It is easy to vulgarize Max Weber. His assertion that ‘the Protestant Ethic’ was related to capitalism could be, and was, taken to mean that Protestantism was about money whereas Catholicism was about parasitism. Weber himself stoutly denied that any such vulgarization was legitimate. He himself could not see any sense in going through religious documents of early modern Europe with a view to finding out what the various divines had to say on economic subjects: on the contrary, he stressed that ‘Of course our concern is not with what was officially and theoretically laid down in moral compendia of the age … but rather with something quite different—the secular translation (Ermittlung) of the psychological forces, created by religious beliefs and practices, which gave directions for the conduct of one’s life and held the individual to them’. Did Protestantism and Catholicism vary on the ground, in daily life, and especially in economic affairs? It was a good question, and, for the literature and research it generated, one of the most important ones of this century.
Restitution of Property and Religious Discrimination
in Eastern Europe