That anyone should be able to make it thesole purpose of his life-work, to sink into the grave weighed down with a great materialGet any book for free on: www.Abika.comPROTESTANTISM AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM19load of money and goods, seems to him explicable only as the product of a perverseinstinct, the aurisacrafames [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]