Example research essay topic: Protestant Ethic Economic System - 573 words

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So if individual and cultural development are in opposition to each other and each has its own conscience, where does that leave us? As civilization becomes more complicated and absorbs more of our life and through Freud one can see that indeed it is the society whose conscience comes first over the individual. Sociologist Max Weber used the relationship between society and the individual to explain the evolution of capitalism in terms of social development. A value system that was originated in Christian ascetic idealism, gradually found itself becoming embedded into Western society (Gramscis HEGEMONY).

This system of values, or rationalism, was based on concept of a peculiar ethic, which Weber identified as an economic spirit, or the ethos of an economic system. (Weber, 27. ) It is this spirit that has embodied society and it is this spirit, rather than the will of the individual, that wields the weapon of capitalism. Thus the capitalism of to-day, which has come to dominate economic life, educates and selects the economic subjects which it needs through a process of economic survival of the fittest. (Weber, 55. ) Regardless of who accepts or rejects this economic system imposed by society, those who posts the instinct to survive will have no choice but to accept it. While this religiously-influenced economic system may have once been desirable, Weber now labels it an iron cage. In essence, the conscience of society has superceded that of the individual.

The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. (Weber, 181. ) But what this Protestant ethic has really done is force the individual to embrace capitalism and the morals which surround it as a way of life. Society has dictated that in order to succeed we must be employed and we must earn as much money as possible, even if it does not coincide with our own happiness. So, in essence, Weber is portraying society in much the same way as Freud.

Weber concludes that the Protestant Ethic that society has enveloped has succeeded today in reducing employment to strictly a means of acquisition. Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved (Weber, 182. ) Capitalism has been absorbed into the mainstream of society and accepted not only as a norm, but the only acceptable mode of acquisition. The question of the exact nature of the relationship between the individual and society exists even today. Regardless of whether we are talking about the individuals psyche or about his sociological development it appears that man may not have been all that difficult to master; that perhaps we can simplify our existence into terms of sexual urges or economic needs. Whether or not one subscribes to the complete hypotheses of Weber and Freud though, there is no doubt that both authors describe a society that exercises considerable control over the individual. Now as we approach the turn of the century and again experience another surge of technological development we might do good in asking ourselves how much power over our lives we have as individuals, and how much power has been subverted from us by a society which has its own individual needs.

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Research essay sample on Protestant Ethic Economic System