Quiz: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

All 30 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. Who, according to Weber, saw the meaning of the Reformation in the fact that every Christian now had to be a monk all his life? John Calvin Martin Luther Sebastian Franck Philipp Jakob Spener
2. Where, according to Weber, was activity directed at profit considered the essence of moral conduct? Seventeenth-century Antwerp and Amsterdam Eighteenth-century Pennsylvania Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Florence Sixteenth-century Augsburg and Nuremberg
3. From which document does Weber quote the doctrine of predestination? The Augsburg Confession The Canons of the Synod of Dort The Westminster Confession of 1647 Calvin’s first edition of the Institutes
4. What difference does Weber find between Catholic and Protestant journeymen? Catholics more often become master craftsmen Protestants more often emigrate to America and the colonies Protestants more often leave the towns to become farmers Catholics more often move into the factories to fill skilled and clerical posts
5. Which writer does Weber place at the centre of his discussion of Puritan economic ethics? Robert Barclay Philipp Jakob Spener John Wesley Richard Baxter
6. What role did good works play for the Calvinist, according to Weber? They purchased salvation through merit accumulated over a lifetime They were penance imposed by the minister to atone for particular sins They had no religious significance at all They were signs of election that got rid of the fear of damnation
7. Luther justified labour in a calling by the division of labour, which makes everyone work for others. Whose view does Weber contrast with this “naive” argument? Benjamin Franklin’s Thomas Aquinas’s Richard Baxter’s Adam Smith’s
8. Which form of Calvinism does Tawney think may have affinities with Weber’s “spirit of Capitalism”? The Calvinism of Knox in Scotland Calvin’s own Geneva, administered by its ministers and the Consistory The later, individualistic Calvinism of seventeenth-century England and Holland The early discipline of the New England saints under the Massachusetts charter
9. Who wrote the passage Weber quotes: “we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can”? Benjamin Franklin Richard Baxter George Fox John Wesley
10. What does Weber say Puritan ethics treated as “the first and in principle the deadliest of sins”? Lending at interest Begging Waste of time Covetousness
11. Which ruler, according to Weber, tolerated the Mennonites as indispensable to industry despite their refusal of military service? Louis XIV of France Frederick William I of Prussia William III of England Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
12. How did Jacob Fugger answer an associate who urged him to retire? It was his duty to God to increase his capital He had to provide for his children and grandchildren He wanted to make money as long as he could He would retire once his debts were paid
13. What does Weber say about the impulse to acquisition and pursuit of gain? It is far stronger in Protestants than in Catholics and Jews It is universal and has in itself nothing to do with capitalism It first appeared with the Reformation It is the very spirit of modern capitalism
14. How does Weber treat biological heredity as an explanation of Western rationalisation? He declines to rely on it, since its influence cannot yet be measured He makes it his main explanation He dismisses heredity as having no importance at all for social history He says ethnography and anthropology have already proved it decisive here
15. In Baxter’s view, as Weber quotes it, how should the care for external goods lie on the saint? Like a light cloak which can be thrown aside at any moment Like armour against temptation Like a steward’s account book to be rendered at the end Like a heavy yoke laid on the shoulders by God for life
16. What form of capitalism does Weber say developed only in the modern Occident? Money-lending to princes to finance their wars The rational capitalistic organization of formally free labour Tax-farming and colonial plantations Long-distance trade by travelling merchants
17. What does Weber say, at the end of the essay, it is not his aim to substitute for a one-sided materialistic interpretation? An equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation A statistical analysis of the occupations of each confession A purely political interpretation of the Reformation and its results A theory of national character
18. Which work does Weber call “by far the most widely read book of the whole Puritan literature”? Bailey’s Praxis Pietatis Milton’s Paradise Lost Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress Baxter’s Christian Directory
19. Which poem does Weber quote to show the Puritan’s “acceptance of his life in the world as a task”? Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress Milton’s Paradise Lost Paul Gerhardt’s chorales Dante’s Divine Comedy
20. Which society does Tawney give as an example of immense resources dissipated in luxury and war? Golden-Age Holland The Spain of Philip II The France of Louis XIV Renaissance Venice
21. In Franklin’s maxim, what has a man who earns ten shillings a day but idles half of it really lost besides the sixpence he spends? The full ten shillings Five shillings Seven shillings and sixpence Two and a half shillings
22. How does Tawney state the question Weber attempts to answer? Why Catholic countries industrialised faster than Protestant ones in the nineteenth century Why the Reformation broke out in Germany rather than in France, Italy or England How American silver caused the price revolution The psychological conditions that made capitalist civilization possible
23. What consequence of predestination for the believer does Weber stress above all? Indifference to the question of one’s own salvation Unprecedented inner loneliness A new confidence in the sacraments Greater reliance on private confession
24. Which women workers, according to Weber, best overcame traditional methods of work? Girls who had moved recently from the countryside to the town Girls with a specifically religious, especially Pietistic, background Girls paid at the highest piece rates Married women with families of their own to support at home
25. Where, according to Weber, did Luther first use Beruf in its modern sense of a worldly occupation? In his translation of the Book of Job In his translation of Jesus Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) In his treatise On Trade and Usury In his translation of the First Epistle to the Corinthians
26. Where was Weber’s essay first published, according to the Translator’s Preface? As a book by Allen & Unwin in 1904 In the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 1904–5 In the Gesammelte Aufsätze, 1905 In the Neue Zeit, 1905
27. Why, in Weber’s account, did Luther’s idea of the calling grow more traditionalistic after the 1520s? He was persuaded by the Jesuits’ compromise with the world and with worldly activity A deepening belief in Providence equated obedience to God with accepting things as they were He adopted Calvin’s doctrine of predestination He came to believe that profit in a calling was a sign of God’s blessing on the believer
28. In Weber’s example, what did the mower do when his piece rate rose from 1 to 1·25 marks per acre? Went on strike with the other mowers for a still higher rate Mowed only 2 acres, so as to earn his accustomed 2½ marks Mowed the same 2½ acres and saved the extra Mowed 3 acres instead of 2½ and so earned 3·75 marks a day
29. Why, according to Weber, were Mennonites and Quakers in practice kept out of state office? Their Churches required them to emigrate to America or the colonies They refused to learn to read and write They were forbidden by law to own land or other property Their refusal to bear arms or take oaths disqualified them
30. What kind of schooling does Weber say Catholic parents prefer? Technical and commercial schools Schools run by Protestant churches The humanistic Gymnasium No secondary schooling at all

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