Max Weber & Modernization Theory

answers that provide context to the broader theoretical or development tradition being asked about, but also respond to the specific prompts. Each answer should only require. When you are asked to respond to a quote from an author, be sure to define their terms (i.e. “division of labor,” “calling,” or “proletariat”) in your answer.

Max Weber & Modernization Theory

1. “If God shows you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way (without wrong to your soul or to any other), if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be God’s steward, and to accept His gifts and use them for Him when he requireth it: you may labour to be rich for God, though not for the flesh and sin” (Weber, p. 162).

a. What was a “calling” and how did Puritans feel about wealth?

b. Relate “callings” and the accumulation of wealth to the capitalist concepts of a division of labor and capital (money for investment).

paragraph 2. “The religious valuation of restless, continuous, systematic work in a worldly calling…must have been the most powerful conceivable lever for the expansion of that attitude toward life which we have here called the spirit of capitalism…” (Weber, p. 172).

a. What was Weber’s critique of Adam Smith’s belief that all people are born self-interested?

b. Relate the above quote to Weber’s later statement that “the Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so.” What are the consequences of the ideas that came out of Calvinist theology for the rest of us (whether we are religious or

3. In the beginning of “The Achievement Motive,” McClelland states “I am interested in the internal factors—in the values and motives men have that lead them to exploit opportunities, to take advantage of favorable trade conditions; in short, to shape their own destiny.”

a. What is the “internal factor” that McCllenad identifies and how does it explain why certain countries are rich and others are poor?

b. How is he able to identify it (the internal factor) in the first place (i.e. Some of the methods he uses and data that he collects) and how does he believe it could be spread?

c. Provide one of Portes’ critiques of McClelland and other “modernization” theories of development?
please look for right resouces to answer paragraph3