The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Blurb

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by Talcott Parsons in 1930. It is considered a founding text in economic sociology and sociology in general.
In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated emergence of modern capitalism. This idea is also known as the "Protestant Ethic thesis."
In 1998 the International Sociological Association listed this work as the fourth most important sociological book of the 20th century.