Welcome to the Symposium of the Lottucetas. Today it's a special symposium. We have Father Calvin Robinson with us and

Connor Tomlinson as well. And we are going to talk about Max Weber's Protestant ethics and the spirits of capitalism.

We are not going to talk especially about the book.

We're not going to do a book review,

but we are going to talk about the main themes of that book.

And let me just say one thing. Max Weber is considered to be one of the

founders of modern sociology. He was born in 1864 in Germany and died in 1920 and he is very much famous for giving a non-Marxist

account for the development of capitalism. And let me quote towards the end what he says.

He says, we are starting with a beginning,

it's non-linear narrative.

Okay, here we have only attempted to trace the fact in the direction of its influence,

he means Protestantism, to their motives in one,

though a very important point,

but it would also further be necessary to investigate how Protestant

asceticism was in turn influenced in its development and its character by the totality of

social conditions, especially economic.

The modern man is in general, even with the best will, unable to give religious ideas a significance

for culture and national character which they deserve.

But it is, of course, not my aim to substitute for a one-sided materialistic,

an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretations of culture and of history.

Each is equally possible, but each if it does not deserve,

if it does not serve as the preparation, but as the conclusion of an investigation

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